Maeve Murray Carlow University M.F.A.

. in Creative Writing Practicum Semester 1, March 15, 2012 Jane Coleman, Mentor Critical Essay #2 The Gathering by Anne Enright

Strong Voice Can Tell a Story that an Unreliable Narrator Cannot Upon starting a new book, I find that there is always one thing that will stick out before anything else. Its not the characters; after all, it can sometimes take a good while for an author to adequately tell us what we need to know about them. Its certainly not in the place, as the same thing can also be true. Themes might not make themselves known until a chapter or two in, perhaps not even until the end. No, that one thing that we probably notice first is the voice. A weak voice can be so generic that we find ourselves bored, but a strong, unique voice has a way of driving readers through a plot even when the plot is sometimes lost or hidden under a barrage of red herrings and fantasies by an unreliable narrator. In The Gathering, Anne Enright uses voice to do just that; she delves us into the mind of grieving Veronica Hegarty, all the twists and turns into darkness and light, stability and insanity, and finally from doubt to truth. The book opens us into Veronicas doubt immediately in the first sentence, I would like to write down what happened in my grandmothers house the summer I was eight or nine, but I am not sure if it really did happen (Enright 1). Readers dont know it yet, but this one line is the driving force of the entire novel. There are times when we may lose sight of the narrators purpose, but we never lose interest in her. The voice is such that we are intrigued, but more than

Maeve Murray that, we connect with and care about the narrator, even when she takes us on her rants, drops us, and scraps us from the floor anew in the next chapter. Part of this can be attributed to the way Enright structures her sentences, if she even chooses to make complete sentences. There are times when she simply speaks in phrases, such as, Such disgust. Such complete and utter disgust Good, gentle, human Michael Weiss. Oatmeal. Cream. Sandstone. Slate (130). Yet there are other instances where she connects these phrase-like thoughts into long, drawn-out sentences like, I am swinging an inch or so off

the mattress, and I do not believe in myself in the way I breath or turn and I do not believe in Tom beside me: that he is alive (sometimes I wake to find him dead, only to wake again) (133). The variations in sentence and phrase structure go a long way to tell us about Veronicas state of mind when shes speaking to us. When she thinks more in phrases, such as when she is recalling a not-so-painful memory, the choppiness of the structure gives us the distinct feeling that her remembering is a lazy, easy thing. She tells us what she remembers as it comes to her her feelings, brief details, maybe even the setting. A lot of these kinds of statements can be taken at face value, such as when shes listing the colors she was considering using in a renovation, Oatmeal. Cream. Sandstone. Slate (130). Its very slow and lackadaisical. This is in total contrast to the feeling we get from the longer sentences, which are found most predominantly when she is questioning herself or her more painful memories. Unlike the choppy phrases, the long, run-on sentences give us a rush, especially when so many different thoughts are contained in one sentence. It portrays Veronica as anxious, unsure, and desperate. Case and point, perhaps one of the most important lines of the novel is written this way a long string of information:

Maeve Murray It was as if Mr. Nugents penis, which was sticking straight out of his flies, had grown strangely, and flowered at the tip to produce the large and unwieldy shape of a boy, that boy being my brother Liam, who, I finally saw, was not an extension of the mans member, set down mysteriously on the ground in front of him, but a shocked (of course he was shocked, I had opened the door) boy of nine, and the member not even that, but the boys bare forearm, that made a bridge of flesh between himself and Mr. Nugent (143-144).

Its clear in this sentence that Veronica is fighting through her memory, trying her best to recall it with accuracy. After this line, she revisits the memory again and again, each time changing something different, as if she cant decide which version is true. This coupled with her extraneous and often red herring daydreams concerning her grandmother and Nugent paint her thoroughly as an unreliable narrator, but more than that, it allows us to experience her grief and uncertainty with minimal, if any, abstraction. The stream-of-consciousness style puts us in the novel with Veronica, wondering what the truth really is, or if there is one to be had at all. While the structure and the content associated with it is one element Enright uses to establish Veronicas narrating voice, its not the only one. The next parts of the structure that are worth mentioning are the syntax and word choices. Irish people speak and write differently than Americans. As an Irish author, Enright sometimes writes using a different order of speech, and she certainly chooses to use different words. For example, we see nappy and boot instead of diaper and trunk. More than that, however, we see things like lovely day, packed a basket and took us to the seaside, and doing the sums in her head throughout the novel, which are not directly different like nappy and boot, but still tell us that were sitting in a foreign womans mind (110,111).

Maeve Murray Similarly, the order of words in the sentences suggests someone from another country.

Veronica says, He wonders am I a social worker, or perhaps even a prison officer, and why I am not holding her hand, as I look down on the distant skin of the Irish sea, instead of something more along the lines of, As I look down at the Irish sea, he wonders if Im a social worker or a prison officer, and why Im not holding her hand (155). The second sentence is something you might find in an American authors book. Its uncommon to find prepositional phrases stuck on the end of sentences in American novels, and in Enrights case, it helps define her characters voice and origin. She also leaves out the word if in the first part of the sentence, which gives it an informal sound. Veronica is not a textbook reciting facts; she is a real person who doesnt always think or speak in proper English. Her language is as flawed as most people are to some degree, and she is just as unique and as varied as they come. Despite Veronicas telling voice, she is an unreliable narrator. Many times, she will fantasize about events she has no knowledge of, and reimagine the same made-up event several times with different variations. The first time she does this is with the story of how her grandmother, Ada, met Mr. Nugent. As readers, we have no idea why this man is so important or why Veronica is fixated on him. We learn after her first daydream that hes not even her grandfather. She debates back and forth, speculating as to why Ada married Charlie and not Nugent, and if it would have changed things. Veronica doesnt explain Mr. Nugents importance until she finally tells us what weve been waiting for since the beginning what happened in her grandmothers house the summer she was eight or nine. At this point, we start to realize the method to Veronicas madness, and why she dug around the truth for so long. Yet even after telling us about her brothers abuse, she continues to reimagine it, even going as far as to suggest that Nugent could have abused her, too. But she is unsure and her memory is not clear.

Maeve Murray This is an important note about the voice Enright implicates to tell this particular story Veronica is an unstable woman trying to come to terms not just with her brothers death, but the

outcome and progress of her own life. The mind is a terribly and wonderfully complex machine, and Enrights use of the unreliable narrator is a brilliant decision, perhaps the only one that could make sense. Many people hide from their pain and dodge grief. Veronica does just this, choosing instead to comment on the dysfunctionality of her family and her uncontentedness in her marriage rather than deal head-on with her raw emotions. Instead of trying to remember what happened to her brother when he was boy, she chooses to think about how Ada met the offender, Nugent, and why she didnt marry him. This is what the brain does to defend itself from hurt; it distracts itself and buries the truth. Enrights portrayal of a character fighting with herself through these issues is completed when Veronica finally starts to realize what shes been doing unconsciously. Moments before she tells us about walking in on Liam and Nugent, she has this to say: I can twist [Ada and Nugent] as far as you like, here on the page; make them endure all kinds of protraction, bliss, mindlessness, abstraction, release. I can bend and reconfigure them in the rudest possible ways, but my heart fails me, there is something so banal about things that happen behind closed doors, these terrible transgressions that are just about sex after all (139-140). In this, she fully admits to her daydreams and inability to continue doing so anymore. Here she is quickly approaching the edge where she needs to speak of what shes really seen. But her story isnt over just because of this victory.

Maeve Murray

There is still the matter of what to do with the truth she has found, and that turns out to be her application of it. We notice that, even after discovering the memory mentioned in the first line of the novel, Veronicas voice is still a mess of choppy phrases and run-on sentences. She still draws random images to mind at inappropriate times, and these things tell us that shes still not at peace. Although shes found the truth of her brothers abuse, shes still wandering in the dark of her own life. Its not until she meets Liams son, Rowan, that she begins to see the light again, and it is evident in the changes in her voice. Variations still exist, but overall, Veronicas tone is more subtle and relaxed. We now see sentences like: There isnt a dry eye in the house. On Mossies knee Rowan grows indignant, as he watches his mother wipe away the tears. Shut up, he says suddenly. Then louder, Shut uhhhhp! in his sweet English accent, and everyone laughs. I have never been to a happier funeral (248). Here we note that there are no long, drawn-out sentences stuffed full of thoughts and certainly no broken up phrases. No, now her voice reflects the peace shes finding in her slow revelation that life goes on because you make the conscious decision to live, and to do that requires being involved in it, feeling it, really living it. Through her choices in voice, Enright has produced a novel that effectively takes readers on a journey of transformation that they didnt even know they needed. Its not solely about Liams death, his sexual abuse, the dysfunctional Hegarty family, or even Veronicas personal struggles with grief, marriage, and the will to live. Its about all these things, and it is the unique and distinct voice of our narrator that carries us through them all, interweaving and connecting all the way to the end.

Maeve Murray Works Cited Enright, Anne. The Gathering. New York: Black Cat, 2007. 261. Print.