Reading in the Dark

“At night, from the stair window, the field was a white paradise of loneliness, and a starlit wind made the glass shake like loose, black water and the ice snore on the sill, while we slept, and the shadow watched.” 

The narrator describes his family’s farmhouse in winter. Deane uses figurative language, especially personification, to lend an air of loneliness to the farmhouse. In this way, he emphasizes how the farmhouse is a site of trauma for the narrator’s family, landing on the image of the shadow that stands for repressed secrets that never leave the family members.  

“The windows of the house could not be opened and the staircase had a hot, rank smell that would lift the food from your stomach.” 

Here, Deane describes a house that contains an evil demon. Superstition is a prominent motif in the novel and an accepted part of life in Derry. As a result of the demon’s presence, the house takes on physical characteristics that overwhelm anyone who enters it. A demon can only be exorcised by a Catholic priest, a member of the powerful religious structure of the community.  

“We had only the fifteenth of August bonfires; it was a church festival but was made it into a political one as well, to answer the fires on the twelfth.” 

These lines point to the political and religious divisions of Derry. The Protestants, or Unionists, have more privileges in the community. Thus, they have official bonfires. The Catholics, or Nationalists, have only one bonfire, which emphasizes their inferior status in the community. Moreover, religious and political structures bleed into one another as a religious bonfire becomes a political one. 

“Dan said that someone he knew had seen the Chicago fire and has said it leapt across the river like an animal, and that the water steamed.” 

The narrator has an affinity for fire and is captivated by the fires in Chicago because he can connect them to the fires in Derry. Here, they are emblematic of political conflict, and they also point to a type of catharsis. In a community in which there is so much repression, the narrator finds the act of burning to be freeing. 

“Can’t you let the past be the past? But it wasn’t the past and she knew it.” 

The narrator often prods his mother about Uncle Eddie, but she consistently sidesteps his questions. A central theme of the novel is secrecy and repressed trauma, and Uncle Eddie’s disappearance is an issue that the family does not discuss. As the secret remains hidden, it bleeds into the present and creates rifts among family members, especially when the narrator actively tries to uncover it.  

“The voices of the people there seemed to us as sleek and soft as the glistening wheels of butter on the counter that had a print of a swan on their bright yellow faces.” 

The narrator reflects on Donegal, a free state that is part of Ireland. It is right on the border of Derry, so it is close yet distant. It seems alluring and almost idyllic. The author uses the differences between Derry and Donegal to draw attention to the disconnect between a British Northern Ireland and the Free State of Ireland. This is a tension that the narrator feels on a daily basis. 

“I was terrified that I might, by accident, make that special wish and feel the ground buckle under me and see the dead faces rise, indistinct behind their definite axes and spears.” 

The narrator’s young life is infused with games and make believe that give him relief from daily turmoil. When he plays at the fort Grianan, he fears that he might wake the legendary army that is said to live in the ground beneath the fort. This situation emphasizes the novel’s motif of superstition, a common aspect of life in Derry.

“Maybe it’s something terrible in the family history, some terrible deed that was done in the past, and it just spreads and it spreads down the generations like a shout down that tunnel.” 

Katie says this about a story in which two children become possessed by demons after their parents’ deaths. The story touches on the prevalence of the supernatural in Derry. It also relates the supernatural to family trauma. If something terrible happens in the past, it has the ability to haunt people in the present. 

“I imagined the living rats that remained, breathing their vengeance in a dull miasmic unison deep underground.” 

Rats have come to inhabit the air raid-shelters and become a problem in the city. Their infestation is symbolic of the secrets inherent in the narrator’s family as well as the abject living conditions in Derry. Just as rats live underground in the darkness, so too are issues and traumas in the narrator’s family repressed and often unacknowledged. 

“Thank God my father’s too ill to hear about this—the shame alone would finish him. A grandson of his going to the police!” 

Here, the narrator’s father berates him after his run-in with Sergeant Burke. These lines emphasize the sharp division between the citizens and the police, and they also highlight the power of the police in the community. Shame is also a central force in the narrator’s family, and it causes a great deal of repression and subsequent trauma.  

“I never saw Constantine, but he was a great name to us, the only admitted heretic, whose final collapse was a melancholy propaganda victory for priests.” 

Among Catholics, heresy involves rejecting the teachings of the Catholic Church. Constantine is a strange member of the narrator’s Catholic family as he goes against the church’s teachings. He goes blind, which becomes “propaganda” for priests who use fear to scare people into never turning away from the teachings of the church. 

“When we came into the kitchen, my mother looked up and the whole history of his family and her family and ourselves passed over her face in one intuitive waltz of welcome and then of pain.” 

The family’s dynamics reach a crisis when the narrator’s father reveals what he knows about Uncle Eddie and when his mother finally understands the family’s history. Prior to this, the family’s core has been infused with secrecy and avoidance, which makes this revelation significant. 

“Burning. It’s burning. All out there, burning.” 

After confronting her father’s death and the revelation about Eddie, the narrator’s mother loses touch with reality. She feels that everything around her is burning. Metaphorically, the structure of her life is in flames. She has worked so hard to keep the secret of Eddie repressed that she becomes completely unhinged when it is finally out in the open.

“It sounded like a feat of precision engineering, one I could never quite associate with what the Church called lust, which seemed wild, fierce, devil-may-care, like eating and drinking together while dancing to music on top of the table.” 

The narrator receives his sexual education from Father Nugent and attempts to reconcile his previous ideas of sex with the image of lust presented by the Catholic Church. For the narrator, the reality of sex and the lustful image do not match, causing a cognitive disconnect. These lines speak to the taboo nature of sex and the way it is regulated by the church. It is yet another secret in Derry that cannot be discussed openly. 

“He was a star, sure and yet troubled, but always reducing his trouble gradually by accumulating certainty, by making decision after decision, knowing the more, the more trouble it took him to know.” 

Reading St. Ignatius’s writings is significant for the narrator. St. Ignatius creates a very decisive picture of a person, one who is hungry for knowledge and a seeker of truth. The narrator wishes he could apply this mindset to himself and his family members. Rather than seek truth, they instead insist on repression, shying away from knowledge.  

“All that stuff about the she-devil gave him a pain. That man was just scared of sex, like most of the older people.” 

Here, Liam touches on the mythology surrounding sex. Larry has an encounter with a supposed she-devil, but Liam insists that it is just fear that stops Larry from having sex with a woman out of wedlock. The supernatural and demons are often associated with sex in the lore of this community, reinforcing the idea that extramarital sex is something taboo that causes destruction and pain. 

“A choice, an election, was to be made between what actually happened and what I imagined, what I had heard, what I kept hearing.” 

As the novel progresses, the narrator gains more and more information about the secrets surrounding Uncle Eddie. He is on a quest to piece all of this information together to create a comprehensive narrative. These lines speak to the nature of a secret and the mutability of truth. The narrator must negotiate information as well as his own imagination to form a whole, or a narrative.  

“The man who had had sex with the devil. The man who had killed my father’s brother.” 

Here, personal secrecy and the Catholic Church’s tenets about extramarital affairs collide. When Larry supposedly has sex with a she-devil, he loses touch with the world around him. It turns out that he has actually killed Eddie and transformed his crime into a different forbidden act—extramarital sex. The crime changes form in Larry’s mind and in the community at large to keep Larry’s secret hidden. 

“You’re always running around like a dog, sniffing at the arse of every secret, a dirty habit. Copulate if you must. Get it over and done with. Then grow up.” 

Here, Crazy Joe addresses the narrator’s actions in the novel, many of which center around his trying to unearth secrets. Joe advises the narrator to let go of this behavior and to live more in the moment. If sex is a part of maturing, he should engage in it. In this way, Joe leads the narrator away from a world of secrecy and taboo and urges him to question these structures. 

“We stared at the speaker, a priest in British army uniform, a chaplain, a smooth and tall man, with tall and smooth accent, a handsome face tinged a little with blood pressure at the cheeks, a visitor to our school.” 

Here, the two structures of church and state collide. In many ways, people must contend with these two dominant power structures in the community. This Anglican priest represents the synthesis of the two.

“Northern Ireland had had a cruel birth

Here, Deane describes the founding of Northern Ireland. He uses the figurative language of birth to make the founding a child that comes from a mother. This metaphor drives home the theme of people’s daily lives being so enmeshed in historical and political conflict. 

“I told it to her again, probing for a reaction. She sat there very calmly, letting me do it.” 

Here, the narrator shares a story about Tony with his mother. These lines provide an apt description of their relationship. He is always subtly trying to extract information and form a connection over information, and she is always hesitant. Their communication is always indirect and never results in an open discussion. 

“She had died in a fever hospital in Derry. Was brought in of an afternoon and was dead by teatime.” 

In these lines, Tony describes Sean’s infant daughter who died. This is one of many examples of the abject living conditions in Derry. The inhabitants do not have access to advanced medical care and have to contend with deaths, many of which are children’s.