34 pages • 1 hour read
William KennedyIronweed
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1983A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Living With Guilt
From the beginning, Francis is consumed by an almost paralyzing sense of guilt, guilt so overpowering that he doesn’t even visit the grave where his infant son is buried until more than 20 years have passed. Even then, he originally goes to the cemetery intending only to work. In addition to his guilt over Gerald’s death, Francis is haunted by the ghosts of men he killed or injured, of which there are several, as well as the ghosts of those he hurt only indirectly, such as the two civilians who died by police fire in the trolley strike rally.
As his ghostly entourage expands, Francis attempts several defensive strategies to rid himself of them. On several occasions, he tries to explain and justify his actions to them, trying to reason his way out of feeling guilty. Unfortunately, this approach typically either angers him or leaves him back where he started, and the ghosts themselves never seem satisfied with the answers he gives; they certainly don’t go away. Even after a relatively successful session with the ghost of Rowdy Dick, Francis senses that “some debts of violence had been settled, but he remained full of the awareness of rampant martyrdom surrounding him” (76). No amount of reasoning, however clever, can free him from the burden of guilt. On other occasions, Francis simply ignores the ghosts, though this, too, fails to produce the desired result.
In time, Francis shifts tactics yet again. After reflecting on his life and choices, Francis begins to question his own culpability on different lines: rather than justifying himself, he absolves himself of responsibility for his crimes on the grounds that he cannot control himself in moments of violent temper and that his actions are simply the result of forces beyond his control. While this realization does allow Francis to back away from his guilt, it also proves deeply unsettling to him, as he questions how his own hands could betray him.
In the end, Francis’s final breakthrough seems to come from a combination of factors and insights. On the one hand, he finally rejects the ghosts as irrelevant because they, unlike him, are not living, not even real. Even so, Francis cannot eradicate every modicum of guilt from his system, so he decides to recognize and accept any residual guilt as an aspect of his identity and proof of his moral fiber. Thus, he attains not freedom from guilt but rather the freedom to live in spite of it.
Free Will Versus Determinism
The question of whether people can choose for themselves instead of being compelled to act in ways predetermined by outside influences surfaces at several points in the novel. Early on, Helen expresses her belief that free will, and not fatalism, governs human action; her statement that “we die when we can, and Sandra decided she could die” may appear contradictory at first (65), as death seems to be the one thing that people have little or no say in, at least when it comes to postponing it. Helen, however, has a chance to demonstrate what she means as she nears death herself. She takes her time, reviewing her life and listening to her favorite music, then, when the moment comes, she actively lets go of the brass bed she was holding for support and seems to fall in slow motion, her body bending “under the weight of so much joy” (139). Thus, even if Helen does not really have a choice of when to die, she does exercise a great deal of choice in selecting the manner and attitude of her death.
Francis, on the other hand, comes to emphasize and acknowledge the limitations of free will in his own life. Faced with the reality that he has committed a great deal of violence, little or none of which he consciously intended to commit, Francis concludes, as Old Shoes suggests, that he was just doing what he “had to do” (208). He comes to believe in the “evil autonomy” of his hands and in his own subjection to powers greater than himself, be they evolutionary drives or political ideologies (146). Paradoxically, however, Francis also insists upon his power and asserts himself by making reparations and course corrections.
In the end, while neither viewpoint can be definitively proven, both turn out to be useful under certain circumstances. The novel suggests that some combination of free will and determinism may be possible, a view that acknowledges the ability to choose as a variable that fluctuates from moment to moment and person to person. This idea introduces an additional complication related to choice: how are we to respond to the actions of others, particularly those, like Francis, whom we suspect of being virtually incapable of choosing otherwise? The incredulous query of the narrator, who asks whether “anyone in possession of Francis’s perspective on himself [could] believe that he was responsible” for the variety of offenses that litter his past (215), appears to imply that, the more we learn of others, the more inclined we will be to extend compassionate understanding.
The Dehumanization of the Homeless
A difference between the treatment of rich and poor becomes apparent in the first chapter, as Francis notices dramatic, class-inflected differences in graveside memorials. Far more upsetting to Francis than differences in the treatment of the dead, however, are differences in the treatment of the living, which he witnesses on a regular basis.
The magnitude of these prejudicial behaviors ranges from minor, such as Clara’s intent to deny Francis any food from the kitchen, which is overruled by Jack, to major, such as the setting aflame of shelters in the hobo jungle. While the horror of major, short-term violent assaults is undeniable, other, more subtle oppressions can prove just as damaging. The exploitation of labor falls into this latter category. Rosskam adopts a particularly arrogant attitude toward Francis, whom he views as expendable human capital, even as he shames Francis for his every attempt to preserve his dignity, whether it be buying a clean shirt or asking for a fair wage; “a bum is a bum,” he maintains, as if to justify his static worldview, before vowing to hire “no more bums” (150).
Private enterprises are not the only ones shown to fail the homeless; at one point, Pee Wee explains to Francis that the ambulance will not carry Sandra again “unless she’s bleedin’ to death” (37). Francis also notes with bemusement ongoing police raids in abandoned houses where vagrants have taken to sleeping: “I don’t know why the hell they gotta do that,” Francis says, adding that “Bums don’t hurt nobody” (189). Francis’s question goes largely unanswered, though there are some hints at what drives malicious treatment of the homeless. Perhaps most significant is a simple lack of compassion. As Helen observes, people don’t stop to think of things from her perspective before calling her a “drunken old douchebag” (136).
Some mistreatment comes from a sense of superiority. As Rudy explains, some people like to call others bums because it makes them “feel better when they say it” (189). Still, when Rudy wonders why the raiders are destroying the hobo jungle and attacking its inhabitants, the best explanation Francis can conjure up is that “They’re the guys on the other team” who “don’t like us filthy bums” (219). Perhaps part of that generalized dislike stems from a lack of understanding. In that case, Kennedy’s choice to highlight as main characters those who inhabit the lowest socioeconomic class constitutes an invitation to stop defining them by what they lack, rather than who they are.
