Guests of the Nation: Part 4 Summary & Analysis

Seeing Noble fully participating in the execution, ‘Awkins feels betrayed all over again. When he insists he wouldn’t kill the Irish soldiers if the situation were reversed, he tries to put the execution in human terms, rather than seeing it through Jereimiah’s notions of duty and opposing armies. Friendship is the primary motivator for ‘Awkins, which explains his disbelief that someone he calls a friend would kill him because of something that happened far away.

Jeremiah asks ‘Awkins if he wants to say his prayers, which is especially ironic considering ‘Awkins’ opinions on religion. Instead, ‘Awkins offers the ultimate act of “disunion between brothers”—deserting his own army to fight for the “enemy—something Bonaparte imagined doing to a lesser extent. By offering to switch sides in a national conflict, he nullifies any questions of national identity or duty. Instead, it’s “chums” that he’s chiefly concerned with.

Bonparte shuts his eyes and “tried to say a prayer” as Jeremiah shoots ‘Awkins. The word choice of “tried” is crucial because it implies the effort wasn’t entirely successful, emphasizing the inadequacy of traditional belief in the face of this violence. All talk of duty or country also falls silent, as ‘Awkins death seems to render these ideas meaningless.

Belcher needs to provide his own handkerchief to place over his eyes. This seems to validate ‘Awkins’s accusation that the Irish were playing at soldiers, as they seem to have stumbled into this execution and are merely going through the motions. Belcher even has to remind Bonaparte to shoot ‘Awkins again to kill him. It’s telling that Bonaparte delivers the second shot rather than Jeremiah, as it’s an act of mercy delivered by someone who cared about ‘Awkins.

Belcher here seems to introduce his own theology as distinct from ‘Awkins’s or the old woman’s. He believes that only the dead have full access to spiritual truth, and that while we’re alive, we live “in the dark.”

Belcher’s revelation that he lost his family gives a deeper meaning to his puzzling actions throughout the story. As he says, he was trying to recreate a “feeling of a ‘ome.” Warming himself the fireplace (a symbol of home), helping the old woman with chores, and instituting the nightly ritual of the card game all point to a desire to create a new family.

Belcher seems ashamed to talk about doing housework while facing death, but the fact that his thoughts return there proves how important these simple actions were to him. O’Connor implies that the household chores that seem so trivial were the basis of Belcher’s “feeling of ‘ome.” In contrast, Belcher shrugs off Jeremiah’s invitation to a final prayer. In the end, he found his domestic life more important than his spiritual life.

Jeremiah tries to soothe his conscience by insisting once again that he’s just doing his duty. But Belcher doesn’t play along. Instead of duty, Belcher proposes that what’s important is whether you’re a good person. This forces the Irish to face the horror of what they’re doing without the help of duty or service.

Belcher’s idea that to live is to be “in the dark” holds true in the aftermath of the execution. Multiple references to the darkness and loneliness of the bog suggest that Bonaparte and Noble are spiritually lost. The return to the old woman’s house, once a lively home, is now also “cold and dark.” The dark both outside and in seems a physical indicator that the home that once was here is gone.

In the face of grief, the old woman turns to a religious symbol, while Noble kneels at the fireplace, an enduring symbol of domestic life. Bonaparte can’t find comfort in either of these, and in fact, seems disgusted by them.

Bonaparte’s feeling of being thousands of miles away speaks to the loneliness he feels, and it also reflects an estrangement from his country and an inability to look at his homeland in the same way. Both home (his time at the old woman’s house) and homeland (attachment to Ireland) are broken by a single act of violence. And he further explains that these feelings are permanent and that he views every subsequent event in his life through that lens.