Would anybody care to speculate on what Eilis would have done had her marriage remained secret? I thought she was leaning toward remaining in Ireland and marrying Jim, until the crotchety store owner found out.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA
I was thinking on the same line. She had opportunities she didn't have when she first left Ireland, which is why she initially left.
It also brings up another point. Did Tony trick her into marrying him, knowing she would not come back to NY, unless she was committed.
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She would not have remained in Ireland.
Tony befriended her in the new world and was one of the first few to do so. She was loyal to people who were loyal - and friendly - toward her. The prospects of an affluent life in Ireland with Jim and with all his earthly possessions would not have been more important to her than her well-established relationship with Tony.
E pluribus unum
I beg to differ. She is actually an example of how calculating women can be when it comes to relationships.
She would have gone with Jim. It is quite obvious.
She would have did it with Jim. Haha...
shareThe movie gave me the idea Eilis would have stayed. The book said Eilis knew Jim would never accept that she was married, nor accept a divorce, so she knew she couldn't stay. I think that omits the idea of annulment, or simply never saying anything and being secretly bigamous (Tony would have ultimately gotten an anulment anyway).
What Eilis would have done, she was better off in Brooklyn, with Tony. The mother was toxic. The town was toxic. She didn't have the same rapport with Jim that she did Tony. She would have quickly lost her Brooklyn glamour and returned to being a bit dowdy as she was before she left.
Agree with your thoughts! I was just surprised how she escaped from her marriage so easily, after becoming acquainted with Jim.I thought she was more principled. You are so correct about the toxicity of her mother and the town. And that oppressive boss where her sister used to work. The family dinner at Tony's was a healthier environment, as well.
shareI think she was being brainwashed by everyone in Ireland. it was clear as day she didn't want to stay there.. she kept telling people she was going back home yet everyone just kind of swept it under the rug and ignored it. She would have eventually realized it on her own had the nosy mean lady not said anything. They confused her but she woke up.
shareOTOH, she was not reading Tony's letters, dumping them in a drawer. Also, it seemed to me she started to write what might have been a "Dear John" letter, but then crumpled it up.
Also, the scene at the isolated beach, where she compared Coney Island unfavorably.
I don't think it's that clear-cut, myself.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
This version of Brooklyn is truly dreadful-with Saoirse Ronan so wooden she's been offered the part of Pinocchio in a re-make.
I've just seen another version and its hysterical and way, way better.
Rose dies when she's smacked in the head by a golf ball driven by Jim.
Eilis beds Tony to nab him-pops back to Ireland for the funeral-teases and coaxes Jim out to a headland for some "jollity" and pushes him over the cliff. We'll call that quits she announces to Rosie in the sky.
she cooks the books at the office -transfers a bundle to an account in new York-picks her Mother up and hops back to Brooklyn- getting her mother a sweet little apartment and buying in to Tony's business.
She employs all the homeless guys to build a green field paradise-and the film ends with an uproarious Ceilidh -the Catholic Father roaring drunk and smiling in an "old-fashioned" way at Eilis' Mother who has cooked up a storm for the workers and the family.
Now that's a real film.
You left out the scene where a 10-year-old Donald Trump attempts to seduce Eilis using his father's millions -- only to be ultimately rejected by her owing to his small hands ...
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I think you mistake the meaning of Tony's letters going into a drawer - and starting with "dumping" - it didn't seem to me to be 'dumping' at all but rather it was done with anxiety, deliberation, and hesitancy.
But that adds to me to revealing to us why she did that: I believe it was a classic example of cognitive dissonance she was dealing with. As long as she was discovering and having to sort through feelings for both Jim and for Ireland, I believe she felt she would be betraying Tony to read his letters without the whole-hearted longing for him that she was having to sort through in comparison to her feelings for home. And recall she'd said to Tony before her departure that she didn't know if she had a home. She's just come back to Ireland and discovered that maybe she had a home there after all, which means she's thrown into a reconsideration of all that, which doesn't reflect imho on her love of Tony but rather on what home means to her.
When she finally opens the letters, has read them all and attempts to write him, it's only after she's passed through that cognitive dissonance and knows that she is going to return asap to Tony, thus unconflicted about reading his loving words with renewed commitment and unconflicted. I believe she crumples the attempted letter because she realizes in trying to write that it's not a matter of writing him a letter but rather just going home -- and surprising him without a letter announcing it, which we see from his stunnedness at seeing her again.
Also, in regards to the whole thread here, recall that she said to Miss Kelly (paraphrasing), "You've reminded me just how petty this place can be" -- not just Miss Kelly but "this place" (or 'this town' or words to that effect). If it hadn't been Miss Kelly in that moment, it would soon have been something else that would have reminded her of this quality of pettiness that she had forgotten, especially because of seeing things like the uncrowded beach and seeing a potential to carry on with a job, and with a continued connection to her sister being geographically close to her legacy (the golf award) and in her sister's job.
But that too, while tearing at it, is also a problem she weighs - to be back in her home town in Ireland would be living out her sister's life in a way rather than her own. It turns out imho that she is relieved and prizes the wisdom of Tony's desire to have married before the trip, because the one thing that allows her mother to accept her decision without recrimination or guilt-tripping, or without Eilis's becoming definitively torn by guilt is that she can tell her mother she is already married, and in the world view and values of her mother, although depressed at the thought of her daughter leaving and not marrying well there, she fully understands and accepts, quite readily, that of course Eilis must return to her husband.
Good reflection. In the 1950's marriage was more serious. Especially for an Irish Catholic. I think the author was thinking in the ways of the later 20th century not the 1950's. Her keeping quiet about the fact she was married was itself a kind of moral betrayal of Tony. You don't see that in the lens of the 21 century morality. Most Irish and Italians would have been married in church at the time. I'm not sure that was true to the times.
shareYes, that´s what I though all the time: her marrige was just a concubinate then, not real marriage, as it wasn´t done in the church. I think Tony and she meant to keep it secret and private, making a real, church wedding with Tony´s parents and all later. Therefore Eilis didn´t say anything to her mother.
shareThe "early 1950's" just didn't feel right for me. It seemed more like the 40's or even 30's. Except for the WWII period. It just conflicted for me.
shareRemember on her first voyage to America, Eilish's bunkmate reminds her to remember it is nice to talk to people who don't know your Auntie- everyone knew each other in the Irish town and had preconceived notions about how everyone should live their lives. Miss Kelly reminded Eilish of all the reasons Rose wanted her to get a fresh start.
shareShe kept saying she was going back to Brooklyn, but at the same time she was keeping the most important piece of information to herself.
She didn't tell her Best Friend that she had gotten married. So Nancy was trying to set her up with Jim, because she was under the belief that Eilis was still single.
She also didn't tell her Mother, so her mother was also encouraging all the things that would make Eilis stay.
Once she actually told her Mother that she was already married to Tony, the Mother practically just went to: "Yeah you gotta leave this place and go back to America."
I understand that she had valid reasons to not tell her Mother right away. Both are still in mourning for Rose and her revealing that she got married at that time would not have gone over well. Some Catholics still hold to the tradition of not getting married for at least a full year after a close relative died, I'd think that would have been even more so the case in 1950s Ireland.
But, she had no reason to keep the big news from Nancy. And once Nancy might've known, she wouldn't have encouraged Jim to be around all the time with them.
Good post/comments.
shareyes. she was a douche.
shareThat was my first thought after finishing the movie as well. It was not clear where her heart was especially after that last dance with Jim. While I can sympathize with her mixed feelings about leaving her home (again), the movie made it seem like the only reason she went back to Tony was because of Miss Kelly. It didn't exactly make for a fairy tale ending.
shareNo, no fairy tale ending, as if viewers require that sort of thing.
I think this question, the OP's question on this thread, is central to the film and its value. The point very much is that Eilis had a tough choice to make. It was not obvious that one was clearly better than the other, until Miss Kelly made it clear how difficult, probably impossible, it would have been to stay.
It would be an error, though I think, to say this difficulty was reflective of some defect in Tony. Although of course his having talked her into marriage was what made it likely impossible for her to stay in Ireland.
The problem I see with the position that she clearly should have gone to Brooklyn was not that she would have found the relative life of comfort not enough. In fact it is not necessarily material wealth that makes up the lion's share of "comfort" here. Her mother, now without Rose to care for her, would be alone. Having work that was suitable was not only about now having more money, but also in being appreciated and not having to work for the likes of Miss Kelly. She was around her best friend, who marries a fellow who turns out to be good for her, or seems to be. And of course Jim not only did not pursue the other girl, and not only turns out to be interested in Eilis, but turns out to be a nice guy, unlike what she thought before.
Part of the film of course has to do with the theme of transformation, with Brooklyn itself more a concept of a process of such than as purely a place. Brooklyn is what happened to Eilis, and yes that it did changed the way people in her hometown saw here, and not only that but did change Eilis herself. But what then to make of her take on the place before she left? Was that, was the sense of her leaving when the film begins, really more accurate or less than it was when she returned?
I think the answer is both, or neither - the subjective relation she had to her hometown changed because she did. It was in my view certainly no less authentic than was her view of it before her going to Brooklyn. Whether she would change back as it were if she stayed, as someone suggested above, is simply not knowable as she does choose to go back to Brooklyn, because we don't know what would have happened in such regard.
It is after all entirely possible for someone to journey to some other place, or country, learn from that experience and take that back with you, making you a, well, more knowledgeable, experienced and sophisticated person than you left. Better able to be yourself than before. This is a common phenomenon.
And Eilis really has not much other than Tony's possibly turning out to be the prince he seems to potentially be. Why for example did their marriage have to be secret? Would he be able to pull off this property development deal? If not, then what?
But the film settles for an answer of sorts, that being Miss Kelly's involvement, and I have no problem with using a plot turn of that sort to answer the question. It is plausible, first of all. Very much so. It is clear enough that Eilis probably could not stay, and that if she did stay she would not likely end up with Jim. And even aside from Tony there was enough pull to bring Eilis back to Brooklyn. She had become by then enough of an American, I think, to see the benefit of it, even if not so much as to no longer be happy in Ireland.
But yes, this is a key question.
In my opinion, the gossipy, miserable, slave driving, shop owner lady turned out to do Eilis a favor. She was flirting with the idea of cheating on her husband and staying in Ireland, which would have been a mistake. She didn't know what to do. But, the gossipy shop owner lady cleared everything up for her. After being confronted about her supposed marriage, she realized what she needed to do --- stop fooling around in Ireland and get back to her new better life.
Agreed with above. She may have been a mean gossipy old lady, but at that point Eilis deserved to be scolded. While her indecisiveness was understandable she was being dishonest to Tony, Jim, her mother--everyone.
shareI think she still would have ended up going back.
shareYours is the type of question that can never be addressed, not to mention answered, in this type of fictional story. The author of the novel, and the scriptwriter, all along planned that she would be tempted then realize that she didn't belong in her small town with petty people. So there can be no " what Eilis would have done had her marriage remained secret? " because that never was a possibility.
You can ask that question in a biographical story, not in a fictional one. You might as well ask "What would Tony have done for a wife if Eilis had never gone to Brooklyn?" Although I suppose some like to ask even that question!
..*.. TxMike ..*..
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes not.