Essay Questions

Why is Michael's narration so important in the play?

Michael's narration is incredibly important because it gives us an insight into not just what he remembers happening, but what was really happening behind the scenes of the Mundy family's life as well. A prime example of this is his narrative about his father, Gerry. who spends most of his role in the play promising Christina that he will marry her, and seeming to be more serious than usual about his proposal. He is presented as a man who is charming, kind and affectionate who loves Christina but has a strong need for freedom that is preventing him from settling down with her. However, at the end of the play, through Michael's narration, we learn that Gerry never had any intention of marrying Christina because he was already married, and had a family in Wales, with two sons. The narration is important in enabling us to interpret what is going on onstage in the context of the characters' whole lives, rather than just in the portion of their lives that we are seeing portrayed.

How does Kate's devotion to the Catholic church inform her relationships with her family and friends?

Kate does not appear to be particularly soft or sentimental, although she is very affectionate towards her nephew. She is strict, and rules with a rod of iron, because she believes that is what her faith requires her to do. It also affects how she feels and behaves towards her family. Although she loves Jack and is pleased to see him home, she is concerned that he has lost his faith and entirely disapproving of the respect he gives to the pagan faiths of the Ugandans he has encountered during his missionary work. She is also vaguely resentful about his return because it coincides with her being released from her job as a school teacher in the local Catholic school, which she believes is a result of his loss of faith and her apparent "guilt by association".

Kate also treats Christina a little disdainfully because she had a child when unmarried, a sin in the eyes of the church and therefore in the eyes of Kate as well. Throughout the play she is the sister who seems the hardest on Gerry, as all of the Mundy girls seem to like him. This seems harsh in the context of what we are seeing on stage, but when we learn that he has a family in Wales and that Christina is just a fling for him, we realize that her opinions of him are actually the more accurate.

She is also very opposed to Gerry's decision to go to Spain with the International Brigade and fight against General Franco, because the church are actually behind Franco all the way and so she feels that fighting against him is in some way representative of fighting against the church.