Comparative Study


A key moment in which Gar’s self-destructive tendencies come into sharp focus occurs when Kate Doogan visits to say goodbye. Gar subjects her to an angry tirade: ‘If I had to spend another week in Ballybeg, I’d go off my bloody head! This place would drive anybody crazy!’ He claims Ballybeg is a ‘hole’, a ‘quagmire’ and ‘a dead-end’. Although Gar blames Ballybeg for many of his woes, he has brought much of the trouble he complains about on himself. Gar’s scornful and furious denouncement of Ballybeg is also an attack on Kate for moving on with her life without him. Kate’s marriage to Francis shows that it is possible to make a good life in Ballybeg. Had he had more courage and resolve, he could have married her. This knowledge is part of the reason for his outburst.


Gar says he wants ‘Impermanence – anonymity … a vast restless place that doesn’t give a damn about the past’. It is worth noting that Gar’s comment about wanting ‘Impermanence and anonymity’ echoes Master Boyle’s words earlier in the play when he told Gar, ‘I gather it’s a vast restless place that doesn’t give a curse about the past; and that’s the way things should be. Impermanence and anonymity – it offers great attractions’. Master Boyle is a rather pathetic, disappointed man. Gar links himself to him through this repetition of words, adding to our pessimism about Gar’s future happiness. It is hard to feel much sympathy for Gar at this moment in the play. He appears emotionally stunted, immature and self-pitying. As a result of his attitude, his future looks bleak. Gar does not really want to go to America. He agrees to go on an impulse which he almost immediately regrets. This is further evidence of Gar’s self-destructive tendencies.


Despite his criticisms, Gar stores up happy memories of his home place in which ‘there was fun and there was laughing’. He knows that even his memories of ‘the boys’ will be ‘distilled of all its coarseness’ until all that remains is ‘precious, precious gold’. In the final lines of the play, Private asks Public about his reasons for leaving, ‘Boy, why do you have to leave? Why? Why?’ This unanswered question brings home the true sorrow of this decision’s profound effect on Gar’s life.


Relationships


The view of love and marriage in the text is overwhelmingly negative. Philadelphia, Here I Come! is a story of longing, lost love and regrets.


Gar’s young mother, Maire, married S.B. because he impressed her. Gar recounts the details of their marriage: ‘She was nineteen and he was forty, and he owned a shop, and he wore a soft hat, and she thought he was the grandest gentleman that ever lived’. To a young woman from a poor background, marriage to such a seemingly well-off man was desirable as it meant she would be supported for the rest of her life. However, such financial security comes at a high price. Although Maire’s sister Lizzy says S.B. was good to Maire, it is clear that she was unhappy from the start. Lizzy says Maire’s shoulders were ‘sorta working’ during the marriage ceremony and it wasn’t clear whether she was laughing or crying. Shortly after the marriage, however, tears reigned. Maire often cried herself to sleep and yearned to be part of the group of young girls who called into her house ‘to dress up on their way to a dance’. Gar reflects bitterly that ‘it was good of God to take her away’ three days after he was born. Maire’s disappointment with S.B. is passed on to her son, who blames his father for his mother’s unhappiness.


S.B. was equally disappointed by his marriage to the beautiful, wild girl from Bailtefree. He knows she was miserable for the short time they were married and he admits to Madge that he may have been ‘too old for her’. Although S.B. loved Maire, he could not make her happy, and after her death he was left to raise their son alone. The damage caused by the unhappy marriage translates into the dysfunctional relationship between Gar and his father.


Although Gar looks down on S.B. for his views and considers himself to be far less repressed and emotionally stunted than his father, he and his friends are extremely immature and have an adolescent


428 King Lear and Comparatives


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