‘“And the next time if you tell me you love me, I’ll-’ She stopped. ‘You’ll what?’, ‘I’ll say I love you too.” Eilis didn’t mean any of this when she said this to Tony, her boyfriend. Upon every time he mentioned the word love or the future of their relationship, she squirmed. The thought terrified her because she didn’t reflect his feelings. Eilis held no love for him except infatuation for the time being. She had never loved anyone nor had a boyfriend prior to Tony, and couldn’t bring herself to tell him of her true feelings towards him. The fascinating novel, Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin is about growth of oneself upon immigrating from Ireland to Brooklyn in the 1950’s, shows the differences between love and infatuation of a person with the characters Tony and Jim. After a rough month of being in America, she meets Tony at an Irish dance, and grows a crush for him.
Tony holds more love for her, as he says he loves her and imagines their future. Regardless, their relationship grew, until she went to Ireland to visit her lonely mother after her sister, Rose, died. Tony made Eilis marry him prior to leaving, because he knew if they hadn’t, she wouldn’t have come back. She reconnected with old friends and someone who, frankly she hated, Jim Farrell. He managed to annoy her with his existence prior to moving to America, but when she encountered him on this trip she grew head over heels for him. Eilis knew if she had an romantic relation with Jim, she’d be cheating on Tony. But her feelings of love overcame her, and she and Jim began a romantic relationship. The reader learns through Eilis’s experiences that love holds more power over infatuation. Although, love is a beautiful blooming thing, it can also negatively impact others.
The first part of Toibin’s novel introduces the reader to Eilis’s life in Enniscorthy, Ireland, where she had no room for growth and enrichment. She is introduced to Father Flood, who brings the idea of her going to Brooklyn to find work, “In the United States there would be plenty of work for someone like you and with good pay.” (22) The thought never crossed her or her family’s mind. It terrified as her as she would be away from home for the first time in her life, and wouldn’t about the difficulties that may arise with it. She was secretly opposed to it when her family supported it, “Even when she woke in the night and thought about it, she did not allow herself to conclude that she did not want to go.” (29) Eilis pictured the rest of her life in one place, where she’d been her whole life, and had to force herself to accept that that was not going to happen. Despite her true hope of staying home, where she was comfortable, she made the move and forever altered her life.
As she spends more time in America, Toibin details how Eilis grows more and more homesick as time flies by, and needs assistance to occupy her time to not think about home. Eilis was a fish out of water and struggled to feel familiarity in her new life: “She was nobody here. It was not just that she had no friends and family; it was rather that she was a ghost in this room, in the streets on the way to work, on the shop floor. Nothing meant anything” (69). America held no importance to her and was only a tool to give her a leg up. Furthermore, Eilis couldn’t relate to her boardmates or the people around her, suffocated by this new way of life that was pressed upon her by the people she cares about the most. She would not allow herself to accept her new reality, pushing it away as much as she could handle, “In the morning, she was not sure that she had slept as much as lived a set of vivid dreams, letting them linger so that she would not have to open her eyes and see the room” (70).
The move became a baggage that dragged with her each day, weighing down her spirit. In her mind, not attaining to it would be a good idea, as if it’s not present, “She had no choice, she knew, but to put it all swiftly out of her mind. She would get on with her work during the day and go back to sleep if it was during the night. It would be like covering a table with a tablecloth, or closing curtains on a window” (76). Eilis could not push her sadness away forever, and would cloud her thoughts, preventing her from living in the present. In addition, Father Flood signed her up for night classes at a local college and started an Irish dance on Friday’s to further occupy her time. In the end, this leads to her being introduced to affection and infatuation.
As time stretches, Eilis stumbles upon Tony, a handsome Italian man whom she develops a crush when he holds something of more power for her. Tony is the first person to show affection towards Eilis, whom she attaches herself to at an Irish dance. They begin seeing each other weekly, forming their relationship, “She was seeing him three nights a week, and because of her lectures, she had no time for nothing else” (140). Eilis’s life began to be filled with nights of romance and lust, something she was not used to. She had to start thinking about caring for someone else and provide affection. This further occupied her time, pushing the thought of home away into the dark. Eilis spoke highly of Tony, but avoided little bits to make sure Rose approved, ‘It was, she thought, too ridiculous, something that she could not tell anybody, certainly not Rose and probably not Miss Fortini” (142). Rose wanted the best for her sister. A way of exercising this was sending her off to America to enrich her life when Enniscorthy provided nothing for her. The little bits of Tony, Eilis excluded from her letters to Rose, were essential parts of who he was. Paying no attention to this, Eilis lept over this and didn’t mind.
Tony talks of their future and how he loves her, but Eilis can’t reciprocate. His persistence to be closer to Eilis only made her want to distance herself. Tony’s words to her were filled with love as she handed him emptiness: “‘You know what I really want?’, he asked. ‘I want our kids to be Dodgers fans.’ He was so pleased and excited with the idea, she thought, that he did not notice her face freezing” (142). Eilis thought Enniscorthy is where she’ll reside for the rest of her life, but America changed those plans and all that it handed only weakened the opportunity.
This man who she was close to was so far away, and she didn’t share his same goals and outlook on their relationship. She hadn’t taken time to think of it and avoided it like the plague, “His saying that he loved her and expecting a reply frightened her, made her feel that she would have to accept that this was the only life she was going to have, a life spent away from home” (143). Eilis had not thought of her future with Tony as deep as he has, and it was evident to her while he was unsuspecting. She knew Tony was naive enough to take all that Eilis could hand to him, “She felt almost guilty, that she had handed some of her grief to him, and then she felt close to him for his willingness to take it and hold it, in all its rawness, all its dark confusion” (176). Tony is so in love that he can’t see the red light at which Eilis was flashing. Moreover, this begins the course of Eilis detaching herself from Tony, but still holding onto him.
Eilis decides to return to Enniscorthy in the wake of her sister’s death, prompting Tony to marry her. Tony knew that the trip home would not be a simple vacation, and would turn into a permanent stay. Home meant so much to Eilis and she had not been since moving to America, months earlier. Before her trip Tony asked her to marry him on the account of her possibly never returning, “She knew this was his way not only of asking her to marry him but of suggesting that marriage had been already tacitly agreed between them” (197). Tony only ever spoke of marriage as Eilis remained silent on the topic. She loved him enough to declare she’ll stay with him until the end, that is if she could stay true to her word.
The last part of the book examined Jim Farrell- a past hatred, turned love affair- and how he unravels Eilis to reveal where her love lies. When we were introduced to Jim at the start of the novel, he was awfully rude to Eilis and didn’t give her the time of day. Although, on her trip home to Enniscorthy, he was the polar opposite of how he originally was, and impressed Eilis.Over the course of a few weeks, her stance on Jim turned from dislike to love interest, which was an evident problem as she was the wife of Tony.
As she tried to push her growing feelings for Jim away, they only grew, “She tried to think of Tony as a loving and comforting presence, but saw instead someone she was allied with whether she liked it or not” (232). Her tactic at refusing affectionate thoughts for Jim was to remember Tony and her promise to him. The marriage became a mistake, a jail cell where she could not be independent or reveal her true intentions.Upon her love filled feelings for Jim, it uncovered a truth for Eilis, “It occurred to her… that she was sure she did not love Tony now” (237). Tony’s letters to Eilis were piling up and she had slowly stopped replying to them. Brooklyn faded into the dark as she zoned in on Enniscorthy. She was meant to be there, with Jim, and with her mother and friends. It was an unsettling realization that she was only able to be there for a short time, and would soon have to face Tony, knowing he loves her while she does not.
At the end of the novel, Toibin shows how Miss Kelly, a past boss of Eilis, knows about Eilis’s marriage to Tony, suggesting that she would spread the word of Eilis’ double life and affair. Having been her board master’s cousin, Miss Kelly found out about Eilis’ engagement to Tony, yet knowing of her dating Jim in Enniscorthy. As Eilis told both men she loved them, she began to realize the word “love” held no significant weight to her the more she considered it, “Eilis imagined the years ahead, when these words would come to mean less and less to the man who heard them and would come to mean more and more to herself. She almost smiled at the thought of it, then closed her eyes and tried to imagine nothing more” (235) Falling in love with Jim brought her great happiness beyond comprehension, yet had the power to destroy others. Tony loved Eilis with every bit of him and would do anything to heal her hurting and sorrows. Eilis disregarded this as she was blinded by Jim while on her trip. She could not control how much damage she had done, “As she saw all three of them -Tony, Jim, her mother- as figures whom she could only damage, as innocent people surrounded by light and clarity, and circling around them was herself, dark, and uncertain” (236). Eilis was a beacon for destruction and had the ability to tear through people’s lives. It seems as if she did not care, as she committed adultery while away from her husband. The word would not get back to Tony in Brooklyn, allowing her a right of passage, yet she did not know Miss Kelly was connected to Mrs. Kehoe, enforcing the possibility of the truth being revealed to Tony.
The novel, Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin, follows a young girl named Eilis, as she immigrated from Ireland to Brooklyn and her shift in life. Eilis suffered from homesickness a great deal and was forced to find new ways to occupy her time. She stumbled upon a man named Tony, and they embarked on a romantic relationship, this being her first one. Tony always felt more love for Eilis than she did for him, making her push him away as her independence was strained. Eilis announced to Tony that she would be returning home in light of her sisters death, prompting Tony to propose to her, knowing she would not come back had he not. While on her trip, Ellis reconnects with an enemy, Jim, who becomes her love affair. As Eilis is about to leave back to Brooklyn, she hears word that Tony may know about Jim. Love can lead to many great and many dangerous things, which can be damaging to people surrounded with those involved.
