Toughlove
“His First Flight” is about the trouble a young seagull has taking flight. His brother and sister have already pretty much mastered aerial dynamics while he is stuck on a ledge with nowhere to go and nothing to eat. Which is why he gives a joyous squawk when he spots his mother flying toward him with a piece of fish in her beak. But at the last moment she reverses her momentum and simply hangs in the air, wings flapping, his next meal tantalizing just out of reach and so tempting that without thinking he dives toward it…and promptly learns how to fly. The mother’s seemingly tortuous action comes to symbolize the tough love often required of parents to urge offspring toward independence.
Darkness in Dublin
The opening sentences of “The Sniper” purposely engage imagery to create the sense of the setting in which the story takes place. It is twilight on a June night and the darkness which has fallen over Dublin is illuminated only by dim moonlight trying to pierce through fluffy clouds. The darkness becomes symbolic of the context in which the story unfolds: a civil war between citizens with a shared national heritage and culture which often pits family members against other family members and in which allegiances and loyalties must be perpetually suspected and tested.
“The Foolish Butterfly”
The title creature of this story has a problem which may yet lie in wait for the poor seagull mentioned above. The butterfly is in love with flight to the point of distraction. This distraction leads to tragic consequences when the rush overwhelms the sense of self-preservation and it flies too far out over water to return. One overly literary interpretation of this story is that the butterfly is symbolic of the transient beauty of natural things which can only be enjoyed for the briefest period of time. A less poetic interpretation would have the butterfly symbolizing the dangers of addiction.
“The Wave”
Aesthetic interpretations also seem to plague the question of what erosion symbolizes in this story. The consequence of the two-hundred-foot-high representative of solidity being victimized by the liquid forces of the waves constant battering over time is too often limited to a more literal symbolic interpretation of weakness overcoming strength. Any story by an Irish writer should at least be considered within the context of politics, however, and in this view it is entirely appropriate to view the story allegorically in which the cliff symbolizes Irish culture and the waves symbolize the historical record of British attempts to erode and erase that culture.
“Two Dogs”
This story presents a complicated symbolic examination of the true nature of competition. An old mongrel is joined by a new greyhound used by their owner for rabbit hunting. Each of the dogs seeks to earn the approval (and avoid the cruel punishment) of the owner by being the master of the chase and bringing the rabbit home in its jaws. Working together in collaboration, the owner would profit by having two capable dogs working together to catch more rabbits, but his behavior engenders the competition which ultimately results in the greyhound’s death and a little victory dance by the mongrel.
