Childish Adults in 20th Century Irish Literature

In modern Ireland, women are having children less than they were a few decades ago. This fact is illustrated within modern Irish literature. Children are scarce in William Trevor’s Reading Turgenev and in Edna O’Brien’s Wild Decembers. Both stories follow the struggles of adult Irish relationships that aren’t complicated with the task of raising children during the time of the plot. While the children are rarely anywhere to be found, many characters act like they are children when they supposed to be mature adults. Both novels portray adults as if they are childish.

Trevor’s Reading Turgenev doesn’t introduce any characters that are children, but the adults in the story act more like children. Throughout the book, children do show up now and again, but they are merely memories of the characters in their youth. Mary Louise Dallon is usually pictured as a young girl by her old school teacher, Miss Mullover. Mary Louise’s husband, Elmer Quarry, is also mentioned as a child through his own flashbacks and memories. The schoolhouse in the town that Mary Louise, her siblings, and Elmer and his sisters were taught at by Miss Mullover is gone from the town. The only child that we are told about is Mary Louise’s sister Letty’s son and the readers don’t ever get to see him.

Mary Louise is the biggest example of an adult acting more like a child. Mary Louise marries Elmer and the couple never have children of their own. The couple never consummate the marriage and Mary Louise will forever have her “innocence” like a child. Reading Turgenev constantly refers to Elmer as a man, Mary Louise is always considered to be just a girl. This word choice gives the reader the feeling as if Mary Louise is young, not old enough to be considered a woman...

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...a for her.

Breege, O’Briens most mature character in the story, even shows a childish side of herself. After Breege meets Rosemary, Bugler’s girlfriend, she has a sort of meltdown. Breege gets so upset she crawls into a nativity scene. It’s symbolic that Breege is crawling into the scene. The nativity scene is a scene of birth and Breege is reverting from walking, to crawling, maybe trying to get back to the state of birth. She would want to be in this state because she could be carefree and not have to worry about Bugler’s relationship.

Any one person can take a guess at the deeper meaning of these novels. The only thing the reader knows for sure is that in these 20th century Irish novels, children are nowhere to be found. It’s obvious that both O’Brien and Trevor sacrificed using children in their novels to make their adult characters stand out that much more.