Amongst Women

In the final chapters of Amongst Women, McGahern depicts Moran’s final years as a natural culmination of life. Moran’s death is not special, heroic, different, or unpeaceful. He makes amends with Luke as best he can and admires the beauty of the home he spent years creating and maintaining. The unremarkable nature of his death positions him as an average man, different from his self-perception during his life. By the same token, his peaceful passing surrounded by loved ones complicates viewing him as strictly antagonistic, though only the women in his life revere him by his passing. His sons remain distant and more critical, indicating that Moran’s passing represents the death of a narrow, patriarchal view of manhood in favor of modernization.

Moran’s house is a symbol of family, reunion, and steadfastness. It represents the themes of The Individual Versus the Collective and The Individual in a Changing World. As society changes around Moran, “[t]he changeless image of itself that the house so fiercely held to was now being threatened in small ways by the different reality the untutored and uncaring outside world saw” (174). The house is, therefore, a symbol of a time in Irish life and culture gone by, an emblem of what life used to be like. The house is also a setting for reunions, which simultaneously develops more tension and understanding between Moran and his children as they all age. At the homestead, the family can grow as his children’s spouses prove themselves. Simultaneously, the home provides a background against which the children deviate from their father’s parenting style; Sheila keeps her children from spending too much time there, and Luke refrains from visiting altogether. Their interactions with and at the house alternately reinforce how the world is changing and the way their childhood dynamics remain rooted in their lives.

Before Moran’s death, he is ill for months and feels terrorized by his daughters, who only want to help him. Despite their past resentments, his daughters prove loyal to him. The irony of this loyalty—cultivated through control and Moran’s role as an all-powerful patriarch—is emphasized by the confused way the women perceive his decline. They note that Moran has never let anyone control him, yet he cannot avoid death through sheer will. Moran, meanwhile, becomes frightened of his daughters’ attention, which is ironic because he spent years wishing his family wouldn’t leave the house. His fear of his daughters stems from a fear of their love for him. This emphasizes the theme of The Importance of Women. Moran’s fear of his daughters’ love is a manifestation of the different ways that he and his daughters understand love. The title, Amongst Women, is an ode to the devoted care Moran receives from his wife and daughters. In the end, the women are the ones who honor him, even after his death. Moran’s legacy doesn’t live on in his sons but in his daughters’ devotion to loving him despite his flaws.