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.
Part 3, Chapter 6 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
People in Small Places, June 1958
Once, Katie told the narrator a story about an experience that Tony had while working as a bus conductor. In the story, a man named Sean travels on Tony’s bus, and he carries a briefcase that contains only one baby sock. Sean explains, “The day I find its match, I stop all this travelling” (220). His infant daughter died, and Sean believes that she will not be able to enter paradise until he finds the matching sock.
Crazy Joe and Mother, October 1958
After he gets out of an asylum, Joe often visits the narrator’s mother. During one of these visits, he “cavorted and performed,” talking about his time in the asylum and the abuse he suffered from the male nurses (223). One day he says, “But for all that, missis, for all that, I never told them your story” (223). The text does not clarify what this story is, but it suggests that the story was the fact that the narrator’s mother dated Tony.
Mother, November 1958
The narrator’s mother seems to know that the narrator has discovered her history with Tony, and “She kept up a low-intensity warfare” (225). Their relationship becomes even more strained, and she frequently chastises him. One day, he brings her a flower and promises her that he will not say anything, but their relationship does not improve.
Dance, December 1958
A factory called Birmingham Sound Reproducers is established in Derry, and people begin buying records from it. The town starts to host “social evenings” with music and dancing (230). One night at a “social evening,” Joe sits next to the narrator and rubs his knee. The narrator’s father sees what happens and pulls Joe away from the narrator. Both of the narrator’s parents advise him to stay away from Joe.
Birthday Gift, May 1959
The narrator wonders just how much his mother knows about their family’s history. For instance, he wonders if she knows that her own father ordered Eddie’s execution. Sergeant Burke dies, and the bishop attends his funeral, which upsets his mother.
My Father, June 1961
The narrator begins attending a university in Belfast. There, he receives a first, the highest final grade possible. He reflects on his father’s life and is saddened by its events: “The man behind the door, the boy weeping in the coal shed, the walk down that dusty road, the ruined rose bed, the confession in the church, his dead, betrayed brother” (238).
After, July 1971
The narrator maintains his silence and never speaks about his family’s history. As the years pass, his parents’ “marriage mutated slowly around the secrets that she kept in a nucleus within herself” (241). He confirms that his mother brought Joe to her father with the information that Tony was the real police informant. The narrator believes that she does not know that her own father ordered Eddie’s execution.
The narrator’s mother has a stroke and loses the power of speech, so she is “sealed in her silence” (242). In 1968, the Troubles are in full force in Ireland, and the narrator’s parents spend time “watching and listening to the war outside” (243). His father has two heart attacks, the second of which kills him.
Chapter 6 Analysis
In this final chapter, Deane again focuses on family secrecy. It continues to create significant rifts between family members. When the narrator’s mother discovers that he is aware of her relationship with Tony, the tension between them increases. She is hostile toward him because she is angry that the secret she guarded so carefully has been discovered. The narrator notes, “My mother as if she knew what Crazy Joe had made known to me, became hostile” (225). They cannot speak about the secret openly, and the narrator tries to do things to please his mother. Finally, he tells her, “Don’t worry anymore. I’ll never say a word” (227). However, the narrator knows that it is too late to repair his relationship with his mother, noting “She was nearly gone from me” (227). Secrecy has festered in their family for too long. His mother cannot follow new patterns of living. The only life she knows is one of repression. When that lifestyle is threatened by the narrator, she lashes out. Though the narrator tries in his own way to move forward and form new patterns, she is unwilling to do the same.
The narrator’s relationship with his father also suffers as a result of secrecy. He notes, “In case I should ever be tempted to tell him all I knew, I stayed at arm’s length from him and saw him notice but could say nothing to explain” (237). By protecting his mother’s secret, the narrator sacrifices his relationship with his father. Ironically, keeping this secret does not improve his relationship with his mother. Silence reigns in their household, and no one is able to be direct about their feelings.
For the narrator to develop, it is necessary for him to leave his home and continue to learn about the outside world. He starts attending a university in Belfast and succeeds in his studies. The narrator remains connected to his family’s trauma by remembering anniversaries, like the anniversaries of his parents’ marriage and Eddie’s death. Thus, he keeps his family and their history alive in his memory, but he does not directly engage with them as he continues to grow into his own person.
This final section also focuses on Ireland’s religious and political history. Deane suggests that it is a fraught history, filled with pain that influences the country’s current inhabitants. For example, Sean believes that his daughter will not enter heaven due to a superstition about not being able to find a matching sock of hers. The narrator notes, “The air of Donegal, of all Ireland, was full of such people, he had claimed, because of our bad history” (221). Thus, past historical trauma influences the way people feel and behave on a daily basis. In this way, the trauma in the narrator’s family is given a larger context: There is so much political and religious conflict among the Irish people that it causes inter-generational trauma within families.
