58 pages • 1 hour read
All the Years of Her Life
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Themes
The Development of Empathy
Empathy—both in the sense of intuiting others’ thoughts and feelings and in the sense of sympathizing with them—is central to the story. This focus on empathy becomes apparent early on in Mr. Sam Carr’s characterization; despite feeling betrayed by the young man, Mr. Carr confronts Alfred Higgins’s shoplifting with calm patience and hesitancy to call the police. Looking worried, Mr. Carr tells Alfred, “I don’t like to call a cop point-blank” (17), because he knows this action could have significant ramifications for the young man. Mr. Carr places himself in Alfred’s shoes and seems to reason that the young man may not deserve the stigma of a criminal record. He perceives him, accurately, as a “fool”: someone who is thoughtless but not malicious.
Mrs. Higgins’s behavior and dialogue in the drugstore scene further develop the theme. As she appeals to Mr. Carr on Alfred’s behalf, Mrs. Higgins does so with a literally gentle touch, seeking to understand his perspective: “Mrs. Higgins put out her hand and touched Mr. Carr’s arm with an understanding gentleness, […] speaking as though afraid of disturbing him” (17). She understands Mr. Carr’s initial impulse to “get a cop” and diplomatically leaves this decision to Mr. Carr, stating, “It’s not for me to say [or, decide], as he’s my son” (17). Her efforts to empathize with Mr. Carr have the intended effect, as Alfred himself recognizes:
Alfred was realizing that Mr. Carr had become aware that his mother was really a fine woman; he knew that Sam Carr was puzzled by his mother, as if he had expected her to come in and plead with him tearfully, and instead he was being made to feel a bit ashamed by her vast tolerance (18).
The above passage demonstrates that Alfred can correctly read people. However, he is too focused on himself to bother paying much attention to others, or certainly to show compassion for their perspective. Early on, Alfred has no compunction about stealing from his employer to maintain appearances with “the guys”; he also does not seem to feel it is wrong to lie about his shoplifting to Mr. Carr. He shows no awareness of how this behavior affects Mr. Carr, his business, or his sense of trust in Alfred as an employee. As for his mother’s calm composure in speaking with Mr. Carr, Alfred only seems to appreciate what her tact can achieve for him. He registers no real understanding of what may lie behind her behavior until the final moment of the story.
However, in that final moment, Alfred finally develops empathy for others. Suddenly, he understands what his mother must have been feeling as she talked with Mr. Carr and as she and Alfred silently walked home together—an experience he likens to seeing her for the first time. In this moment of empathic relation, Alfred’s contrast with the story’s other characters is lessened and he begins to grow up.
The True Meaning of Maturity
The dual-pronged theme of immaturity and growing up revolves around the story’s protagonist, Alfred, a young man of unspecified age who has “been getting into trouble wherever he worked” since he “left school” (17). The description makes it clear that Alfred is young, but his age is not a primary factor in his immaturity, nor is the fact that Alfred is still living with his parents. Rather, it is Alfred’s character traits that make his coming-of-age arc necessary: his thoughtlessness, his irresponsibility, and his selfishness. Alfred acts like a child, focusing only on his own needs and desires and expecting others to clean up after him when he gets into trouble.
Tellingly, Alfred is touchy about his maturity. When Mr. Carr begins to call Alfred’s home, Alfred adopts what he hopes is a grown-up air:
[H]e blurted out arrogantly, like a strong, full-grown man, ‘Just a minute. You don’t need to draw anybody else in. You don’t need to tell her.’ He wanted to sound like a swaggering big guy who could look after himself, yet the old, childish hope was in him, the longing that someone at home would come and help him (17).
Alfred’s desperation to appear “strong” and “full-grown” illustrates precisely why he is neither. He is more concerned with projecting an air of authority than he is with taking responsibility for his actions. This becomes explicit at the end of the passage, where the narrator reveals that Alfred still secretly wants an authority figure to come to his rescue.
A similar scene unfolds as Alfred and his mother walk home. Unnerved by his mother’s sense of serious purpose, Alfred attempts to put himself on her level; he adopts his “old, blustering way” and remarks, “Thank God it turned out like that. I certainly won’t get in a jam like that again” (18). His flippant tone indicates his failure to take the episode seriously, while the effort to address his mother as an equal—as though they were a united front against Mr. Carr—underscores his immaturity. Alfred’s misbehavior and his mother’s graciousness make them anything but peers in this scene, so his familiarity comes across as arrogance. His idea of maturity is still all affectation, and his quick compliance when his mother orders him to bed illustrates how easily he slips back into a childish role.
It is not clear until the story’s very last moment whether Alfred will truly grow up. In this final scene, Alfred at last sees his mother’s behavior at Mr. Carr’s drug store as amounting to much more than a “smooth” means by which to save his hide. He suddenly realizes that her actions were truly selfless, and this understanding stops the young man in his tracks. As Alfred finally feels his mother’s beleaguered fatigue and envisions a more mature way to relate to her, the conflict between immaturity and growing up is at last resolved: Alfred understands that his youthful recklessness must come to an end.
The Selflessness of Maternal Love
At the core of Callaghan’s “All the Years of Her Life” resides the important relationship between Mrs. Higgins and Alfred—mother and son. However, Alfred’s worry about his mother’s potential reaction to his shoplifting (and his confusion at her apparent calm) suggests that this relationship has been under significant strain for some time. Alfred certainly has given little thought to his mother’s feelings, as he has been “getting into trouble” with employers for some time and seems remorseless about this state of affairs (17). To the extent that he thinks of her, it’s with fear, suggesting that Mrs. Higgins has upbraided her son for his behavior in the past: “[I]f they had been at home and someone had suggested that he was going to be arrested, he knew she would be in a rage and would cry out against him” (18).
What Alfred fails to recognize is that his mother’s “dreadful contempt” for his behavior stems from concern. He is consequently unprepared for her behavior in the drugstore, as it has never occurred to him that her goal is not to punish him. She hopes that her words and actions will reform him, as evidenced by her remark that “a little good advice is the best thing for a boy when he’s at a certain period of his life” (17-18), but even this is not her primary motivation. Rather, her unconditional love moves her to set aside her great frustration with (and fear for) Alfred so that the situation may be resolved in his favor.
During Mrs. Higgins’s and her son’s walk and arrival home, the strain on their relationship becomes more apparent. Concerning Alfred’s habit of “getting into trouble,” Mrs. Higgins disapprovingly tells him: “It’s one thing after another and always has been” (19). Yet no argument between mother and son ensues from this remark. Though Alfred is as yet incapable of fathoming the depth of his mother’s love for him (as well as what this love costs her), he says nothing and obediently goes upstairs to get ready for bed. Mrs. Higgins’s devotion to her son only becomes apparent to Alfred in the story’s final moments, when he secretly observes her weakened state and finally appreciates what his thoughtless actions have done to his mother.
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