Comparative Study


He smiles broadly, runs over to her and they embrace lovingly as Eilis’s voiceover says ‘… and you’ll realise, this is where your life is’. This uplifting, positive ending to the film cements Eilis and Tony’s relationship and leaves us with the belief that love and marriage make life worth living.


Religion


Initially, religion is presented in a negative way in the film Brooklyn. In the opening scene of the film, Eilis attends early Mass with Miss Kelly and another shop worker, Mary, before opening the grocery. The Mass is in Latin and the priest has his back to the congregation. This was the norm at the time in which the film is set, but nevertheless it gives us the impression that the Catholic Church is distant and old-fashioned in its views. Miss Kelly clearly expects her workers to attend early Mass with her and glares at Eilis when she yawns. Miss Kelly is an antagonistic force in the film, so her pious devotion indicates that the Church is not a force for good, and those who claim to be holy may not behave in a compassionate way.


However, when Eilis goes to America the view of religion in the text changes. It is no longer associated with an oppressive and old-fashioned way of life. Mrs Kehoe’s boarding house represents this transition between the old and the new. This is shown by a slightly irreverent attitude towards a subject taken very seriously in Ireland of the 1950s. During one of Eilis’s early dinners in the boarding house, Mrs Kehoe asks her about her skin care routine. Slightly taken aback, Eilis answers that she merely washes her face with soap. Miss McAdam, a rather dull and overly pious boarder, supports Eilis, saying, ‘There’s nothing wrong with soap. Soap was good enough for Our Lord, I expect’. Far from supporting Miss McAdam, Mrs Kehoe snaps back, ‘Oh, and which brand did he use, Miss McAdam? Does the Bible tell you that?’ This humorous interlude ends with Mrs Kehoe quelling the growing amusement by saying, ‘Ladies! No more talk about Our Lord’s complexion at dinner, please’. Miss McAdam is a throwback to an earlier age, and her attitude seems out of place in the worldly-wise New York. Her views on religion do not represent those of the majority of the people with whom Eilis is now mixing.


This lightening of the atmosphere and more positive view of religion is reinforced when Eilis meets Father Flood, the priest who has sponsored her emigration. Father Flood is a kind, understanding and supportive man who represents all that is good in the Catholic Church. He is the opposite of Miss Kelly and those like her who simply pay lip service to religion. Father Flood is Eilis’ s employer’s first port of call when Eilis is desperately homesick. He arranges night classes for Eilis and sees that they are paid for by a parishioner who wants to atone for his sins. Even though the subject is sin and redemption, Father Flood deals with it in his customary good-humoured and tolerant manner, telling Eilis that the man whose donation to the church paid for her first year of bookkeeping classes ‘is not out of the woods yet either, so he can cough up for next year too’. When Eilis says she would love to know what the parishioner had done, Father Flood says that she won’t hear it from him. He is both practical and discreet. Father Flood also organises a Christmas dinner for the poor old Irish men who are left with nothing after building the tunnels,


404 King Lear and Comparatives


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