The Boarding House Themes

“The Boarding House” depicts the consequences of an affair between a man and a young woman in early 20th-century Dublin. The flirtation between Mr. Doran and young Polly Mooney takes place in the house he boards in, run by Polly’s mother, the formidable Mrs. Mooney. It’s a suffocating environment that serves as a microcosm of Dublin, a city in which “everyone knows everyone else’s business”—and judges that business according to strict social mores and…

Though the story’s male characters-Jack Mooney and Mr. Doran—see Polly as innocent and in need of protection, both Mrs. Mooney and her daughter in fact turn out to be the story’s most skilled social navigators. Together, they wordlessly and intuitively collaborate on a successful bid to secure a proposal from Mr. Doran. Their cunning lies precisely in impersonating female innocence to achieve their own ends. And yet, though they’re presented as manipulative, and…