Families Portraid In Roddy Doyles Books Essay

, Research Paper

Why do we hear so much about family these days? Perhaps it is because

relationships between family members are assumed to be the prototype for all other

social relations. In the novels, The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van, Roddy

Doyle shows his support of the family as an institution. Each character demonstrates

strength and direction within the family unit. However, when the stability of the family

is threatened, each character breaks down along with the family itself.

When we think of family life we associate happiness, a life of sharing memories

and developing unbreakable friendships. It is easy to create a family that is make believe,

we just tend to leave the ugly side of the relationship out. It may be true that there is a

family that lives like the “Cleavers” in our society today, but speaking realistically every

family will breakdown eventually. In an interview about his novels the author said, “I

didn’t set out to capture the good in every family, or bad for that matter, I just wanted to

show a typical Irish family.”1 Doyle’s writing is real–he deals with issues that might not

hit home with every reader however, they are events that confront many people every

day. The Rabbitte family is used in all three novels that make up the “Barrytown

Trilogy.” While the times are both good and bad for the eight members of this Irish

family, in some way they find a way overcome every problem that faces them.

One of Doyle’s strengths is his feel for personality: his characters are neither

devils nor clowns, dolts nor wits, but wobble between the extremes. “They’re fish gutters

and mechanics, young knockabouts and unemployed workers who spend a lot of time

watching T.V. drinking Guinness and jawing at the pub, trying to stave off the feelings

that they are nondescript people in a nondescript world.”2

The Commitments is Doyle’s first full-length novel. The main character Jimmy

Rabbitte, the eldest son, puts together a band. It is almost every teenager’s dream, at

some point, to be famous playing music in front of large groups of people. In fact, this is

how this book started off. In the end, however, it turns out to be the complete opposite.

Doyle captures the emotions of his characters when they are weak and leaves an impact

on the reader with his humorous wit. He describes his writing as “a challenge that’s the

enjoyable part. To an extent, that’s what happened with all my books because I’ve never

experienced any of the subjects I write about. I used to be a ten-year old boy, but I

certainly didn’t watch my parents marriage disintegrate. I was never in a band, I’ve never

been pregnant and I’ve never been unemployed for a day in my life.”3 It is shown that

Doyle has strong family values. In his writing he clearly demonstrates that if one family

member falls, it effects the rest of the family. In The Commitments, throughout the entire

novel, the band acts like a family. As the manager, Jimmy plays the role of the father

figure and trys to keep the band reaching higher levels, together. But, as members begin

to fight Jimmy finds it more difficult to keep the group together.

“Now, said Jimmy-tell your Uncle Jimmy all about it.

-I just.

-Jimmy could see Billy thinking

It’s just- I hate him, Jimmy. I hate him — I can’t even sleep at nigh’”4

The drummer, Billy’s leaving was because of Deco, the lead singer of the band

who he couldn’t face. Because they never talked, working out their problems was never

accomplished. The Commitments worked as a team to reach its success but when the

group was on the brink of acheiving stardom individual motives began to cause

problems. When the band stopped acting like a family unit the fights broke out.

“Somewhere in the quarter of an hour Jimmy had been negotiating with Dave from Eejit

Records, The Commitments had broken up.” Jimmy came to the conclusion that it was

over. He moved on and kept his mind off the band. Success had in fact destroyed the

once harmonious group.

In The Snapper Doyle uses a interesting topic: pregnancy. Sharon, the eldest

Rabitte daughter accidentally gets pregnant. In the end, the father turns out to be her own

father’s best friend. The beginning stage of her family breaking down is when she finally

confronts them about her being pregnant. While the family accepts the fact that she is

unmarried and pregnant, they have several fights over the identity of the child’s father.

Sharon is stubborn and won’t reveal any names and the rest of the family is hurt and

angry because it feels that it deserves to know who the father is.

“Jimmy Sr got down to buisness

-who was it

-wha?- Oh I don’t know

-Ah now, jaysis

-No, I do know

-well , then

-I’m not telling

-Jimmy Sr could feel himself getting angry now”.5

Whether the problem is little or big the Rabbitte family always muddles through