The Influence Of Eilis Landscapes

Likewise, the disparate exploration of the provincial and cosmopolitan cultures of Eilis’ landscapes thoroughly highlights the impact of each on the protagonist. To establish the restrictions of Enniscorthy, the composer stipulates the order of Eilis’ life, introduced almost immediately as her mother declares, “Eilis and myself are going to have our tea now.” Such provincial landscape is reiterated in Miss Kelly’s apparent knowledge of Eilis’ abilities, indicative as she states, “I hear you have a great head for figures.” The inescapable closeness of this physical and societal landscape is powerfully embodied in the characterisation of Miss Kelly, who, employing high modal dialogue throughout, provides an analogy for the entire cultural landscape of Ireland, forcing Eilis to demonstrate a complicit and defenceless persona to uphold textual integrity.
This overall negative impact of the provincial landscape ultimately persuades Eilis to return to America by the end of the novel, leaving such ‘public-knowledge’ in her remembered landscape.
The shift to the American landscape prompts the development of Eilis’ new-found independence, shaped prominently by the cosmopolitan society she emigrates to. Whilst Eilis’ remembered landscape continues to have an omnipresent influence in her life, she is contrastingly characterised with an evolving modern persona, thus portrayed “thanking him in a tone Rose might have used; something she could not have done in the town where any of her family or friends might have seen her.” The transient nature of Brooklyn clearly extends an opportunity for Eilis to pursue a new identity, thus enabling her to choose her own
path. Furthermore, such cosmopolitan landscape is represented through Toibin’s description of society, as Eilis’ days were “full of rushes of colour or crowds of people, everything frenzied and fast.” In expressing the diverse “ever-changing Brooklyn”, with “new people arriving that could be Jewish, Irish, Polish or even coloured”, Toibin effectively conveys to the responder the dynamic landscape by which Eilis has emigrated, clearly encouraging herself and the wider community to be accepting, independent and free, and possess a broader outlook of the world. This point of contrast truly reveals the impact of each landscape on the development of Eilis’ personal life, with the cosmopolitan culture expanding both the acceptance of herself, and an appreciation for the dynamic, modern society of Brooklyn.