Option Two – Theme or issue


Gar’s immaturity is a serious obstacle to the development of an adult identity. He wants to marry Kate Doogan but is too childish to cope with the responsibilities of providing for her and asking her father for her hand in marriage. Gar and his friends have an adolescent view of love and marriage and talk like boys rather than men. Gar jokes that he and his friends are sex maniacs who boast about the ‘hot courts’ they know, but privately he admits that despite all their talk they are virgins. Gar’s desire to marry Kate is partly driven by his physical need for intimacy with her. He urges her to get married soon, saying he will ‘bloody-well burst’ if he has to wait much longer to sleep with her. Gar begs Kate to put the wedding forward to ‘next month – next week –’. Kate asks Gar to ‘be sensible’ and focus on their finances. Gar, like an excited child, confides in Kate that he has a secret source of income. Kate is delighted, believing it to be investments like her father’s. However, Gar earns only a pittance selling some eggs when he does shop deliveries. In the flashback to this conversation with Kate, it is obvious to the audience that Gar has little idea of what it means to be an adult.


When he has to speak to Kate’s father about the marriage, Gar is unable to say anything. He is overawed by Senator Doogan and the presence of Francis King in the house. Although Private blames Kate, saying that she ‘must have known’ about her parents’ plans for her, the fault is his own. Gar’s fantasies are so unrealistic and childish that they cannot sustain him when he comes up against the hard reality of Kate’s father and an eminently more suitable suitor. The conflict between his adult desires and his lack of a fully formed adult identity is a serious obstacle to Gar’s happiness.


Part of Gar’s difficulty in forming a strong sense of self is how conflicted he is about what he actually wants. Emotionally stunted by his mother’s death and his elderly father’s reserved manner, Gar longs for love but at the same time finds it difficult to cope with open displays of affection. We see this clearly in his dealings with Master Boyle and Aunt Lizzy. Gar’s old school teacher, Master Boyle, retains a fondness for


his former pupil and calls to see him the night before Gar leaves for America. As he goes to leave, Boyle ‘embraces Public briefly’. Private shouts, ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’ and as soon as Gar has left Gar rushes to his room, where he struggles to control his emotions.


When Gar’s Aunt Lizzy visits, she is desperate to be a substitute mother. Lizzy says she and her husband want to give Gar ‘everything we have’, including all their love. Private is terrified, repeating, ‘No. No’. Gar impulsively agrees to go to America to live with his aunt and uncle, and Lizzy throws her arms around him, calling him ‘my son’. Private responds with ‘happy anguish’, saying ‘God … my God … Oh my God…’ It is hard to see how Gar can develop as a person when he is so unsure of his own feelings.


Although Gar resents S.B.’s remote and even cold manner, he is more like his father than he would care to admit. As the play progresses, we see that it is almost inevitable that Gar will adopt a similar identity to his father in time. Madge says that although S.B. doesn’t say much, that ‘doesn’t mean that he hasn’t feelings like the rest of us’. Gar refuses to accept his father’s difficulty in expressing his emotions and


Leaving Certificate English 391 Excellence in Texts


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