After a difficult marriage with a drunken husband that
ends in separation, Mrs. Mooney opens a boarding house to make a living. Her
son, Jack, and daughter, Polly, live with her in the house, which is filled
with clerks from the city, as well as occasional tourists and musicians. Mrs.
Mooney runs a strict and tight business and is known by the lodgers as “The
Madam.” Polly, who used to work in an office, now stays at home at her mother’s
request, to amuse the lodgers and help with the cleaning. Surrounded by so many
young men, Polly inevitably develops a relationship with one of them, Mr.
Doran. Mrs. Mooney knows about the relationship, but instead of sending Polly
back to work in the city, she monitors its developments. Polly becomes
increasingly uncomfortable with her mother’s lack of intervention, but Mrs.
Mooney waits until “the right moment” to intercede. First she speaks awkwardly
with Polly, then arranges to speak with Mr. Doran on a Sunday morning.
Mrs. Mooney looks forward to her confrontation, which she
intends to “win” by defending her daughter’s honor and convincing Mr. Doran to
offer his hand in marriage. Waiting for the time to pass, Mrs. Mooney figures
the odds are in her favor, considering that Mr. Doran, who has worked for a
wine merchant for thirteen years and garnered much respect, will choose the
option that least harms his career.
Meanwhile, Mr. Doran anguishes over the impending meeting
with Mrs. Mooney. As he clumsily grooms himself for the appointment, he reviews
the difficult confession to his priest that he made on Saturday evening, in
which he was harshly reproved for his romantic affair. He knows he can either
marry Polly or run away, the latter an option that would ruin his sound
reputation. Convincing himself that he has been duped, Mr. Doran bemoans
Polly’s unimpressive family, her ill manners, and her poor grammar, and wonders
how he can remain free and unmarried. In this vexed moment Polly enters the
room and threatens to end her life out of unhappiness. In her presence, Mr. Doran
begins to remember how he was bewitched by Polly’s beauty and kindness, but he
still wavers about his decision.
Uneasy, Mr. Doran comforts Polly and departs for the
meeting, leaving her to wait in the room. She rests on the bed crying for a
while, neatens her appearance, and then nestles back in the bed, dreaming of
her possible future with Mr. Doran. Finally, Mrs. Mooney interrupts the reverie
by calling to her daughter. Mr. Doran, according to Mrs. Mooney, wants to speak
with Polly.
Analysis
In “The Boarding House,” marriage offers promise and
profit on the one hand, and entrapment and loss on the other. What begins as a
simple affair becomes a tactical game of obligation and reparation. Mrs.
Mooney’s and Mr. Doran’s propositions and hesitations suggest that marriage is
more about social standards, public perception, and formal sanctions than about
mere feelings. The character of Mrs. Mooney illustrates the challenges that a
single mother of a daughter faces, but her scheme to marry Polly into a higher
class mitigates any sympathetic response from the reader. Mrs. Mooney may have
endured a difficult marriage and separation, but she now carries the dubious
title of “The Madam,” a term suggestive of her scrupulous managing of the
house, but also of the head of whorehouse. Mrs. Mooney does, in fact,
prostitute her daughter to some degree. She insists that Polly leave her office
job and stay at home at the boarding house, in part so she might entertain,
however innocently, the male lodgers. When a relationship blossoms, Mrs. Mooney
tracks it until the most profitable moment—until she is sure Mr. Doran, a
successful clerk, must propose to Polly out of social propriety. Mrs. Mooney
justly insists that men should carry the same responsibility as women in these
casual love affairs, but at the same time prides herself on her ability to rid
herself of a dependent daughter so easily.
Mr. Doran agonizes about the limitations and loss of
respect that marrying beneath him will bring, but he ultimately relents out of
fear of social critique from his priest, his employer, Mrs. Mooney, and Polly’s
violent brother. When Polly visits him in distress he feels as helpless as she
does, even though he tells her not to worry. He goes through the motions of
what society expects of him, not according to what he intuitively feels. When
he descends the stairs to meet with Mrs. Mooney, he yearns to escape but knows
no one is on his side. The “force” that pushes him down the stairs is a force
of anxiety about what others will think of him. While Mr. Doran’s victimization
by Mrs. Mooney evokes pity, his self-concern and harsh complaints about Polly’s
unpolished background and manner of speaking make him an equal counterpart to
Mrs. Mooney. He worries little about Polly’s integrity or feelings, and instead
considers his years of hard work and good reputation now verging on
destruction.
D.N.
Aloysius
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