39 pages • 1 hour read
Seamus DeaneReading in the Dark
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Narrator
An unnamed narrator guides us through Reading in the Dark, which begins when he is a young boy and ends when he is a young adult. He grows up in a working-class family in Derry and contends with the difficulty of his community’s socio-economic situation as well as its political conflicts.
Most significantly, the narrator is on a quest to unearth his family’s secret about his uncle Eddie. This quest informs much of the action in the novel. From a very early age, the narrator is aware that his mother is keeping things from him. Of her, he notes, “keep your secrets, I don’t mind. But, at the same time, I wanted to know everything” (45). He wants to know everything but also senses that uncovering the secret will wreak havoc within his family.
As he grows up, the narrator learns more and more about his family’s secrets, and he embarks on a path to self-actualization. He is bent on taking ownership of a family narrative that lives in silence and on reclaiming it for himself. Though he eventually pieces the narrative together, this not seem to cause any kind of catharsis within his family. They do not talk about it openly, and only his mother seems to know most of the information in the narrative. Seeking to reach outside of his community, the narrator falls in love with reading. After reading his first novel, he remembers “re-imagining all I had read, the various ways the plot might unravel, the novel opening into endless possibilities in the dark” (20). In this way, he claims the fiction narrative as his own, expanding his world outside of his small, troubled community. Eventually, the narrator leaves his community to attend a university. This further expands his horizons, yet he remains troubled by his family’s history.
Mother
Much of the narrative focuses on the narrator’s relationship with his unnamed mother. He notes of her, “my mother had a touch of the other world about her” (50). When he is young, she reports seeing ghosts, which symbolizes the secrets she keeps. She never speaks openly about what she knows about Eddie’s death. Deane suggests that this secrecy eats away at her, and she loses touch with reality for a while: “she was going out from us, becoming strange, becoming possessed, and I didn’t want anyone else outside the family to know or notice” (145).
When she was young, she dated Tony McIlhenny, who was a police informant. She is aware that Tony is an informant and that Eddie was murdered, but she never tells her husband these things or discusses them openly with other members of the family. When she realizes that the narrator has discovered her past relationship with Tony, their relationship becomes very strained. As she gets older, she suffers a stroke and loses her power of speech, permanently suppressing the truth about her family’s traumatic history within her.
Father
The narrator’s father, Frank, works as an electrician’s mate at the British Naval Base. He was a boxer when he was younger and always wanted to attend a university, but he works as a manual laborer all of his life. He is haunted by his brother Eddie’s death, and the novel suggests that he never learns that Eddie was wrongfully killed. The narrator describes his father as “knowing something about Eddie, not saying it, not talking but sometimes nearly talking, signaling” (42). He retains this anxiety throughout his life until he passes away after a heart attack.
Uncle Eddie
Uncle Eddie is not alive in the novel, yet his death is the axis around which most of the novel revolves. He is the narrator’s paternal uncle who went missing in the 1920s. Many believe that he was killed in a shoot-out between the IRA and the British, but he was actually executed by Larry McLaughlin. When Sergeant Burke leaks false information about Eddie being a police informant, the narrator’s grandfather has him killed.
Aunt Katie
Aunt Katie is the narrator’s maternal aunt. She marries Tony McIlhenny. Shortly after the wedding, she becomes pregnant with her daughter, Maeve, and Tony abandons them. Katie spends a great deal of time at the narrator’s house, telling the children stories.
Tony McIlhenny
Tony McIlhenny is a police informant. He dates the narrator’s mother but later marries the narrator’s Aunt Katie. He escapes to Chicago when he realizes that people know he is an informant. After that, he has no more contact with the family.
Sergeant Burke
Sergeant Burke is a member of the police force in Derry. To get revenge on the narrator’s grandfather for killing Billy Mahon, a police officer, Sergeant Burke gives him a false tip that causes the narrator’s grandfather to have Eddie executed. Despite this, Sergeant Burke continues to interact with the narrator’s family throughout the novel.
Grandfather
The narrator’s maternal grandfather kills a policeman named Billy Mahon to avenge his friend who was killed by Billy. Though the narrator’s grandfather is never convicted for the murder, this action sets in motion the entire family’s trauma. In retribution for the murder, Sergeant Burke leaks false information to the narrator’s grandfather about Eddie being a police informant, which causes the narrator’s grandfather to order Eddie’s execution. He admits that he ordered Eddie’s execution to the narrator and his daughter on his deathbed.
