Brooklyn: Part One Summary & Analysis

Eilis Lacey sits in the living room of her childhood home in Enniscorthy, Ireland with a textbook in her lap. She will soon finish the bookkeeping classes she’s been taking, but right now she gazes out the window and sees her sister, Rose, walking down the street carrying a beautiful new handbag. When Rose enters the house, she quickly puts on lipstick and prepares to go to the local golf club. While she readies herself, her mother compliments her looks and says she’ll be the prettiest woman at the club. When she’s ready to leave, Rose turns to Eilis and gives her money to go to the movies, joking with her mother by saying that she won’t pay for her to accompany Eilis, who can tell her the plot of the film when she returns. The three women laugh, and then Rose hears her ride arrive and leaves.

Shortly after Rose leaves, a young woman comes to the Lacey household and tells Eilis that Miss Kelly, the owner of a nearby grocery store, wants to see her. Eilis can’t fathom why Miss Kelly would want to speak to her, but she quickly prepares herself to pay a visit because she doesn’t feel like going to the movies or continuing to study for her bookkeeping class. On her way to the store, she thinks about how her mother doesn’t shop in Miss Kelly’s store because it’s too expensive. She also senses that her mother dislikes Miss Kelly, though she doesn’t know why. All she truly knows about Miss Kelly is that everyone says she sells the best, highest quality food in town.

When Eilis arrives at the grocery store, Miss Kelly looks at her in what Eilis thinks is a disapproving way, but Miss Kelly then informs her that she needs help in the store. She says she has heard that Eilis has no job but is good with numbers, and when Eilis asks how she knows this, she tells her that “anyone who is anyone” comes into her store and that she hears everything. Because the shop is overrun each Sunday after mass, she needs someone to work the register, especially since Mary, her only employee, is incapable of working with numbers. As she speaks, Eilis decides that she can’t refuse the offer, since working in Miss Kelly’s store will be better than not having a job at all. Accordingly, she agrees to come in the next day to learn the prices.

Eilis assures Miss Kelly that she will tie her hair back when she works and that she’ll make sure to buy a suitable outfit for work. Before she leaves, Miss Kelly says that Eilis’s mother will be happy that she has a job, as will Rose, who Miss Kelly has heard is quite good at golf. On her way home, Eilis thinks about what her family will really think about her working in a grocery store. She knows that her mother will be happy that she’s making money, even if she dislikes Miss Kelly. Rose, on the other hand, will most likely think that working at a cash register is beneath Eilis, but Eilis doesn’t think she’ll actually say this out loud.

On her way home, Eilis goes to her friend Nancy’s house. Her other friend, Annette, is there too, and the three girls go outside so that Nancy can avoid her family in order to tell Eilis her big news. The news is that Nancy danced with a wealthy and desirable young man named George Sheridan the previous weekend. She excitedly tells her that she danced the final four songs with George and that George walked her home. Everyone, she says, saw this happen, so she’s somewhat surprised that Eilis hasn’t already heard about it.

Eilis tells Nancy and Annette that Miss Kelly offered her a job. In response, Nancy scoffs at the idea of Eilis accepting such a position, but Eilis tells her that she accepted it because she wants the money. This, she points out, will enable her to accompany Nancy and Annette to the dances at the Athenaeum on Sunday nights, so Nancy asks if she’ll come with her that weekend, since Annette can’t make it. Although George might not be there, she says, she still wants moral support. At first, Eilis is skeptical, saying that she doesn’t like the men who attend the dances because all they’re interested in is getting drunk and becoming physical with the women. But because Nancy insists that George isn’t like that, she agrees to come with her to the dance.

When Eilis goes to the grocery store to be trained, she notices that Miss Kelly changes the way she greets customers based on whether or not she sees them as important figures in society. To some, she says nothing at all. To others, she simply smiles. But to a select few, she kindly greets them, calls them by name, and gives them whatever they want without taking any money, instead noting down the transaction in a small ledger. As she trains Eilis, she makes disparaging comments about Mary’s intelligence and abilities, even though Mary can hear her saying these things. She even speaks this way before customers, and even they don’t seem to be bothered by her mean-spirited treatment of Mary. In fact, one woman agrees with her when she condescendingly suggests that “the Lord makes all types.” “Sure,” the customer says, “don’t we need people to sweep the streets?”

On Saturday night, Eilis sets her alarm for work the next day. She now sleeps in her brothers’ old room, since all three of them have gone to Birmingham to work, leaving the house with just Eilis, Rose, and their mother. For the most part, the family depends financially on Rose, who works in a local office and is widely respected as a fashionable dresser and admirable golfer. She’s already 30, but Eilis thinks she grows better looking every year. Despite this, she only has temporary boyfriends, and she sometimes talks about how she has a better life than her many friends who got married early and had children. Eilis respects her sister’s independence and appreciates that Rose tries to advocate for her, even if this doesn’t always work out. For example, Rose tried to get her a job in her office, but the boss was uninterested in hiring Eilis.

Eilis doesn’t tell Rose that she accepted a job at the grocery store, though she does tell her mother, who speaks critically about Miss Kelly. According to her, Miss Kelly is “evil incarnate” and only cares about wealthy people. Eilis’s mother also reveals that she told Rose about her new position, but she advises her daughter not to pay Rose any mind if she criticizes her decision. 

Part of the deal that Eilis worked out with Miss Kelly is that she’ll accompany her to mass on Sunday mornings before going to the shop. As she sits through the church service, she reflects upon the fact that she hasn’t been to morning mass since a long ago Christmas, when her father was still alive and her brothers still lived at home. When the service ends, she, Miss Kelly, and Mary go to the shop, at which point Mary begins to unpack loaves of bread and move them to the front of the store. As she does so, Eilis is surprised to find that these loaves are a day old, since there are no deliveries on Sunday. As she makes this discovery, Miss Kelly tells her that this bread is only for “special customers.” Other customers, she says, should be content to eat even older bread.

Throughout the day, Miss Kelly gives preference to certain customers, often allowing them to cut the line even when this frustrates the other shoppers. That evening, Eilis can’t help but talk about her first day over dinner, despite her original plan to not say anything about her new job in front of Rose. In response, Rose says that she once went to the store and Miss Kelly served someone else before her, at which point she left without buying anything. Hearing this, Eilis’s mother says again that Miss Kelly is “evil incarnate,” revealing that she and her friends used to call her “Nettles Kelly” in school because her full name is Nelly Kelly. And though Eilis and Rose feel bad upon hearing this, Eilis can’t help but start to imitate Miss Kelly, which makes all three of them laugh.

Eilis wonders as she, her sister, and her mother laugh if anyone else realizes that this is the first time they’ve laughed at the dinner table since her brother Jack followed her other two brothers to Birmingham. As she thinks this, she wishes she could bring her brother up in conversation, but she fears that this will make her mother sad, so she simply continues imitating Miss Kelly.

That night, Eilis meets Nancy at her house and walks with her to the dance. She feels self-conscious because she can tell that she didn’t put enough effort into her appearance, especially compared to Nancy, who has clearly gone out of her way to look especially beautiful. This, she knows, is because she wants George Sheridan to notice her again, though Nancy tells Eilis that she doesn’t want George to know that she has returned to the Athenaeum just for him. This is why she needs Eilis to make it look like they’re in constant conversation, hoping that she’ll seem preoccupied but still available if George wants to ask her to dance. As they enter the dance hall, Eilis senses Nancy’s anxiety, knowing that her friend must be thinking about how she was abandoned by her former boyfriend just one year ago.

Eilis thinks about George Sheridan, who is handsome and has a car. He also owns a successful store in town, making him the perfect catch. When Eilis and Nancy arrive at the dance, though, George is nowhere to be seen, so they stand to the side and try to make themselves look unavailable to the men who are there. These people, Eilis and Nancy think, look like country bumpkins, and Nancy suddenly wishes that she had made herself look purposefully ugly so that nobody would approach her. Before long, though, George bounds into the hall with his friend Jim Farrell and a group of their rugby teammates, and Nancy suddenly becomes overwhelmingly nervous.

Just when it seems that George won’t pay Nancy any attention, he asks her to dance. After the first song, he and Nancy invite Eilis to have a lemonade with them, at which point they migrate to the bar on the side of the room, where they meet up with Jim Farrell. As they drink the lemonade, Eilis gets the distinct feeling that Jim dislikes both her and Nancy, since he refuses to say anything to them. To her horror, George and Nancy begin to dance again. As they do so, Jim steps forward and Eilis prepares herself, thinking that he’s going to ask her to dance and deciding to accept when he does, since she has no other choice. Instead, though, he pauses, steps back once more, and looks around the room, avoiding Eilis’s gaze. He then ignores her for the rest of the set, so she leaves.

The next day, Eilis tells her mother and Rose about what happened at the dance. They both advise her not to pay too much attention to the way Jim Farrell treated her, even though her mother also says a few nice things about Jim’s parents. Eilis suggests that perhaps Jim thinks Nancy isn’t good enough for George, and when her mother says that this would be ridiculous because Nancy is one of the prettiest girls in town, Rose points out that George’s mother might not agree. In response, Eilis’s mother says that some of the shopkeepers in town think they’re better than everyone else just because they get to sit behind a counter. Later, she says that she’s hoping Eilis will soon find a “proper job” that will enable her to leave Miss Kelly’s grocery store.

One evening, Rose mentions at dinner that she played golf with an Irish priest named Father Flood who lives in America. She tells her mother that Father Flood remembers her from a long time ago, and though her mother can’t recall him, Rose informs her that she invited him for tea. When he arrives the following day, her mother still doesn’t remember him, but this doesn’t stop her from welcoming him into the house. As the conversation develops, Eilis realizes that Father Flood knows about her job at Miss Kelly’s, since he says she could have a better job if she moved to Brooklyn, where he now lives. At first, Eilis’s mother doesn’t like this idea, but Father Flood assures her that it’s safe and that there are plenty of Irish people in his parish. As they talk, Eilis understands that this is why Rose invited the priest over.

As Father Flood discusses the possibility of helping Eilis move to Brooklyn, Eilis starts trying to commit her surroundings to memory, sensing that she’ll soon be leaving everything she knows behind. She then wonders if her mother and sister would be so supportive of this idea if she hadn’t recently started working at a grocery store, and she regrets telling them so much about her job. Although they had many laughs over dinner about Miss Kelly, Eilis now sees that Rose doesn’t actually think it’s funny that she’s working in a grocery store.

In the days after Father Flood’s visit, nobody says anything about the idea of Eilis moving to Brooklyn. This silence, Eilis knows, confirms that her mother and sister have both agreed that she should go. As she reflects upon the prospect of leaving, she thinks about the fact that people can become wealthy in the United States. She also wonders why she has the distinct feeling that people who go to America don’t end up missing home as much as people who go to England.

Eventually, Eilis receives a letter from Father Flood outlining the details of her possible migration to America. He informs her that he has found her a sales floor position at department store in Brooklyn, adding that there will be “plenty of opportunity for promotion and very good prospects” if she accepts the job. He doesn’t mention how much she would be paid, nor how she’ll pay for the transatlantic voyage. Instead, he gives her directions about how to obtain a visa. While Eilis reads this letter, she waits for her mother to say something, but Mrs. Lacey only speaks up to say that she should keep the letter to show to Rose when she gets home from work. 

In the ensuing weeks, Eilis gathers the necessary documents for her migration to the United States. Father Flood gives her a sponsorship letter and gets her officially hired at Bartocci & Company, the department store in Brooklyn that he mentioned in his first letter. Meanwhile, her three brothers agree to pay for her transatlantic voyage, and Rose says she’ll give Eilis money to survive when she first reaches New York. Because she can tell that the news of her departure will soon spread through the town (especially since her mother won’t be able to keep herself from talking about it), she goes directly to Miss Kelly and informs her that she’ll be leaving in a month.

Miss Kelly tells Eilis that she no longer needs her help. Eilis tries to say that she wants to work until she leaves, but Miss Kelly says that people will talk too much about her imminent departure and that this will be too distracting. However, she says that Eilis can work in the shop during the holidays, and Eilis realizes that Miss Kelly is the first person to even mention that she might come back to Ireland for Christmas or other holidays. This causes her to think about how she has always assumed she would spend her entire life in Enniscorthy. She would perhaps work until she got married and had children, she used to think, and then she would simply live in town with her husband and family. Now, though, she suddenly feels like she will have a different existence—one for which she feels unprepared.

After telling Miss Kelly about her departure, Eilis begins to fear her departure. The kind of fear she feels, though, is the kind that she always thought she would feel right before her wedding, since this would be a time period during which people would look at her “with light in their eyes,” which is how people have been regarding her in the past few days. Instead of dwelling on this thought, she chooses not to think about what her final weeks in Enniscorthy will be like, worrying that she’ll lose her resolve and find herself unable to leave.

One day, Eilis comes to understand that both her mother and Rose are also hiding their feelings about her departure. In a conversation with their neighbor, her mother is forced to admit that she’ll be distraught when Eilis leaves, and she even has to leave the room to contain her emotions. Still, Eilis doesn’t let herself think about the fact that she doesn’t truly want to go to Brooklyn. Instead of dwelling on this, she focuses on practical matters, like what kind of clothing she should pack.

While Eilis is busy packing, Rose calls her into her room to offer her some pieces of jewelry to take to America. As she shows her the collection, Eilis has the disconcerting realization that by sending Eilis to America, Rose is effectively ensuring that she’ll never get married or move out of the house. This is because it’s obvious that their mother doesn’t want to live alone, and since nobody else will be there to take care of her, this duty will fall to Rose when Eilis leaves. As she tries on a necklace, Eilis senses that Rose is aware that she won’t be able to get married or lead her own life if Eilis goes to America. This causes her to think about how Rose would be better suited to a life in Brooklyn, and she feels bad that her sister is sacrificing herself for her.

Still trying on Rose’s jewelry, Eilis wonders if her mother also thinks that “the wrong sister” is going to Brooklyn. She then considers the fact that both Rose and her mother must be aware of all of these dynamics, thinking that they both know so much but can’t bring themselves to actually speak their thoughts. In turn, she decides to not say anything about the misgivings she has about migrating to America, resolving to trick her mother and Rose into thinking that she’s excited for this new adventure. After all, she feels as if their family already has enough sadness in it, so she doesn’t want to add even more sorrow.

When it comes time for her to leave, Eilis goes with Rose to Dublin, where they eat lunch at a hotel and wait for her to board a boat bound for Liverpool, where Jack will meet her and pass the time with her until she gets on an ocean liner bound for America. While Eilis eats lunch with Rose, she thinks about the allure of moving to America, sensing that what she’s doing is quite exciting and respectable even if she’s destined for an unremarkable job. She also reflects on the way Rose behaves in public, admiring her sister for her confidence, poise, and ability to convince the ticket collector at the docks to let her board the boat and stay with Eilis until just before it leaves.

In Liverpool, Eilis is overjoyed to see Jack, but he doesn’t want her to hug him because he worries that people will think they’re in a relationship. Smiling, he and Eilis deposit her luggage and go out for the day. Jack tells her about his life in England, though he’s not very forthcoming and she has to pry for details. When she asks if he would ever consider returning to Ireland, he says that there isn’t anything calling him back, though this isn’t how he felt in the first months after he moved to England. During this time, he says, he desperately wanted to go home, but he’s finally used to life in a different country. As Eilis presses him for more details about his life, she learns that he has a girlfriend, but he refuses to tell Eilis anything about her.

When Eilis finally boards the ocean liner, she makes her way to her cabin, which is in third class and therefore deep in the ship. As she situates herself in the bottom bunk of her tiny cabin, she thinks about Jack’s comment about missing home when he first went to England. She remembers that he said nothing about this in his letters home, and she suspects that he has never told anyone about how he felt. This causes her to wonder if perhaps all of her brothers experienced these feelings and were able to help each other. She, on the other hand, will be alone in America, and will have nobody to help her through such difficulties. 

The cabin door opens and a woman enters with a very large suitcase, ignoring Eilis as she drags it into the tiny room. Once inside, she turns to Eilis and says that she’s in her bunk, claiming that her ticket states that the bottom bed should be hers. As Eilis moves to the top bunk, the woman introduces herself as Georgina and then says that she’ll never travel in third class again. She then invites Eilis to have a cigarette with her above deck, but Eilis declines because she doesn’t smoke. Later, Georgina returns to the cabin when the engines of the ship fire on, and she invites Eilis to come on-deck with her to watch the lights of Liverpool recede as the boat pulls away. As they go up, she says they might be able to meet someone who will get them into the first-class lounge.

Eilis accompanies Georgina out of the cabin and up to the deck, observing her stylish haircut and confident way of moving. Once they’re on-deck, Georgina tells Eilis to follow her because she knows how to get into the first-class lounge, but Eilis politely declines. In response, Georgina turns and looks at her, saying, “Suit yourself. But, by the look of it and from what I’ve heard, it’s going to be one of those nights, one of the worst.” Not knowing what this means, Eilis say farewell and makes her way to the third-class dining room, which is mostly empty. After eating a bowl of soup and some meat and potatoes, she returns to her cabin to sleep, wondering if Georgina was really able to get into the first-class lounge.

Alone in her cabin, Eilis tries to open the door to the bathroom that she and Georgina will be sharing with the people next door, each room having its own entrance to the toilet. When she tries the door, though, she finds that it’s locked, and nobody responds when she knocks, though she keeps trying. Before long, she gets worried that the door will never open—a particularly upsetting thought, since she suddenly realizes that she has to defecate. As this need becomes more urgent, she leaves the cabin and searches for a bathroom somewhere else on the ship, but she’s unsuccessful. During her search, the ship lurches forward as it pulls away from the harbor. Before long, Eilis becomes so desperate that she finds a mop bucket into which she relieves herself, using the mop itself to clean herself after she’s finished.  

After putting the soiled bucket in a secluded corner, Eilis sheepishly makes her way back to the cabin, gets into bed, and falls asleep. Soon, though, she awakes to find herself filmed in sweat, and she intuits that she’s about to vomit. As she frantically gets off the top bunk, she accidentally spews some of her dinner all over the cabin. Because the bathroom is still locked, she bursts into the hallway, throwing up as she goes. Then, because the ship is rocking back and forth so violently, she gets on all fours and continues to void herself onto the floor, wanting to finish as quickly as possible so that nobody catches her making such a mess. Every time she tries to stand, though, she becomes nauseous and throws up again.

Once Eilis returns to her cabin, she hears someone retching on the other side of the bathroom door and understands that this is why it’s locked—her neighbors knew that the waters would be choppy, so they locked her out of the bathroom to avoid having to share it. She then remembers that Georgina said it was going to be a rough night. Trying to clean up the vomit in her cabin with a mop, she soon sees that the task is impossible and returns the mop to the hallway, at which point she vomits again. All the while, the ship feels as if it’s not making any progress at all, and she wonders just how far her cabin is below the water line. Back in bed, she tries to melt into the swaying motion and thinks about her mother and her life in Enniscorthy.

The next morning, Eilis wakes up when Georgina—who was gone all night—puts her hand on her forehead. Eilis tells her that their neighbors locked the bathroom door, and Georgina sympathizes with her, saying that people always do that. As she says this, she takes a nail file from her bag and uses it to unlatch the lock. She and Eilis then block the other door so that their neighbors will no longer have access to the bathroom. When Eilis asks if she made a huge mess in the hallway, Georgina says that she did, but she also says the entire ship is covered in vomit, including first class. She then informs Eilis that they’re in the middle of a terrible storm, instructing her to not eat anything and to simply drink lots of water. 

Georgina tells Eilis that she was caught in first-class and sent back to her cabin, which means they’ll be spending the night together. She also says that the ship will be going through sickening waves for the next day or two, meaning that they will both be vomiting quite a lot. After that, though, they will be in “calm waters.” When Eilis asks if she looks bad, Georgina responds, “Oh, yes, and so does every person on this boat.”

Georgina stresses the importance of eating nothing and drinking water, telling Eilis to vomit whenever she wants and promising that she’ll feel better the following day. She knows this, she says, because she takes transatlantic voyages every year to see her mother, enduring the agony for a week but relishing the chance to see her family.

Once the storm passes, Georgina meets the neighbors with whom she agrees to share the bathroom. Eilis has been throwing up for two nights in a row, and she can’t believe that she has to be on the boat for four more nights, but she slowly begins to feel like herself again when they reach calmer waters. Shortly before they arrive in America, Georgina gives her advice about how best to pass through customs at Ellis Island, helping her choose what outfit to wear and how to wear her hair. She also helps her put on make-up and instructs her not to cough in front of any officials, since they might think she has tuberculosis and bar her from entering the country. Other than that, though, Eilis has little to worry about because the visa Father Flood helped her obtain is quite hard to get.