John McGahern
He was born in Dublin in 1934 and died aged 71. He was the oldest of seven brothers and sisters. He grew up in a small farm. His mother was a school teacher, and his father a sergeant in the Garda, the Irish police force. When his mother died, he was ten, and the whole family went to live in the Garda barracks. The sergeant was a violent man and treated his children accordingly.
John trained as a teacher and worked some time in a
school. At the same time, he began to write, but when he published his novel The
Dark, he was dismissed, and his book banned by the Irish Censorship Board,
for its pornographic content, according to the Board. So he went to England,
where he worked on a variety of jobs. After some years, he went back to Ireland, and he settled in a small farm far from everywhere.
His six novels are mostly based in his personal experiences.
The Barracks is a
description of the life in the Garda barracks. The Dark narrates a young
man’s life. The Leavetaking is about his work as a teacher and about
being fired. The Pornographer tells the story of a writer who has to
write porno for his living. Amongst Women follows the life of an IRA
veteran, and That they May Face the Rising Sun explores the Irish rural
life.
He also wrote a Memoir, some plays and short
stories collections, the last one, Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected
Stories, that contains a selection of all his old stories and some new
ones.
Korea
It’s a curious title for a story set in the rural
Ireland; nevertheless, the Korean War between 1950 and 1953 situates the narrative
in time and provides its historical background.
A father and his son, who is about to finish his schooling,
earn their living by fishing for eels. They also had a small piece of land
where they grow some vegetables. It’s an economy of subsistence in a poor rural
area. However, the authorities want to limit the fishing quota in order to leave
more fish for the tourists that are going there from England. So, prospects for
the eel business aren’t very good. The father is worried about his son’s future and,
seeing that in Ireland there won’t be opportunities for him in Ireland, proposes
him to go to the USA. At first, his son doesn’t know what to answer, but then he overhears a conversation between his father and a neighbour: there are lots of
jobs available in the army because of the Korean War; they pay $250 monthly,
and, in case of death, the family gets $10.000. Thus, America is a possibility
of success and also a risk of death. Now the boy has taken his decision: he’ll
stay in Ireland.
As his father goes on insisting in his going away, the
son suspects that he wants him in
the army in order to get his pay; or even worse, that he wants him dead so he
can get the ten thousand dollars.
At the beginning of the story, the father, who fought for the Irish independence and is disappointed with the new country because he hasn’t made any profit by it, tells the boy about an execution by shooting of an adult man and a boy. The man displays a total indifference or even disdain to the firing squad, but the boy cries, struggles and at the end obeys orders as a soldier. This sad scene haunted the man forever, and it’s a kind of allegory of the contrast between youth and experience.
QUESTIONS
-According to you, what is the meaning of the episode of the executions in the story? Is there a parallelism between the two adults and the two boys?
-Do you think that, in extreme cases, the death penalty is necessary?
-In your opinion, why this episode haunts the father in his wedding?
-Why are there quotas in haunting, fishing or collecting some natural products? Do you think that it is fair?
-Must a father send his son to an incertain future if the alternative possibilities are very poor?
-Progress usually destroys traditional ways of living. But, does tourism bring progress to the countries it visits?
-"I fought for this country", says the father. But, what is a country for you?
-It seems that independence doesn’t make some people happy as they hoped. Why do you think is that?
-Could you detail the differences between the short story and the film?
VOCABULARY
rap, tunic, highfalutin, throbbed, bow, stern, beaded, consignment, bows of ridges, coarse, conscripted, shirred, fend