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June Kettle
Winnie is Tom and June’s late daughter. At the beginning of the novel, Winnie visits Tom at his flat and is portrayed as a lively, conscientious daughter—but Tom soon reveals that Winnie is dead, suggesting that her “visits” are either a ghostly haunting or Tom’s grief-stricken hallucinations. In life, Winnie was a law student, but her mother’s death by suicide severely derailed her life. She barely graduated law school and developed an addiction to heroin. Although Tom was able to help her get clean for a time by convincing her to enter rehab, she ultimately died of a drug overdose. Winnie, along with her brother Joe, symbolizes the collateral damage of the abuse carried out within the Irish church: although she herself was never abused by a priest, the trauma within her family led to her mother’s death and, ultimately, her own death as well. Winnie also serves of an example of how severely trauma can change a person. Although Tom’s imagining of Winnie’s “visits” suggest that she was once a bright and happy young person, the revelation of the circumstances of her death suggest that June’s death ultimately robbed her of her joyful demeanor.
Winnie Kettle Quotes in Old God’s Time
The Old God’s Time quotes below are all either spoken by Winnie Kettle or refer to Winnie Kettle. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
[Neutrinos] passed through [Tom’s] vulnerable soul, itself an item so large it was not there either, at least to a neutrino. But did it speak of the unimportance of Tom Kettle that he was not really there to a neutrino? Maybe God saw him? What of the butterflies, what of the mother spider, what of the mites, striving for life and generations in the old carpet? True, true, in human affairs everything is hastiness and farewell. But there was a sort of proof in this that Tom Kettle was loved, even though he could not see it, as he passed through the world. He had no idea how much June had loved him, nor Winnie, nor Joe. Maybe his sleeping self knew more, intuitive, less complicated by waking thought.
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Chapter 6
Quotes
‘And, Winnie, where are you living?’ he said, suddenly unable to remember. It was very strange. A father should know where his daughter was living, surely. He knew where she was living but where was it? It had just slipped his mind. He was growing demented, he must be. ‘Where are you living?’ he said, in some distress now, a bit of a headache brewing.
‘Deansgrange, Daddy, Deansgrange.’
‘But we’ve left Deansgrange,’ he said, again with the note of panic and misery in his voice.
‘Well, but I’m still there, Daddy.’
‘Not the cemetery!’ he said, with a small cry.
‘Yes, Daddy, the cemetery.’
Chapter 16
Quotes
Even the man highest up thought he should take early retirement, but something deep in him needed to go on to the end. Then the little party and the sombre words and the happy words. Then his niche in Queenstown Castle. His wicker chair, the characterful sea, and the stolid island. And then, those quiet nine months not only of new silence, but also—what could he call it? A sort of blossoming sense of relief, maybe, that the wretched Fates had done with him. Had noticed his great happiness long ago, and emblem by emblem taken it away from him. Then the day that Wilson and O’Casey came to him like Mormons, with the old rhododendron aflame at their backs. The screeching of the door and the whole thing cranked up again, like a Model T Ford.
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Winnie Kettle Quotes in Old God’s Time
The Old God’s Time quotes below are all either spoken by Winnie Kettle or refer to Winnie Kettle. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
[Neutrinos] passed through [Tom’s] vulnerable soul, itself an item so large it was not there either, at least to a neutrino. But did it speak of the unimportance of Tom Kettle that he was not really there to a neutrino? Maybe God saw him? What of the butterflies, what of the mother spider, what of the mites, striving for life and generations in the old carpet? True, true, in human affairs everything is hastiness and farewell. But there was a sort of proof in this that Tom Kettle was loved, even though he could not see it, as he passed through the world. He had no idea how much June had loved him, nor Winnie, nor Joe. Maybe his sleeping self knew more, intuitive, less complicated by waking thought.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6
Quotes
‘And, Winnie, where are you living?’ he said, suddenly unable to remember. It was very strange. A father should know where his daughter was living, surely. He knew where she was living but where was it? It had just slipped his mind. He was growing demented, he must be. ‘Where are you living?’ he said, in some distress now, a bit of a headache brewing.
‘Deansgrange, Daddy, Deansgrange.’
‘But we’ve left Deansgrange,’ he said, again with the note of panic and misery in his voice.
‘Well, but I’m still there, Daddy.’
‘Not the cemetery!’ he said, with a small cry.
‘Yes, Daddy, the cemetery.’
Chapter 16
Quotes
Even the man highest up thought he should take early retirement, but something deep in him needed to go on to the end. Then the little party and the sombre words and the happy words. Then his niche in Queenstown Castle. His wicker chair, the characterful sea, and the stolid island. And then, those quiet nine months not only of new silence, but also—what could he call it? A sort of blossoming sense of relief, maybe, that the wretched Fates had done with him. Had noticed his great happiness long ago, and emblem by emblem taken it away from him. Then the day that Wilson and O’Casey came to him like Mormons, with the old rhododendron aflame at their backs. The screeching of the door and the whole thing cranked up again, like a Model T Ford.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
