Guilt and Secrecy

While I loved reading such a contemporary novel, The Gathering was one of my least favorites this semester. However, for me, it was the biggest learning experience. Since Castle Rackrent we've explored and questioned what it means to be "Irish" and what makes these characters/authors/novels any sort of authority on Ireland/Irish Studies. Themes and characteristics (for lack of a better term) I really feel came full circle in this novel. Not to put culture in a box, but now when I think of Ireland and her people I think turmoil, guilt, unpredictability, and the search for Identity.
The passage suggested for analysis by Colleen states "This is what shame does. This is the anatomy and mechanism of a family-a whole fucking country-drowning in shame." To really understand how shame affects the characters in The Gathering, I think you have to dig a little deeper. A little further in the book, two passages especially, stuck out to me as a way to explain Veronica's frustrations over how family works, and what drives us.
1. "The past is not a happy place. And the pain of it belongs to her more than it does to me, I think. Who am I to claim it for my own? My poor mother had twelve children. She could not stop giving birth to the future. Over and over. Twelve futures. More. Maybe she liked having all those babies. Maybe she had more past than most people, to wipe clear." (233)
2. "I know what I have to do- even though it is too late for the truth, I will tell the truth. I will get hold of Ernest and tell him what happened to Liam in Broadstone, and I will ask him to break this very old news to the rest of the family (but don't tell Mammy!) because I can not do it myself, I do not have the arguments for it. I just couldn't face Bea's disapproval, or Ita's dank sorrow, or Ivor, crisply saying, 'How come you guys had all the fun?' God, I hate my family, these people I never chose to love, but love all the same." (259)

What I get from these two passages, and the aboved mention quote from page 168 is that sense of guilt. The entire novel she struggles with whether or not the memory happened and then once she personally comes to terms with it she's feels more guilt. If only she had told someone, If only she had never backed out of the "good room", If only she could have saved Liam from drink and suicide. Amongst all those "what ifs" she also had a sense that it wasn't her place. Secrets and guilt (as we saw in the novel) traced back to the 1930s (with the discovery of the tax books and letters from L. Nugent) and no matter how bad the secret or situation, someone always had it worse. Veronica didn't want the responsibilty of having to answer to anyone once she was ready to share what happened to Liam all those years ago.

This is a reoccuring theme through much of the texts we read this semester. I think what we've been calling Catholic Guilt could easily be relabeled Irish Guilt, or Human Guilt. While I don't have any specific passages to recall from the previous novel I really felt that The Gathering paralleled Castle Rackrant and Breakfast on Pluto. If you remember Rackrent like I do, the servant character reminds me a bit of Nugent (the manipulation, the power-even if we don't know it at first) and the secrets of Gathering are like the family secrets of Rackrent. I think what Pluto and Gathering have in common are the shaded memories/fantasies. The langauge and narrative are much the same- family turmoil, secrecy, shame and this heightened sense of an almost truth.

How romantically tragic....