Ironweed - Book Review

Ironweed is staged in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. It tells the story of Francis Phelan, an alcoholic, who abandoned his family after accidentally killing his infant son by dropping him while he might have been drunk. He lives his life drink to drink as a bum on the streets of New York, not knowing for sure where his next meal or lodgings will come from. This book centers on Francis' return to his family in Albany, New York, and his struggles with alcoholism, relationships, and money. Throughout the story, Phelan has hallucinations of three people whom he killed in the past, feeling the guilt and grief that went along with taking another person's life. As the story progresses, we see him begin to recover, stopping by his family's house, after long decades of absence, to apologize for not being there for them when they needed him most. Eventually, he comes to terms with his rough past, and returns to his family for good.

In this story, there are a few key themes that the author, William Kennedy, focuses on. First, the concept of home. The author demonstrates this theme by writing about homelessness, which creates an interesting apposition to the theme, showing the importance of having a place to call home. Another prevalent theme would be that nothing lasts forever. For example, this shows when Francis' friends and girlfriend, who he had been with for many years, died and when his family finally forgave him for leaving them for so long. Throughout the book, there was the extensive use of flashbacks. This is shown when Francis is remembering past times and things that he had done before, this element helps to demonstrate why the character is the way that he is, what events caused him to be that way, and how he has changed and developed since those events occurred. Another literary device in the story would be the absence of quotation marks during the dialogue between Francis and people that he had killed or caused to be killed. Through this, it shows that he feels guilty about what he has caused in the past, and also allows the reader to differentiate between Francis' hallucinations and real life. Also, the author chose to tell the story through the eyes of a third person narrator. This narrator disguises himself most often as Francis, but occasionally goes into the minds of the other characters. Despite the fact that Ironweed is Francis' story, told mainly from his point of view, the author found it necessary to relate events through an "all- knowing" third person. This allows for some dramatic irony to occur, where the reader knows something very important that the character in the play does not know. For example, when Francis is out looking for his lover, Helen, she is already dead and he just does not know it.

This book really made me consider the idea of life itself since it goes so far in depth with the concepts of life and death. It made me realize that human life is so fragile,