Summary
Episode 2. A little later, Public is singing while lying in bed, while Private sits nearby. Private abruptly encourages Public to get back to work packing for the next day, which he does. After telling a few jokes, Private says, "Keep the mind active and well stretched by knowing the best that is thought and written in the world, and you wouldn't call Daddy Senator your father-in-law." He tells Public he'd make a wonderful President of the United States and Public tries on the identity for a moment, before deciding that he would not, actually, be a good fit. Private then suggests other options: Chairman of General Motors, Boss of the Teamsters' Union, Hollywood. Public wants none of them.
Private has an idea and suggests that Gar could become a senator. The two of them fantasize about Gar testifying against Senator Doogan that "Doogan is the grandfather of 14 unborn illegitimate children...That he sold his daughter to the king of the fairies for a crock of gold..." They then devise an image of "Screwballs"—Gar's joke name for his father—in which he is a handsome, suave man who drives a cream-colored convertible, and has villas in Istanbul, Cairo, and Budapest.
When they hear someone coming, Public and Private wonder if it's "the boys," but it is only Madge, puttering around in the kitchen. Public gets back to packing, pulling out his immigration documents from a drawer. They playact at Gar going through customs, with $80 to his name and sponsorship papers from his Uncle Con and Aunt Lizzy. They read a letter from Lizzy detailing his accommodations and discussing the fact that he will be working at the Emperor Hotel for a man who is half-Irish and half-Greek. Lizzy's letter makes Public think of Kate's wedding announcement, and Private tells him to snap out of it.
In a flashback, we see the day when Lizzy, Con and Ben Burton came to Ireland to visit. They are all in their late 50s, and Burton is American. Lizzy tells a long-winded story about when she was young that prominently features Maire, Gar's mother. Easily distracted, Lizzy has a hard time getting through the story and eventually tells Gar about Ben, their friend they met when they moved to the United States in 1937. Ben gave them an apartment and some money when they first moved, they tell Gar.
Soon enough, Lizzy gets back to the story, which pertains to her mother thinking that all her daughters should marry storeowners, since Maire did. In the middle of the story, she questions why S.B. will not meet with her. Con reminds her that S.B. is away at Kate Doogan's wedding. As they laugh and joke, Madge comes in, clearly disapproving of the guests. Con asks Gar to consider taking the job in America, and Lizzy encourages him to come over, as he is her only nephew and the son of her sister, Maire.
Ben and Con try and get Lizzy to finish her story about the day of Maire's wedding, but Lizzy ends up crying, reminded of all of her siblings' deaths. She soon snaps out of it and they keep drinking. Con and Lizzy tell Gar more about their apartment and all the money they have made in America, ending with a sob: "And it's all so Gawd-awful because we have no one to share it with us..." Suddenly, Gar suggests that he wants to go to America, a surprise even to Private Gar. She embraces him and calls him her son.
Back in the present, Private asks Public if he has any reservations, if he worries that living with Lizzy will make him go soft. "She got you soft on account of the day it was, didn't she?" Private asks, alluding to Kate's wedding day. As Public goes to call for Madge, Private suggests that perhaps he does not want to go. Madge patiently gets Gar his coat, and he goes off to say goodbye to his friends. "'The Boys!' Couldn't even come here to say good-bye to you on your last night," Madge says. Gar goes off.
Madge fusses a bit, when suddenly S.B. comes in. She scolds him for not keeping his fake teeth in in her presence. Becoming overwhelmed, Madge begins to cry about all the work she has to do, clearly upset about something else. She leaves, and S.B. looks at the audience, confused, before trying to read the paper, but he cannot read.
Analysis
A great deal of the action consists of the banter between Gar's Public and Private self. While they are meant to represent two sides of just one man, they fill the time with entertainment and antics as if they were a whole party full of people. Private, representing a more base or id-like side of Gar, is often telling jokes, saying what Gar really thinks about the people in his life, or reflecting on more emotionally vulnerable matters, such as the loss of Kate. Each takes turns keeping the other accountable and moving forward, so that Gar can come closer to leaving Ireland once and for all and embarking on his new life as an American.
Gar's preoccupation with Kate and Doogan is something he would rather push to the side, but which haunts him throughout the play. In the midst of all their games and fantasies, Kate and Doogan keep cropping up in them, in silly but significant ways. For instance, when Private tries to come up with different career paths for Gar in America, he imagines that he could be a senator, and they devise a fake trial in which Senator Doogan is accused of having illegitimate grandchildren and having sold his daughter to "the king of the Fairies," Gar's rival Francis King. This is a silly joke, a way for Gar to make fun of the man that won his beloved over him, but it also represents his preoccupation with the loss of Kate, and his deep longing to be with her.
The aunt that Gar is going to live with in America, Lizzy, is the sister of Gar's late mother, which explains some of his desire to go to the new country and try his luck. Having been deprived of his mother his whole life, and with a father who barely speaks to him, Gar is eager to get some maternal attention or at least be with someone who can tell him stories about or remind him of his mother. Gar's search for parental—and specifically maternal—care is somewhat represented by the promise of getting to live with his Aunt Lizzy in Philadelphia. Thus, we learn more about Gar's desire to emigrate and its connection to the loss of his mother.
In the flashback to Lizzy and Con's visit, we see some more of the tension between Irish traditionalism and the turn towards America. Lizzy and Con talk about American opportunity with bright eyes and optimism, but Madge, the Irish maid, seems disdainful of them, and S.B. is not even around to say hello. Likewise, Lizzy and Con make an effort to convince Gar to make a run for it, suggesting that he ought to get on with it if he wants to find a better life. As warm and nurturing as they are towards Gar, they also represent people who have left, turned away from their country, and barely looked back.
After recalling his interaction with Lizzy and Con, Private Gar begins to doubt that Public Gar actually wants to go to America after all. This is the first glimmer of real ambivalence that we encounter in the play. Private Gar suggests that perhaps Lizzy caught him in a weak moment, given that she visited on the day of Kate's wedding, and that life in America, pretending to be Lizzy's son, will not be so fun as Public Gar imagines. In this moment, we see more of a contrast between Public and Private Gar, and wonder whether Gar will change his mind about going to America after all, opting to stick around and take care of the people who raised him.
