The Creature by Edna O'Brien
"The Creature" by Edna O'Brien is a poignant narrative centered around a young woman serving as a substitute teacher in a rural village in western Ireland. The story unfolds through her fascination with a local widow, referred to as the "Creature," who embodies a life filled with sorrow and longing. As the narrator visits the Creature's home, she is welcomed with rhubarb wine and porter cake while hearing the woman's heart-wrenching stories, particularly about her estrangement from her only son.
The Creature's son, after a prolonged absence, marries a woman who proves to be unsympathetic and manipulative, ultimately leading to the Creature's displacement from her family farm, a place steeped in her and her mother's history. Despite her profound love for her son and hopes for an emotional reunion, the Creature faces betrayal and despair. The narrator, grappling with her own loneliness, attempts to bridge the gap between mother and son, but her efforts culminate in further disappointment. The narrative explores themes of familial estrangement, societal judgment, and the complexities of maternal love, leaving readers to reflect on the profound impact of isolation and unattainable hopes.
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The Creature by Edna O'Brien
First published: 1974
Type of plot: Psychological
Time of work: The twentieth century
Locale: A village in western Ireland
Principal Characters:
The Creature , an Irish widowHer grown son Her son's wife The narrator , a substitute teacher
The Story
The story is narrated by a young woman getting over an unhappy love affair, who has come to a village in western Ireland as a substitute teacher. Fascinated with a widow whom everyone calls the "Creature," she seeks to befriend the woman. During visits to the Creature's house, the narrator is invariably served "a glass of rhubarb wine and sometimes a slice of porter cake" and hears the tales of the woman's meager, sorrow-filled life. During these visits, she learns that the Creature has been long separated from her only son and nearest living child. The Creature tells her how the son, after a long absence, returned and married a woman to whom the Creature had great hopes of becoming close. She secretly hoped that her daughter-in-law would pare her corns after the two women became intimate friends.
It happened, however, that the daughter-in-law is a selfish and ill-tempered woman who becomes increasingly intractable as she begins to have children of her own. Finally, she goads the son into betraying his mother. Through the eyes of the narrator, the reader sees the Creature as a loving, self-effacing mother whose daughter has emigrated to Canada and whose surly, pessimistic son has a wife who persuades him to take over the small family farm. The son convinces his mother that the farm should be deeded to him. It had been the sole home of the Creature and her own mother, another widow, who helped rear the Creature's children until she herself died. The townspeople dub the mother the "Creature" in part because they are repelled by her acquiescence in letting the son drive her from her home.
After leaving the farm, taking with her few belongings but among them an heirloom tapestry depicting ships at sea, the Creature sets up house in town, where the narrator learns that the Creature's greatest hope is for a joyful reunion with her son. After learning this, the narrator, motivated in part by her own loneliness and guilt, attempts to effect this reunion by going to the farm and convincing the son to visit his mother. On the eventful day, the narrator calls on the Creature and learns that when the son came, he accepted none of his mother's hospitality and left her feeling more forlorn than ever. The story ends with the narrator realizing that the Creature has been surviving on the hope that she and her son would reconcile. With all hope gone, the Creature is near despair, and the narrator, whose plans have failed, "wished that I had never punished myself by applying to be a sub in that stagnant, godforsaken little place."