Young Mungo

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapter 1

Part 2, Chapters 2-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-14

Part 2, Chapters 15-20

Part 2, Chapters 21-28

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Individual versus Society

In Young Mungo, Stuart explores the conflict between the individual and their society. Every character in this novel is battling social norms or expectations in some way, and most fall victim to the oppression of Glasgow’s seemingly inexorable East End culture. In this novel, Stuart asks his reader the classic and still relevant question: Does society corrupt individuals, or do individuals corrupt society?

The East End is a microcosm of the complex history and prejudices of Glasgow, Scotland, and even the UK. Throughout most of its history, Scotland has suffered under an overreaching England; in 1980s Thatcher UK, Scottish individual identity is threatened by socio-economic strife, violence against self and others, and a lack of upward mobility. The East End of Glasgow is a particularly bleak locus of all of these issues. Stuart explores how people get stuck in East End, only to replicate cycles of violence that make it impossible for the community to change for the better. Neighbors spy on neighbors, street gangs replicate religious wars going back centuries, and residents enforce narrow and limited confines for gender expectations. Hamish’s story exemplifies this cycle of oppression. There was once a time when Hamish was interested in going to university to study engineering, which would have vastly improved his dignity, moral standing, and future. But his school made it clear that someone like Hamish could never go to university and should try apprenticeship instead. Rather than uplift East Enders, local institutions keep its residents in dead-end life paths.

Only those willing to completely break away from the East End can ever hope to escape this nasty cycle. Desperate not to become like her mother, Jodie achieves her dreams of leaving her bleak neighborhood for university and a career. Jodie believes in herself and doesn’t capitulate to her community—she gets an abortion rather than become a teenage mother, and she moves away from her family. James too finds a way to escape, hording money until he has enough to leave and never look back.

Those who have the opportunity to escape the East End’s depredations but fail to do so end up even more hopelessly trapped. Mr. Calhoun, who once got the chance to follow his boyfriend to Australia, but opted to stay behind to care for his mother, has been robbed of his humanity by his society. His society’s norms dictate that homosexuality is unnatural, even perverse. Because Mr. Calhoun is known to be gay, his neighborhood community taunts him, mocks him, often to point of violence. Within the world of the East End, Mr. Calhoun is evidence that the individual can be stronger than society, maintaining his dignity and not pretending to be something he is not. However, his story is a warning to the novel’s protagonist—tying himself against all reason to Mo-Maw would doom Mungo to the same fate. Although Mr. Calhoun has found his own versions of happiness and selfhood, the novel does not hold him up as the right way to withstand social oppression. Rather, it argues, those with potential must flee for places that will support them without bigotry and adversity.

Coming of Age

This novel is a coming-of-age story, as shown by the title’s emphasis on Mungo being young. Mungo is 15 years old, but his physical smallness is noted by everyone around him as evidence that he hasn’t quite started growing up. His size is seen as feminine and weak; while other boys his age are already getting girls pregnant and dropping out of school to join gangs or find employment, Mungo still appears childlike. His maturation is tragically motivated by trauma and necessity.

In Mungo’s society, there is little time and patience for childhood; what marks maturity is the grim acceptance of life’s harsh realities, including the complete absence of the support of a parental figure. Mungo’s mother, a complete maternal failure, resents Mungo and her other children for holding her back from a happy life. When Mungo decides to leave school, his mother encourages him—she does not see school as a way to escape the East End, as she herself was a school dropout who got pregnant at 15. But no matter how poorly his mother treats him, Mungo is devoted to Mo-Maw. This indicates the depth of his kindness and capacity for love, but it also emphasizes his childishness. In contrast, Jodie and Hamish see Mo-Maw for who she truly is because they have already come of age, breaking away from her toxicity. To become an adult, Mungo must tear himself away from the hopes that his mother might one day love him—aiming to please her for the rest of his life would stunt his emotional development and trap him in the East End like Mr. Calhoun.

Mungo’s coming-of-age story is developed through a sexual awakening. Mungo must hide his sexual development because he is gay in a violently homophobic milieu. When he meets James, and their friendship turns into a sexual and romantic relationship, James gives Mungo permission to finally be himself, and connect with his body in new ways. This relationship is formative in Mungo’s maturation: It provides him with joy, higher self-esteem, and a partner—and shows him what requited love looks like for the first time. Unlike other relationships in Mungo’s community, such as Jodie’s relationship with Mr. Gillespie and Mo-Maw’s relationship with Jocky, Mungo’s relationship is built on mutual trust, genuine respect, and support. Having sex with James teaches Mungo that his sexuality is normal, not shameful.

Mungo’s coming-of-age story is also developed, tragically, through trauma. Mungo comes to terms with the fact that his mother cares for him in only the most superficial of ways only when she sends him to the countryside with two convicted pedophiles, worried that in not having a father figure, he’s turned towards homosexuality because he doesn’t know how to be a man. In a moment of poignant tragic irony, the weekend in the countryside does indeed make Mungo leave his childhood behind forever. St. Christopher and Gallowgate molest and rape Mungo. They try to convince him that this not abuse—that he deserves and enjoys their assaults. After these predators break him physically and emotionally to the point of two murders, he finally decides that he is done looking after his mother. While most coming-of-age stories necessitate a separation from parents, Mungo’s separation from his mother is tragic because it means acknowledging that his mother is not capable of giving him the love he deserves.

In the span of one weekend, Mungo’s childhood is stolen from him, he takes the lives of two men, and he achieves autonomy. However, none of this is what empowers him—his true moment of maturity is the implied decision to leave East End with James that happens after the novel ends.

The Dangers of Toxic Masculinity

Young Mungo explores the dangers of toxic masculinity. Stuart shows how societal pressure and extremely narrow conceptions of acceptable masculinity engender violence, sacrifice of self, and lack of growth.

Mungo’s society is informed by old-fashioned notions of gender norms. The rules are strict. Men are expected to earn money for their family, be able to fight, protect their reputation, and remain in charge. But after the deindustrialization of Scotland in the 1980s causes massive unemployment in communities that were already struggling to maintain their working-class lifestyles, the loss of jobs destroys the self-esteems of older Glaswegian men. No longer able to provide for their families, they lose their sense of purpose. Without a constructive outlet to express their hurt pride, the men in the novel become vicious. Mr. Campbell is the epitome of this situation. Mr. Campbell physically abuses his wife, which she explains is due to his loss of sense of self and his inability to talk about his emotions—the only way he copes with being a victim of his society’s lack of concern for his economic wellbeing is by victimizing Mrs. Campbell. Such violence against women is a norm, not an exception, in this novel.

Mungo’s community defines masculinity in opposition to heteronormative characterizations of women. Women are despised as soft, vulnerable, disposable, and dangerously insecure. To avoid being seen as effeminate—and thus equally despicable—men must avoid any appearance of weakness or emotional warmth. The violence unleashed on women in this culture is the physical manifestation of this male fear and hatred of femininity. Jodie is one victim of this toxic masculinity culture. She is respected for her intelligence and her kindness, but her teacher feels no compunction for taking advantage of her. Jodie does not expect sex to be pleasurable or to experience desire—she has been groomed to see sex as something transactional that men do to women. Because of this, she mistakenly believes that Mr. Gillespie fulfills her need to be respected. But when he gets her pregnant, the teacher immediately leaves town, not only leaving Jodie to fend for herself, but even accusing her of sleeping with others. To him, she is disposable. This dichotomy set up between men and women relegates men into roles of unfeeling antipathy, which robs them of the ability to experience and express important emotions, such as compassion and vulnerability.

Toxic masculinity is a major challenge for Mungo, who is characterized by his feminine beauty and his passive personality. Mungo exudes love and kindness. His family worries about his survival because he doesn’t adopt male bravado of prevailing social norms. When he attends the fight Hamish forces him to go to, Mungo refuses to fight and is beaten to a pulp. Mungo’s violence comes out only in self-defense, when he is sexually abused by Christopher and Gallowgate and nearly murdered by Gallowgate. His homosexuality also runs counter to the violently homophobic culture he grows up in—gay men are seen as by definition effeminate and powerless. Ironically, Mungo’s ability to kill both proves this assumption to be wrong, and would be celebrated by his society.

James and Mungo keep their relationship a secret because being their authentic selves in public means facing certain ostracization and violence. Though James performs a version of socially condoned heteronormative masculinity, Mungo can’t even pretend to be the type of man Hamish is. The only way either can escape the toxicity is to flee East End.