Eileen

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Themes

Institutional and Social Prisons

Institutional and social prisons characterize Eileen’s experience of X-ville. Eileen works as a secretary at Moorehead, the male juvenile penitentiary. She witnesses the consequences of institutional incarceration on both the inmates and their parents. Eileen’s repressed sexuality as well as her role caring for her emotionally abusive father act as social prisons.

The narrator describes her 24-year-old self’s hatred for her body and imprisonment within gendered beauty expectations. Eileen’s sense of physical imprisonment within a feminine body she finds repulsive is juxtaposed with physical incarceration: “I think of it [Moorehead] now for what it really was for all intents and purpose—a prison for children” (12). Eileen comments on the different forms of incarceration experienced by middle- to low-class Americans in 1964: the institutional, legal imprisonment of boys, and the cultural imprisonment of women within beauty and sexual standards. Eileen also links herself to the inmates of Moorehead during the Christmas pageant, after which she reflects that “I felt, in fact, that I was one of them. I was no worse or better” (106). Despite their different gender and social roles, Eileen thinks of herself as similarly imprisoned.

Eileen’s feelings of incarceration extend to her role as her father’s caretaker. Because of her father’s delusions and degrading mental stability, Eileen locks his shoes in the trunk of her car so that he can’t leave the house. When he leaves shoes on the porch for her to lock up, Eileen reflects on her role as her father’s jailer: “Perhaps it was to remind me that I had a job to do, that I was, above all, his caretaker, his minder, his prison guard” (167). Eileen is the unwilling and resentful warden of her father’s prison; she is obligated as his daughter. This is Eileen’s main motivation to leave X-ville. She resents caring for a parent who emotionally abuses her.

Mrs. Polk’s character illustrates the future imprisonment that Eileen could expect if she became a married woman in X-ville. Eileen has an aversion to marriage based on the sexual and gender roles of a wife. Mrs. Polk’s unwillingness to stop her husband from raping their son represents the worst that Eileen could expect if she marries. Mrs. Polk was unable to conceptualize a life outside of her domestic duties. This solidifies Eileen’s conviction that she must leave X-ville before she enters into a similarly restrictive role.

In order to escape X-ville’s social and institutional prisons, Eileen must leave the town and her connections behind. Eileen resents the restrictive roles of a woman and daughter. The novel’s theme of incarceration complements Eileen’s need for independence. It explains her willingness to take whatever action necessary to escape her multiple forms of confinement.

Moral Authority

The characters of Eileen compete for moral authority over issues of gender, familial obligation, and institutional punishment. The recurring presence of police officers and the correctional staff at Moorehead reinforce the prison system’s authority over X-ville's citizens, particularly Eileen, who is connected to the police and prison through her father and job. With Rebecca’s introduction, the narrative questions how moral authority is situated within the prison industrial complex.

Eileen’s social circle is limited to her father, an ex-police officer, other police officers, and correctional officers. Eileen contributes to the prison system herself by working as a secretary at Moorehead. She struggles to respect the prison system and questions what moral authority should look like. The narrator explores this in terms of Eileen’s father, who is respected as a former police officer while being emotionally abusive, negligent, and cruel. At Moorehead, Eileen reflects that the inmates are children, and that the warden’s punishments are severe. Eileen struggles to understand her place in the system, having little sense of personal moral authority and relying on the structures already in place: “I would enforce the rules, all the more, for didn’t that prove that I lived by a high moral code?” (126) It is not until Rebecca that Eileen begins to realize the importance of a personal moral code.

Rebecca is idealistic, educated, and confident, allowing her to evaluate and question the conditions at Moorehead. Rebecca is not from X-ville. Her moral authority in Moorehead and later with Mrs. Polk is possible because she has not lived her entire life within X-ville’s prison system, as Eileen has. Rebecca has no faith in the warden or the judicial system; when she recognizes something strange about Leonard Polk’s case, she takes it upon herself to get confessions from both him and Mrs. Polk. Though Rebecca is ultimately too frightened and inexperienced to threaten Mrs. Polk herself, her sense of moral authority is resolute: “’People won’t understand the good I’m trying to do’” (226). She believes something must be done to punish Mrs. Polk and encourages Eileen to handle the situation.

This encouragement is ultimately what allows Eileen to escape from X-ville. Rebecca’s example of an independently formed and executed moral authority allows Eileen to step outside the influence of her father and job and decide Mrs. Polk’s fate herself.

Independence and Identity Formation

Eileen is a narrative of past events; the narrator describes her final days as the depressed “Eileen” of X-ville. Eileen’s purpose is to escape X-ville and assume a new identity far from the influence of her family. The narrator distances herself from Eileen, saying that she has changed drastically in the fifty years between the events of the novel and the time of her writing. The narrator means for the reader to see herself and Eileen as two different identities that only fuse once Eileen leaves X-ville.

While living in X-ville, Eileen is desperate for attention and approval. The narrator explains that Eileen would do anything to be loved, even so far as murder someone (55). However, Eileen’s main motivation is to gain agency. She desires independence from her father, her job, and the memories that her home in X-ville continually remind her of. When she meets Rebecca, Eileen is presented with a vision of what her life could be. Rebecca lives alone, makes her own professional decisions, has authority at Moorehead, and asserts her femininity by refusing intimacy or marriage.

Eileen’s encounter with Mrs. Polk is her first opportunity to act with agency and independence. Rebecca’s fear of punishment allows Eileen to take over; it is the first time Eileen has threatened anyone with a gun, and the first time she acts as a moral judge over someone else. It is during this moment that Eileen finally realizes she can leave X-ville at a moment’s notice (245). She is no longer bound to care for her father nor to put off her disappearance until a more suitable time—in threatening Mrs. Polk and impressing Rebecca, Eileen displays the independence and agency she has long desired for herself.

The narrator reveals no remorse or guilt for Mrs. Polk’s probable death. In the moment that Eileen chooses to leave X-ville and abandon Mrs. Polk on the side of the interstate, Eileen becomes “Lena,” or, the narrator. She then leads a life in which she gets everything she once desired, including romance, husbands, and the right to live alone in her old age. This transition from Eileen into the narrator signifies the importance of agency, as well as how an outside influence, such as Rebecca, can impact the formation of identity.