A Journey

The short story A Journey is written by Colm Tòibin. The short story is about life and death and it shows that life is a never-ending circle, everytime someone dies, someone else is born. Life is unpredictable, and you have to accept the changes that might appear We have to fight for our goals and this short story clearly shows the bright and dark side of life.

The short story starts in medias res, and presents the first flashback (page 1, line 1-21), which takes us back to David’s childhood when he was four years old. She remembers him, as a happy child who followed her around and asked her questions about everything. For instance, he asked her how people die in which she answered, that God would take one’s soul out of love and that everybody would die someday – not very appropriate to tell a four year old. Even though his seriousness Mary had a hard time not to show her amusement of his inquisitiveness. The first flashback shows David’s inquisitiveness and his mother’s amusement. It’s written in third person and is subjective and from the narrator’s ankle and mind. (Page 1 line 12), “She felt that perhaps they would be too old and set in their ways to bring up a child”. The journey takes place in a car, in which we meet the two main characters Mary and David. Mary is the main character and she is David’s mom. It can be assumed that she is quite old as we are told that she had him after almost twenty years of marriage and actually had given up hope of ever having children presumably because of barrenness. She has well-treated thick blond hair, wrinkles around her eyes and her mouth which also proves that she isn’t young anymore.

The second main character is David, he has been admitted to the hospital and might have a depression but it seems the treatment doesn’t help at all. He’s the quiet and very closed type of guy he and doesn’t want to speak to anyone especially not his mother. On their journey in the car Mary tries to connect with David, but every time she lets her guards down, and tries to bond with him, all she gets is a cold answer. (Page 2, line 40) on the road were Mary dims the lights of her car, to be hit in the face of way too strong beams from an oncoming car shows this – it’s another way of the author to prove how Mary feels, she doesn’t feel the same as she used to do.

(Page 4, line 132) The part of their journey were Mary smokes a cigarette may be a symbol of the motherly features she contains, that she sacrifices something for David and she is willing to smoke even though it can get her sick, but then she could get to the same wavelength as David.

(Page 1, line. 36-38) She really wants David to stay at home even though he is sick and she feels uncomfortable being alone with him, she is trying to figure out why this silence has taken over her son, while she want’s everything to be good.

Both main characters can relate to post modernism. David is unsecure and isolates himself from other people and real life. Mary is struggling to keep her family together, her husband is paralysed and her son may have a depression – she has to fix all problems and is trying her best to show the environment that they are a perfect family. Everyone in the family want’s it to be perfect, but they have to soul their own problems first.

Mrs. Redmunds, who is their neighbour and which own husband is dead. Has been taken care of David when he was a child and now is taking care of Mary’s husband Seamus. She herself represents late part in life and her husband symbolizes death, that one day we all will go trough. In the beginning Mary and Seamus symbolizes the happy young couple who just had their first child, but twenty two years later it end up being the opposite.