Family
Many of Claire Keegan's works revolve around family, and Small Things Like These is no exception. The protagonist, Bill Furlong, is a family man devoted to providing for his wife and five daughters. He does so by working extremely hard as a coal and timber merchant, keeping his head down, and striving to "stay on the right side of people." However, working hard does not encompass the full range of what it means to Furlong to be a good husband and father. He also expresses care through attention and affection, such as by calling his daughters "leanbh" (an Irish term of endearment meaning "my child") and noticing how hard his wife works.
Furlong's inner crisis begins when he questions what else matters in life apart from his family. This does not cause Furlong to forsake his responsibilities, but it does lead him to make a choice that potentially jeopardizes his daughters' futures. The Mother Superior directly threatens to revoke the Furlong girls' right to study at St. Margaret's (the only quality school for girls in the town) if Furlong meddles in the convent's affairs. However, Furlong ultimately chooses to bring Sarah (one of the girls at the convent) into his family sphere by bringing her home with him on Christmas Eve.
Hypocrisy
The convent, purportedly a haven for women and girls on the margins of society, ironically serves as a penitentiary workhouse that exploits them. The nuns hold a high degree of respect in the town and in Irish society as a whole, which allows this abuse to occur as an open secret. Around town, rumors swirl about what happens behind the convent's picture-perfect exterior, and some of them are correct. While making deliveries, Furlong discovers that the girls in the convent are brutalized, neglected, and subject to forced labor. Most of the girls work in the convent's laundry business to generate revenue for the religious order, or spend their time scrubbing the place clean. One of the girls approaches Furlong and asks him to help her escape, which she is willing to take as far as suicide.
On another delivery run, Furlong finds a girl named Sarah locked in the coal shed. Not only does this exemplify the institution's hypocrisy, but Furlong also later feels a shameful sense of posturing when he attends Mass after not having sufficiently helped Sarah. At the end of the novella, Furlong can no longer stand the hypocrisy surrounding him, and he resolves to bring Sarah into his home no matter what the consequences turn out to be.
Individual Versus Community
In Chapter Four, Furlong and Eileen discuss personal and collective accountability. Furlong feels the pain of everyone's hardships as though they were his own, and strives to help people whenever he can. For example, he provides loose change, rides to town, and deferred payment agreements to those in need. He also cannot help but imagine what would happen if his daughters were to end up in a place like the convent. Eileen, on the other hand, feels that some people bring their troubles upon themselves, and that it would be best for the family if they did not get too involved in other people's affairs. This conversation flares into an argument when Eileen insinuates that Furlong's mother brought about her troubles by getting pregnant and raising Furlong as a low-income single mother.
Furlong ultimately acts according to his individual moral compass, which points in the opposite direction of the town's normal standards for behavior.
Care and Kindness
Although Furlong's upbringing involved various hardships, he acknowledges that he is luckier than most. His mother, Ned, and Mrs. Wilson all played an active role in rearing him. His mother worked hard and doled out affection as well as reproach. Ned's acts of care consisted of polishing Furlong's shoes and tying the laces, buying him his first razor, teaching him how to shave, and gifting him hot water bottles for Christmas. Mrs. Wilson, who never disparaged the Furlongs, supported the boy's literacy by coaching him and giving him books. Furlong understands that these acts of care and kindness contributed to his well-being and shaped his identity.
The novella takes place around Christmas, which Furlong notes in Chapter Seven to be a time that brings out "the best and worst in people." He reflects on what Mrs. Wilson taught him about kindness, which is that one must treat others well to bring out the best in them. Empathy predicates Furlong's compassionate presence in the world.
Secrecy
Secrecy functions on various levels in Small Things Like These. On the one hand, there is the open secret about Magdalene laundries and mother-and-baby homes in Ireland. The townspeople in New Ross speculate that the local convent relies on the forced labor of the girls who supposedly attend the training school there. These unconfirmed rumors state that the nuns exploit the girls to make a profit through the convent's laundry business. However, no one in town actually investigates, and Furlong only confirms the abuses taking place at the convent by chance. The church relies on silence and fear to keep the institution running. Eileen herself states in Chapter Four that "if you want to get on in life, there's things you have to ignore, so you can keep on."
Although the secrecy shrouding the convent clearly causes harm, this is not the only way that secrecy functions in the novella. When Furlong discovers that the farmhand Ned could be his father, he thinks back on how Ned led Furlong to believe that his real father came from finer stock. All the while, Ned filled in as a father figure in Furlong's childhood. If it is indeed the case that Ned is Furlong's father, then Furlong understands this example of secrecy as kindness.
Gender, Class, and Power
Power primarily operates in Small Things Like These based on gender, socioeconomic status, and collective and individual identities. The novel depicts how vulnerable young women and girls faced misogyny and exploitation. The Mother Superior communicates her contempt for girls when she assumes that Furlong must be disappointed at having only daughters. Although Furlong represents a threat to the Mother Superior because he, as a man, can cause trouble for her institution, she ultimately holds the upper hand. Furlong's daughters attend the only quality school for girls in the town, and the Mother Superior can easily revoke their places there.
Eileen reminds Furlong that the only reason Mrs. Wilson could support Furlong's mother was her wealth. Eileen sees class as an important factor that determines one's agency. Furlong ultimately disagrees when he decides to bring Sarah home on Christmas Eve. In this way, Furlong exercises the power he holds as an individual, free-thinking person, even if it will lead to conflict for his family.
Reflection
Reflections appear frequently in the novel and carry symbolic importance. For example, while driving up to the convent to deliver coal in Chapter Five, the headlights on Furlong's truck reflect on the windowpanes. This lends the impression that Furlong is "meeting himself there," and implies that reflections are both an interior and exterior experience. In other words, the relationship between what actually exists and how people filter it through their value system can influence the way they act in the world. After seeing a reflection of the town lights on the river, Furlong observes that distance causes things to appear better than they are.
Furlong catches sight of his own reflection in various instances, prompting him to consider what he has to do in order to bear himself. In Chapter Five, he sees himself in the immaculately clean pots hanging at the convent. The reader can make the connection that the girls at the convent are forced to clean these pots based on an earlier scene where Furlong witnesses them scrubbing the chapel floors. In another instance in Chapter Seven, Furlong sees his reflection in the barber's mirror, and later resolves to go back to the convent to look for Sarah. As they walk home, Furlong thinks about how necessary it is to act according to his values even if it means defying the social norms that surround him.
