Charlie Spinale
AP Literature
& Composition
8/12/14
2nd
half of “Charming Billy” prompt: “Though Billy Lynch is the title character of
the novel, ‘Charming Billy’ presents several other well-rounded characters.
Choose a character other than Billy and discuss the methods the author uses to create
him/her. How does your chosen character contribute to the meaning of the novel?”
In
the novel Charming Billy, Alice
McDermott develops several well-rounded characters whose lives are influenced and
shaped by the title character, Billy Lynch. In spite of the fact that Billy is
never able to forget his true love for Eva, he marries Maeve who somewhat allows
him to move on with his life. Nevertheless, Billy keeps Eva in his heart as his
first and only true love. Throughout the novel the reader sees how McDermott
creates Maeve, a woman who deals with several hardships yet still manages to
express love for those who truly hurt her. McDermott creates Maeve using
indirect and direct characterization and builds an emotional attachment towards
her. While McDermott informs the reader of Maeve’s hardships, this relationship
is formed towards her out of pity.
The
novel begins with Maeve at the funeral party and the reader later finds out she
is the wife of Billy Lynch. The reader’s curiosity of Billy Lynch and his life
story allows the reader to also be intrigued by Maeve because at that point she
is most likely the closest thing to Billy Lynch’s life. McDermott uses direct
characterization to give the reader a first impression of Maeve, describing her
as plain in terms of looks and clothing but at the same time this plainness is described
as a form of courage: “[…] perhaps inspired by the perfect simplicity of what
she wore—that there was a kind of beauty in her ordinary looks, in her plainness.
[…] but the courage it took to look out onto life from a face as plain as
butter: pale, downy skin and bland blue eyes, faded brown hair cut short as a
nun’s and dimmed with gray” (5, McDermott). This quote describes Maeve’s
clothing and how it was exceptionally simple. Some people thought of this
simplicity as a form of beauty while others thought that her simplicity represented
courage. This courage is not the courage of a new widow who just lost her
husband but the courage of a woman who could still manage to view the world positively
while being so bland. McDermott also directly describes Maeve’s looks by
pointing out her plain aspects. Her skin is described as “pale” and “downy”,
her eyes “bland”, and her hair “faded” and “gray”. All of these aspects of
Maeve’s looks and personality are symbolic because Maeve represents something “pale”,
“bland”, “faded”, and “gray” suggesting that she is aged and also nothing
special and someone who would not be with a man as great as Billy Lynch. To
Billy, Maeve was his second option. She was something that could help him think
he was moving on with his life when in reality his true love for Eva would
endure for the rest of his life.
As
the story progresses the reader learns more about Eva, the Irish girl Billy had
asked to marry. Billy gets a job at Holtzman’s shoe store in order to get money
to send to Eva so she can come live in America with him. Billy gets an advance
of 500 dollars and immediately sends the money to Eva. Eva, being young and
scared of starting her life decides to keep the money and stay in Ireland. She
marries, has children, and opens up a gas station/coffee shop. In order to protect Billy’s innocence, Dennis,
Billy’s friend, tells Billy that Eva had died. This lie essentially leads to
Billy’s downfall. He uses drinking in order to mend the pain of losing Eva. Maeve
and Billy meet at the shoe store and it is immediately noticed that she is in
love with Billy and is already thinking about her future with him: “She was the
plain one with the father, the one who without him would have become a nun. She
was the one who, having chosen this part, must stand steadily by as his future
was formed for her” (156). This quote explains Maeve’s life at a glance. She
was the bland girl with the drunken father who she had to take care of and she
was the one that would have become a nun if it was not for Billy. She also was
the one who caught Billy in a vulnerable part of his life. Billy had just lost
Eva and he needed someone to help him deal with his pain and move on with his
life. Maeve therefore represents a caretaker. She took care of her drunken
father her whole life and she has to take care of Billy who is now half the man
he was before he lost Eva. Maeve’s will also have to deal with yet another addiction
to alcohol.
In
order to create Maeve, McDermott tells her life story enabling the reader to
build an emotional relationship with her. The reader felt sympathy for Maeve
right at the beginning of the novel when Billy’s death is made known. The
reader later finds out about Maeve’s unpleasant childhood: “Maeve was only
eight when her mother died” (154) and her drunken father who she takes care of
until his death: “Her father drank most evenings […] And when things got out of
hand—when, in his cups, he growled at her or cursed her or waved his arms about
as if her love and attention were cobwebs she’d draped around him […]” (155).
The first quote states that Maeve’s mother died when she was 8, implying Maeve
had to become mature at a very young age in order to care for her father. In the second quote the reader learns how
Maeve’s father is a drunk because of the loss of his wife. However, Maeve still
manages to show him love even though his drinking became severe. The reader
feels considerable sympathy for Maeve who is being shooed away by her father
for showing love yet she still “draped” around him showing him an untold amount
of love when he was simply being a cold-hearted drunk. The fact that Maeve cares for her father who
lost his wife foreshadows that she will be caring for Billy who uses drinking
as a way to ease his pain of losing Eva. The reader also feels pity for Maeve
because it is made well aware that Billy truly does not love Maeve but, rather
sought solace and was just waiting to be with Eva: ‘Ever since the night Dennis
told him the news, he was waiting to die’ (24). The reader cannot help but feel downhearted for
a woman who loves a man so much yet she is only a second option, the girl who
Billy had just happened to meet in the shoe store when he was in need of
someone to help mend his wound from his loss of his true love Eva. The reader
sees Maeve’s love for Billy through everything she did in order to be with him
and the sheer factor that she deals with his drinking for so many years. The
reader sees how in love Maeve is with Billy when she destroyed several of her father’s
shoes just so she had a reason to go back to the shoe store to see Billy: ‘I
threw my father’s shoe down the incinerator’ […] ‘Just to see Billy’ (186). The
reader can see how strong Maeve’s feelings are towards Billy if she was willing
to just destroy a shoe so she could go see Billy and maybe exchange a few words
with him. McDermott’s ability to build a strong emotional relationship between
her characters and the reader allows the characters to become fully developed
and hence understood. Without a
background on Maeve’s life the reader would not feel emotional attached to her.
Maeve’s
willingness to love Billy even after everything he put her through exhibits how
she does not give up on a life that she hoped would turn around for the best.
McDermott shows in detail the struggles Maeve went through in her daily routine
with Billy in order to create her as a character that was capable of loving
someone that caused heartache every day. Once again the reader sees Maeve as the victim
with the struggles she goes through with Billy: “[…] a thousand and one moments
she would never recount, things he had said to her, terrible things he had
done, ways she had seen him (toothless, incoherent, half-clothed, bloodied,
soiled, weeping) […] And the next thing she knew he had her by the throat”
(182-183). This quote explicates how Maeve had to deal with Billy the way most
people have to deal with alcoholics. The pain Maeve faced because of Billy’s
drinking and things he did and said were things that she did not have the
strength of repeating. The reader sees this as an emerging pattern because first
she had to deal with her father’s drinking and now Billy’s. Both contained
abuse, in Billy’s case physical abuse. One night when he was drunk and she
called his name so he would go to bed he ignored her. She told him Dennis would
not come and he too had had enough of him. All of a sudden Billy grabbed her by
her throat and then after a few seconds he began crying at her feet. This symbolizes
Billy’s struggle. As much as he just wanted a life with Eva he could not get
it. One minute he is strangling Maeve and the next minute he is crying at her
feet because he is well aware he needs her and she is his only way of
attempting to cope with his loss and move on. Maeve’s hopes in fixing the people she loved
never turned out as she planned. She could never fix her father’s drinking
problem and she could never essentially fix Billy’s or his ceaseless idea of
keeping Eva in his heart as his only true love. This point is emphasized
through Billy’s friend Dennis who describes Maeve’s faults: ‘Maeve made the
same mistake we all did, Dan. She not only put up with him, she hoped he was
right, in all his strange notions. She hoped the world would somehow turn out
to be just the way he believed it to be. She hoped somehow that he’d turn out
to be right in the end, with all his hanging on to the past. All his loyalty to
the dead. Even if it meant she’d have no life of her own’ (224). This quote shows
that Maeve made the same mistake all Billy’s family and friends made. They all
put up with his drinking and never really put their feet down properly to stop
him. She also hoped he was right with every idea he had about the world around
him. She wanted it to turn out how he said it would turn out. But it never did because
Billy is unrealistic as a character. He strives to high for things that will
never happen and will just leave him in pain his entire life, and that’s exactly
what happened to Billy Lynch because he could never erase Eva from his mind.
Maeve, in hopes that her persistent help and endearment towards Billy’s
drinking would show him that she really cared and loved him and would make him
realize he needed to stop drinking never worked. She could not conjure up enough
love for Billy to give him a reason to stop drinking; she could not conjure up
enough love to show him that she truly loved him because Billy unrealistically
kept the fact locked in his mind that Eva was his only love.
Maeve’s
loving character is pivotal to the novel, Charming
Billy. Maeve provides Billy and her father, two men who cope with their
losses with alcohol, with unconditional love. In today’s society some people
give up on their loved ones realizing some things cannot change about them but
Maeve never gives up. She fights to the end for Billy hoping he will change but
he dies with Eva still being his only true love in his heart and as an alcoholic.
Essentially, Maeve fails because Billy never changes. The novel shows how different
certain personalities can be. Maeve is hopeful for change, while Billy is unrealistic
and sticks to a love he had for a girl that he only spent a small portion of
his life with. The novel ends with an unexpected twist: “They were married in
March of 1991, my father and Maeve” (280). This indicated Dennis and Maeve got
married later in their lives after both had lost their loved ones. This shows
that death can bring new life and change. Although Dennis loses his wife and
Maeve loses Billy, they both represent characters that are strong, prudent, and
capable of moving on with their lives. Billy and Maeve both shared a deep love
for Billy and a need to protect him and care for him all those nights they
spent dragging him to his bed. The novel goes to show that just because something
ends tragically it does not mean it cannot begin again beautifully at a different
point in life. Maeve’s character manifests how deceiving first impressions can
truly be. The reader first sees Maeve as this bland woman in terms of her
features and clothing, but most of the world is bland in one way or another. It
is just that most choose to cover up their blandness with nice clothing and
other things that change their natural appearance. Maeve was never bland at
all, she had bland features like everyone else but she chose to not hide any of
her blandness because she never thought she would be loved. Maeve was always
the one showing love and caring for her drunken husband and father. Maeve was
viewed as the plainest character in the novel. But, deep down Maeve was the most
elaborate, acquiring love after so many years of fighting for it at an age when
most people would be telling their life story not creating a new one.
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