57 pages • 1 hour read
Douglas StuartShuggie Bain
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Martyrdom of Saint Agnes
Saint Agnes of Rome, Agnes Bain’s namesake, was a Catholic Saint, martyred at a young age for practicing her faith. After a Roman prefect sentenced her to death, she was to be burned at the stake, but the pyre would not light. She was beheaded instead. While religion does not play a major role in Shuggie Bain, there is an undercurrent of tension between Catholics and Protestants, fueled partially by the ongoing Troubles in nearby Ireland, where the Catholic Irish Republican Army fought for independence from the Protestant United Kingdom. Agnes grew up in a Catholic family and was initially married to the Catholic Brandon McGowan, but she left him for Shug, a Protestant. This was a constant point of tension for Lizzie, Agnes’s mother.
George, the leader of the first Alcoholics Anonymous group Agnes attends, makes the connection between Agnes and Saint Agnes. Agnes’s name spurs George into an impassioned speech, likening the lament of Saint Agnes, “I am on fire. I do not burn” (230) to the suffering of an alcoholic. According to George, like fire, alcoholism burns up all it touches; he says, “Money burns, families burn, careers burn, reputations burn, and then when it's all burned, you still burn” (231). Agnes’s struggle with alcoholism “burns” all of the relationships in her life. However, like Saint Agnes, Agnes maintains a certain state of grace, pride, and dignity, even through her abjection. She attempts to preserve her dignity through her appearance and bearing, and through the upkeep of her household.
The “fire” she experiences could also be interpreted as the abuse that is heaped upon her from the men in her life. Being used and abused by Shug continually turns her back to self-destructive drinking. When she manages to finally sober up, it is Eugene who encourages her to drink again. Though he is well-intentioned, Eugene does not appreciate the struggle Agnes went through to quit. In this aspect, Agnes is also like her namesake: as an old woman at the AA meeting says, “The bastards couldnae burn Saint Agnes, so they beheaded the poor lassie instead. Fuckin’ men! Eh?” (232). Agnes appears to rise above her addiction, but Eugene, without malicious intent, drags her back into the fire by encouraging her to drink again.
Wee Red Book Guide to Scottish Football History
Football (soccer) is the most popular sport in Scotland and is thus a symbol of heteronormative masculinity. Because Shuggie acts effeminate, other characters strive to “correct” his behavior. Eugene gives Shuggie a book of football statistics, listing past records of teams. While Eugene means well, it serves as a source of shame that Shuggie regularly returns to. For example, shortly after receiving the little red book, Shuggie meets a handsome man from Agnes’s AA group. Upon seeing him, Stuart writes, “Shuggie felt funny inside. The football book burnt his leg” (282). The book “burning” his leg is symbolic of the shame that is forced upon him, shame that causes him to suppress his identity.
Dancing
Dancing is a liberating act for Shuggie throughout the novel. It represents both self-acceptance of his effeminate way, as well as a defiance of the homophobia that he experiences. While walking in a masculine way is not intuitive to him—he rehearses it obsessively after leek shows him how to walk “like a man”—dancing comes natural to Shuggie.
Shuggie learns to love dancing from Agnes; some of their most tender moments involve dancing. Prior to setting her room on fire on a drunk, self-destructive whim, Agnes has Shuggie dance for her. He immediately links his dancing to her happiness: when he dances, “He did whatever had caused her to laugh another dozen times” because “The happier she looked, the harder he wanted to spin and flail” (53). This scene is mirrored in Pithead, when the McAvennie children spy Shuggie dancing in his living room. Agnes tells him not to stop: if he were to stop, that would mean he was ashamed, and his bullies would win. Shuggie realizes that this is where she excels: facing disgrace, but taking it with pride and grace, not letting the world get the best of her. He continues dancing; though “He tried to tone down the big showy moves, the shaking hips, and the big sweeping arms,” he finds he cannot because “it was in him, and as it pours out, he was helpless to stop it” (268).
Taxis
The primary means of mobility for the characters in Shuggie Bain is by taxi. Both Shug and Eugene are taxi drivers, giving them a means of transportation that Agnes desires, because, above all else, she values mobility and change. Being a taxi driver gives Shug the cover he needs for his affairs: it is how he met Agnes, his mistress, Anne Marie, and Joanie Micklewhite, the cab company’s communications operator.
It is ironic that Agnes falls for (and falls prey to) men whose profession allows them the mobility and social circulation that she is denied. Jinty McClinchy describes Agnes’s proclivity toward cab drivers by saying “It’s not a choice she can help. It’s a curse!” (208). Agnes has grown so accustomed to taxis that she can use them as an instrument to try to interpret their driver’s behaviors. When Shug was courting Agnes, for example, he would leave the glass divider in the hackney open. When he moves his family to Pithead, he keeps it closed, a symbol of the division that has grown between the two of them.
