Boarding House Illustrates This Concept

¶ … Boarding House" illustrates this concept of ideologyas false conciousness operating in the lives of the characters The central character in James Joyce's story, Mrs. Mooney is the individual who became a subject aware of the vital importance of materialism in one's life. All her actions are determined by her belief in the economic importance of life and all people who she interacts with are influenced by her determination and belief in the essential characteristic of human of existence: its economic structure. Mrs.

Mooney's actions are destined to rich her goals with one exception: her husband. The determined woman who only acts according to her trust in the importance of economic matters above all other things is hindered only for a while in her course by the husband she chose out of exclusively materialistic reasons.

Life plays a trick on her when her father's foreman in the butchery the former owned, after becoming her husband, changes his behaviour as if in an attempt to escape what Marx called "the economic materialism" controlling human existence throughout history and starts drinking heavily, loosing money and taking decisions that will eventually bring the business into ruin. In spite of this, Mrs. Mooney goes on her way as if the only way she knows and will ever be able to take and separates from the source of problems.

"She would give him neither money nor food nor house-room."(Joyce). By this, she finds a way in bringing his life back on the course of acting as a result imposed by basic needs, the only way she knows: she denies him the means of existence. This will force him to take a job and return in the world where economic materialism determines human behaviour.

Although one would say that a divorce and a husband who almost lost his mind should shatter one's beliefs and make one stop and ponder on what caused it and the righteousness of one's actions, Mrs. Mooney does not waste too much time on what proves to be a mere "episode" of her existence. Rudolf Rocker's Insufficiency of Economic Materialism could come to mind at this stage of Mrs.

Mooney's life, but she does not seem aware of such theory and even if she were she does not care for it. Economic materialism make her become the Madam of a boarding house she opens with what money was left from the butchery and her managing capabilities show a clever business woman leading the new small business. Thus she finds the means to support her and her two children. Beside the main material profit her business, Mrs. Mooney seems to have further reasons, too.

Her boarders were "clerks from the city"(Joyce), young men she also takes care to entertain. The motive is revealed in the next paragraph were the usual Sunday nights reunions in her font drawing room are mentioned. "Polly Mooney, the Madam's daughter, would also sing. She sang: I'm a.. naughty girl. / You needn't sham:/ You know I am. "(Joyce). At this point one begins to ask about the exact destination of Mrs. Mooney's boarding house. Things take a shade of triviality. Polly's will is nonexistent.

She is described as a puppet in her mother's hands. The higher aim for economic materialism that determines her mother's decisions is acting through her and moving the limbs of her daughter. Up to a point, Polly does nothing of her own will. Her mother sends her to work in a typist's office and her mother takes her back home when she finds out Polly's father is coming by the office trying to speak with her.

The girl is finally doing what she seems destined to: entertain the young residents at the boarding house. Her destiny appears to be predictable up to here. The boarding house provides the perfect means for a daughter to find her spouse, the means of acquiring life necessities. Everything is exclusively materialistic in the actions of mother and daughter. History, on a shorter scale, did not teach Mrs.

Mooney that economic reasons, however well pondered, may escape logic and bring failure to any action that arose from a perfect legitimate reasoning in the end. Mrs. Mooney's choice of a husband was made according to a concept that worked very simple: her father's foreman was the best possible solution to continue the successful business. This proved to be wrong in the end because no one could have predicted his later alcohol addiction and his alienation. Although, psychologically speaking, a scientist might find the causes in the very marriage.

The historical conditions Mrs. Mooney lived in were also determinant for her seeing only one viable solution that should have guaranteed her economic well being. Later, she could have decided to run the butcher shop herself, but that option was not available by the time she got married. By the time her daughter came to the age of marriage, this was still the only option in her mother's views in order to assure her daughter's material means of existence.

The words used by Joyce are economic terms showing the exclusivity of materialism in determining the actions of the two. After being taken home from the typist's office, Polly is given by her mother the task to "run" the young men at the boarding house, as if she were to run a business.

It was all bout business since her mother who is keeping a close eye on her daughter's "running" of her young companions knows "the young men were only passing the time away: none of them meant business"(Joyce). The morality of her doings is not a question here. Mrs. Mooney's conduct is completely subject to her conviction that the only way is the way towards reaching the economic means that allow existence. This is not explicitly shown by Joyce, but it is the law that governs the Mooney's household.

The business of marrying her daughter shows Mrs. Mooney's abilities to be a judge, a patient harvester who knows when to plant the seed, to water his plants and especially, know when the time for the harvest arrived. At the peak of events, the mother shows that is she could have chosen the possibility to run her father's business at the beginning at her adult life, she would have succeeded: "At last, when she judged it to be the right moment, Mrs. Mooney intervened.

She dealt with moral problems as a cleaver deals with meat: and in this case she had made up her mind"(Joyce). Mother and daughter become two shrewd modern business women. The never signed a contract or held a.