Magic Realism in Francis’s Journey to the Past
In the novel Ironweed by William Kennedy, the protagonist, Francis Phelan, is constantly trying to escape his past. He leaves the town he lives in to avoid dealing with problems and decisions he made years before. Unfortunately for Francis, a man named William Faulkner once said “the past is not dead. In fact, it is not even the past.” Many people go through life not realizing how much the past truly does affect them. However, running from the past is inevitable and will always find its way back into one’s life. One can see how William Kennedy used magic realism by making the living and the dead coexist. Not only did the dead walk among the living, but they were able to converse with one another. Francis’ infant son, Gerald, was only thirteen days old when he accidentally slipped out of his diaper. When the baby hit the linoleum floor, he broke his neck bone and died. Francis only drank a few beers when he dropped the child and he never forgave himself for the death of his baby boy. The memory haunted him and eventually led to Francis’ fleeing of the town. Years later, he returns and finds himself a job working at a cemetery. When he approaches Gerald’s grave, the memories from his past hit him hard. He talks to the grass and shows the deep sympathy and guilt that he feels. Kennedy uses elements of magic realism by allowing Francis to express his emotions with Gerald and by giving Gerald the ability to respond back. Oddly enough, Gerald not only had the ability to speak back to his father, but was also very intelligent.
“[Gerald was] denied speech in life [and] died with only monosyllabic goos and gaahs in his vocabulary. [Now] Gerald possessed the gift of tongues in death. His ability to communicate and to understand was at the genius level among the dead… [Gerald] imposed on his father the pressing obligation to perform his final acts of expiation for abandoning the family. You will not know, the child silently said, what these acts are until you have performed them all. And after you have performed them you will not understand that they were expiatory any more than you have understood al the other expiation that has kept you in such prolonged humiliation. Then, when these acts are complete, you will stop trying to die because of me” (17, 19).

A child of only thirteen days would not have such impressive grammar, nor would a child of that age be able to understand the guilt that Francis was going through. Fortunately, being able to have a conversation with his son gave him the closure he needed to move on. Other characters in the novel that forced Francis to face his reality were the ghosts of two men that Francis killed. They both appear at some point in Francis’ journey to relive those past memories and analyze Francis’s reasoning. One ghost, Harold Allen was a single man from Worcester, Massachusetts “Why did you kill me?” “Didn’t mean to kill you.”
“Was that why you threw that stone the size of a potato and broke up my skull? My brains flowed out and I died” (26).

Francis believed that this man deserved what he got because he was a “scab” who stole jobs and prevented families from putting food on the table. It was clear he felt no remorse, and only began to feel guilty when Harold replied with “odd logic coming from a man who abandoned his own family not only that summer but every spring and summer thereafter, when baseball season started” (26). Harold’s appearance as a ghost forced Francis to address the guilt he felt for leaving his family.
Rowdy Dick Doolan was the other man that Francis killed. Francis killed him because he was trying to defend himself; Rowdy Dick came after him with a meat cleaver trying to cut off his feet and take his shoes. As an act of self defense, Francis took him and swung him against concrete. “[This] cracked Rowdy Dick’s skull from left parietal to the squamous area of the occipital, rendering him bloody, insensible, leaking, and instantly dead” (74). Rowdy also brought Francis to understand his coping mechanism; which was to run away when life got tough. “What Francis recalled of this unmanageable situation was the compulsion to flight, the most familiar notion” (76). After killing both of these men, Francis left his life in Albany to forget those painful memories and to avoid the guilt and consequences that followed him. The element of magic is also seen when Kennedy yet again allows Francis to communicate with the dead. Each ghost was able to help Francis learn new characteristics about himself. In fact, he learned that the past is never truly in the past, but coexists with the present and will continue to help one learn and grow.
Francis came to the realization that no matter how hard one tries, the past will always find its way back into one’s life. After he faced his past and remembered his passion for baseball and the love he had for Annie. In the beginning, each and every ghost he saw symbolized the weight of the guilt that he had been feeling over the years. The ghosts were able to help Francis overcome his mistakes and indirectly taught him lessons. Kennedy’s use of magic is faint, and at times can be tricky, but one can definitely see magical elements incorporated into the text. Francis not only faced his past physically and emotionally, but he is now also able to change present situations and the events in the future.
All of the experiences that Francis had with those he killed and abandoned ultimately pushed him to conquer his past and return to his family; who he had not seen in twenty-two years. The moment he sees his wife Annie, the choices he made in the past are presented and he fearfully tries to face this troubling situation. “Somethin’ to say about this. I got to get at it, get it out. I’m so goddamned sorry, and I know that don’t cut nothin’. I know it’s just a bunch of shitass words, excuse the expression. It’s nothin’ to what I did to you and the kids. I can’t make it up” (162). Once Francis apologized, the guilt that he has been carrying around is lifted and he is able to gain back some of his soul.
William Kennedy’s novel Ironweed, tells the tale of a character who is running away from the mistakes he made in the past; a man who cannot live in the present until he forgives himself. But as Faulkner once said, “the past is not dead. In fact, it is not even the past.” Other than one’s spirituality and beliefs, there is no evidence that supports communication between the living and the dead. However we see that it is possible throughout the novel. The past is not something that one can just put behind them, but something that one should embrace and learn from.

Works Cited

Kennedy, William. Ironweed. New York: The Viking Press, 1983. Print.