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...

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 business meeting or made reports about their achievements but their behaviour and the results of their actions re typically business oriented. The daughter seems unaware of all her mother's schemes and calculations, but she her actions are never contradicting her mother or jeopardising her business strategy.
The following events could be a successful business study. Mrs. Mooney knows what her cases strengths are and she knows she could only win. She also knows human nature. She studied the young man's background and she knows perfectly well what he has to loose if he decides to do otherwise than oblige her and marry her daughter. For the first time, Mrs. Mooney shows that she knows what morality meant for the society she lived in and does mot hesitate to use it as the supreme argument that will bring her the victory. It is all down to business: she studied her competition, she knows her adversary and she has the means to make him agree with her and take her daughters hand. She also has an ally, her son who will provide the final argument of force, if necessary.

Mrs. Mooney is in the end the successful business woman who knows perfectly well the rules of business and deals with people regardless of other laws outside the business world.

Works Cited

Joyce, James. The Boarding House. Copyright: 2001, 2005. Retrieved Nov 24, 2007 at http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/bookid.348/sec./

Marx., Karl. Introductory Comments on Readings for Week 4: Ideology and Subjectivity Retrieved Nov 26, 2007. At http://www.english.ilstu.edu/strickland/495/ideology.html

Rocker, Rudolf. The Insufficiency of Economic Materialism. Retrieved Nov, 26, 2007 at http://flag.blackened.net/rocker/insuf.htm