34 pages • 1 hour read
Ironweed
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BetaChapters 1-2
Chapter 1 Summary
An epigraph identifies the ironweed as a member of the sunflower family so named for its particularly rigid stem. The novel then opens with vagrant protagonist Francis Phelan riding in the back of a truck through a cemetery on Halloween, 1938, in Albany, New York, where his parents (who seem to look on as he approaches) are buried. His friend Rudy, a dimwitted tramp, is with him. As the two of them shovel dirt onto recently placed graves, they joke around and wonder about the people who are buried in the (as yet) unmarked graves.
The narrative goes back two days, showing how Francis ended up at the cemetery. A heavy drinker, Francis stops drinking when he runs out of money, at which time he goes to court for registering to vote 21 times, though the case is eventually thrown out. Unable to pay his lawyer’s modest fee, Francis agrees to work in the cemetery the following day. He then spends the night under a bridge before going to a Methodist mission that provides food and shelter to the needy, looking for his girlfriend, Helen. There, he runs into Rudy, who reveals that he has been diagnosed with stomach cancer.
Walking to the cemetery, Rudy and Francis discuss the seven deadly sins, among other things. Rudy mistakenly mentions cowardice as one of the seven sins, and Francis angrily declares that he is “no coward” and that he values honesty (10). Meanwhile, Francis recalls memories of his childhood and his years as a pro baseball player while they pass familiar landmarks.
As they finish working, Francis considers the way a person’s social status reflects in the circumstances of burial; whereas rich businessmen have large memorials, the poor are neglected. Seeing the site where his parents are buried, Francis recalls his devastation at seeing his father, a railroad worker, die after being hit by a train while he was walking towards Francis. Francis harbors resentment towards his mother, whom he characterizes as a “fishwife.”
For the first time, Francis visits the grave of his son Gerald, who died as an infant 22 years earlier after Francis drunkenly dropped him. Ashamed, Francis left his wife, Annie, and his remaining children, Margaret and William, whom he refers to as Peggy and Billy. Speaking at the grave, Francis tells Gerald that he saw Billy a week ago, and Billy told him that Annie never revealed Francis’s role in Gerald’s death. Gerald, described as a glorified genius in death, impresses upon Francis the need to perform “final acts of expiation for abandoning the family” (19).
Chapter 2 Summary
Francis and Rudy take a bus to the mission. On the way, Rudy asks what Helen’s last name is, and Francis says that she doesn’t have one. The bus passes a street where Francis used to live and carbarns where he once worked. He recalls his participation in the trolley strike of 1901. A mob of protesters trapped a trolley with flaming bedsheets, and Francis threw a rock at the strikebreaking trolley conductor, accidentally killing him. The officers guarding the trolley then fired into the mob, killing two, and Francis fled Albany by train.
Francis sees the ghost of Harold Allen, the trolley conductor he killed, get on the bus, and Francis attempts to justify his actions to him. He recounts to Rudy his attempt to help Aldo Campione, a horse thief who escaped police custody in the aftermath of the trolley strike and tried to board the same train as Francis; as Francis pulled Aldo onto the train, pursuing officers shot and killed him. Aldo’s ghost boards the bus and acknowledges Francis with an ambiguous hand gesture.
Arriving at the mission, Francis and Rudy see a drunk woman, whom Rudy identifies as Sandra, lying face down outside. Francis resolves to bring her some soup. Inside, he joins Helen and a crowd of other men listening to a sermon by Reverend Chester, who insists on preaching to those who take advantage of the mission’s services; as Catholics, Francis and Helen find little to appreciate. Afterwards, Francis’s friend Pee Wee, a onetime drunk who now helps manage the mission, gives him soup for Sandra, who barely swallows any.
Francis and Helen, who parted on bad terms, reconcile over dinner. After the meal, Reverend Chester turns away a young man, telling him to come back when he is sober. As they leave the mission, Pee Wee places a blanket over Sandra.
Francis, Helen, Rudy, and Pee Wee go to visit Oscar Reo, a singer and an old friend of theirs who now runs a bar. At Francis’s invitation, Oscar sings a few songs, and Francis perceives Oscar as a “blood brother, a man for whom life had been a promise unkept in spite of great success” (49-50). Deeply moved, Helen mentions that she used to sing, and Oscar invites her to perform. She does so, after describing her past with Francis in heavily romanticized terms. Oscar asks what Helen’s last name is, and Francis reveals it to be Archer. Helen’s emotional performance wins her a standing ovation, and she promises to come back and sing again. In the background, Francis notices Aldo Campione sitting at a table with someone else.
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
From the very start, Kennedy carefully situates his novel in historic Albany, New York, where he spent much of his life. The year is 1938, and the world is stuck in the Great Depression, making it hard to find work. Kennedy makes references to various historical events, such as Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds broadcast, the Delavan Hotel fire of 1894, and the trolley strike of 1901. Stylistically, however, the text reads as anything but a historical report, as this setting merely provides an opportunity for Kennedy to examine his fictional characters’ inner responses to the trends of the time, be they economic, political, religious, or otherwise.
In examining these characters, Kennedy’s prose exemplifies a style known as free indirect discourse, allowing an omniscient narrator to move seamlessly between or outside of the consciousnesses of various characters. For instance, the narrator reveals details unknown to Francis about some of those who are buried in the cemetery, and the occasionally literary tone of the prose (as in the exalted language of the passage describing Gerald) contrasts with Francis’s vernacular speech. Most of the time, however, the text follows Francis’s inward state. This results in one of the most startling deviations from a purely realist narrative: the inclusion of ghosts. Only Francis can see them, so we assume the ghosts are the result of memory and imagination, but Kennedy describes them as straightforwardly as everything else in the text; often, they are not even labelled as ghosts.
Also notable is Kennedy’s use of a somewhat fluid and recursive structure to represent the plot. Several chapters, including the first, start mid-scene and then backtrack to show how the characters reach that point, including flashbacks and tangents along the way. Additionally, physical locations often trigger Francis’s recollections, as when he recalls the trolley strike when the bus passes through the intersection where the rally took place. Thus, though the action of the plot takes place over a few days, Francis’s life story, which is covered in bits and pieces throughout the novel, stretches back much further. Much like the ghosts that follow him, this circular pattern exposes Francis’s mental state and suggests the emotional baggage he carries.
Thematically, these first chapters introduce several key concepts that reappear in the text. These include Francis’s difficulty processing his past, the looming influence of religion, and the inherent dignity of human life, regardless of external circumstance. The scene in Oscar’s bar is particularly poignant, as it allows Helen to immerse herself, if only in passing, in the kind of life she wishes she had—both as she imagines a rosier past with Francis and as she takes to the stage to sing.
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