In The Boarding House by James Joyce we have the theme of powerlessness, social opinion, paralysis and marriage. Taken from his Dubliners collection the story is narrated in the third person by and unnamed narrator and what is interesting about the story is that the reader is given the point of view of two of the main characters in the story, Mrs Mooney and Bob Doran. Some readers will also notice that Joyce, as he does in a lot of the stories in Dubliners, is using colours (brown and yellow) to symbolise decay and paralysis. Instances of this within the story include Joyce describing what some of the lodgers in Mrs Money’s boarding house have eaten for breakfast. Joyce tells the reader that ‘the table of the breakfast-room was covered with plates on which lay yellow streaks of eggs and morsels of bacon-fat and bacon rind.’ This description is significant as Joyce is symbolizing, through colour the state of paralysis that exists within Mrs Mooney’s boarding house, particularly for Bob Doran. Another instance of Joyce using colour (yellow) to highlight a state of paralysis is the gilt clock that Mrs Mooney looks at when she is waiting for Bob to come and talk to her.
The idea or theme of powerlessness is also explored in the story while Bob is in his room thinking about what he has to do. He feels trapped, concerned about what his friends and employers will think about his relationship with Polly and by what the priest has told him he must do. The role of the priest in the story is significant as it is possible that Joyce is highlighting the level of involvement that the Catholic Church had in the lives of ordinary people in Ireland at the time that Joyce wrote Dubliners. Priests would have been the first port of call for a lot of people.
Any opportunities of advancement that Bob felt he had, both professionally and personally seem to be dashed as well, now that he is under an obligation to marry Polly. This lack of advancement which Bob feels, should he marry Polly, is important as it further suggests the idea or theme of paralysis. Bob’s fear of Jack Mooney is also important as it contributes to the sense of powerlessness that Bob feels. It is obvious to the reader, particularly through Joyce’s description of Jack, that Bob is afraid of him. This is further compounded when Bob recalls the incident between Jack and the little blond Londoner who had previously lodged in Mrs Mooney’s.
The idea of Bob feeling trapped is also interesting because the reader is aware that Mrs Mooney allowed Polly to interact with the gentlemen of her boarding house. It is as if he has been unwittingly trapped by Mrs Mooney and Polly. Joyce in his character description of Mrs Mooney calls her cunning. It is possible that Mrs Mooney bided her time, till Polly developed a relationship with someone that Mrs Mooney considered to be of a good social class or a person with opportunities and potential. Someone who would take Polly off her hands and marry her. Joyce may also be using the song that Polly would sing on Sunday nights in the drawing room of the house as a foreshadowing device. The reader doesn’t get a sense that Polly is naïve or innocent. This is also noticeable (Polly not being naïve or innocent) later in the story when she is sitting on Bob’s bed, while Bob is downstairs talking to her mother. As she is sitting on the bed Polly starts to think of her future, a future the reader senses she believes will be with Bob.
Polly has full confidence in her mother’s abilities to persuade Bob to marry her. This strength of character (or Mrs Mooney’s abilities) is also highlighted in the story when the reader learns that Mrs Mooney is called The Madam. Mrs Mooney being referred to as The Madam is significant, a madam would have been a term that many would have used, at the time the story was written, for a woman who runs a brothel (or is in control of a brothel). Though there is no suggestion that Mrs Mooney is running a brothel, her boarding house nonetheless has started to get a bad reputation.
Social opinion or the perception of what others think is also a theme that runs through the story. Firstly Mrs Mooney believes that she has ‘all the weight of social opinion on her side, she was an outraged mother.’ This is significant as Mrs Mooney believes she is in the right, that she has been wronged. She allowed Bob to stay in her house, trusting him around her daughter and he has ‘simply abused her hospitality.’ Also for Bob, social opinion is important, there is a fear as regards what his friends and employers will think about Polly, she is not as refined as he would like her to be. If anything there is a sense of embarrassment for Bob.
The importance of social opinion to Bob and Mrs Mooney can also be seen at the end of the story, when Polly is called down to talk to her mother and Bob. Though the reader never learns what Bob is to say to Polly, it is most likely that he has followed Mrs Mooney’s instruction and he will marry Polly. Bob knows that it is easier to marry Polly than have people talking about him, particularly his employer, the Church and the other lodgers in Mrs Mooney’s boarding house. Bob is marrying Polly, not out of love, but out of fear of what others will say about him if he doesn’t marry her.