How Does Mrs. Mooney Decide To Trap Mr. Doran?

Moreover, Von Uffel is correct that Mrs Mooney plans to trap Mr Doran into marriage using the city’s concern for preserving social appearances. We begin to suspect that Mrs Mooney is up to something when she “[notices] that something was going on between Polly and [Mr Doran]” but “kept her own counsel” (58). Even when people in the boarding house gossiped about an affair between the two, “still [she] did not intervene” (my emphasis, 58). It seems very strange for a mother, particularly a determined woman, to allow an atrocious situation to continue unless she was up to something. After some time, we recognize that Mrs Mooney’s strange actions are attributed towards her desires of giving Polly a husband: “Polly [begins] to grow a little strange
in her manner and [Mr Doran] [is] evidently perturbed. At last, when she [judges] it to be the right moment, Mrs Mooney intervened” (58). Mrs Mooney realizes that Polly and Mr Doran are beginning to grow uncomfortable with each other and understands that she must do something quickly, for there may not be another opportunity for Mrs Mooney to get Polly a husband. On a Saturday night, Mrs Mooney confronts Polly about the affair: “Things were as she [suspects]: she [is] frank in her questions and Polly [is] frank in her answers” (59). Mrs Mooney reveals that she has a suspicious, as she “had been made awkward by her not wishing to receive the news in too cavalier a fashion or to seem to have connived” (my emphasis, 59). Mrs Mooney plans to enact something immoral and hides it, because she does not want Polly to know. Ms Mooney’s plan to trap Mr Doran into marriage is revealed the next Sunday morning as she rehearses her arguments and reviews potential reactions from the public. Feeling certain she would succeed in achieving her goal, she goes over every detail:
To begin with she had all the weight of social opinion on her side: she was an outraged mother. She had allowed him to live beneath her roof, assuming that he was a man of honour, and he had simply abused her hospitality. He was thirty-four or thirty-five years of age, so that youth could not be pleaded as his excuse; nor could ignorance be his excuse since he was a man who had seen something of the world. He had simply taken advantage of Polly’s youth and inexperience: that was evident. (my emphasis, 59)

Mrs Mooney uses her social status as an angry mother and a kind householder, in addition to Polly’s verisimilitude of vulnerability to alleviate her argument against Mr Doran – his social appearance and his reputation would be damaged greatly.
For Mr Doran, Mrs Mooney understands he would want to prevent the destruction of his reputation and offers him an option to compensate for his actions, leading him to her goal: “There must be reparations made in such cases…. Only one reparation could make up for the loss of [Polly’s] honour: marriage” (59-60). Her strenuous strategy to exploit social perception of her and Polly’s characteristics highlights her determination and ambition to marry Polly into a good life. Before sending the servant, Mary, to get Mr Doran, Mrs Mooney reviews her plan once more: She felt sure she would win…. She did not think he would face publicity” (my emphasis, 60). Mrs Mooney knows Mr Doran works in a “great Catholic wine-merchant’s office” and if word of the affair reaches his employer, he would lose his job (60). If Mr Doran agrees to marry Polly, then “all might be well” (60). Mrs Mooney attempts to threaten Mr Doran with the loss of his job as well as the disgrace upon the Catholic Church if he would not marry Polly, thus completely Mr Doran as he would not dare face publicity with the destruction of his social
appearance.