85 pages • 2 hours read
John BoyneThe Heart's Invisible Furies
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Bearing Witness to Prejudice, Intolerance, and Hatred
Content Warning: This Themes section discusses the prejudice, intolerance, and hate crimes against gay men that are portrayed in The Heart’s Invisible Furies.
Prejudice, intolerance, and hatred are at the forefront of Cyril’s life from the moment he is born. Deeply affected by traditionalism, the Catholic religion, and antiquated laws, Ireland in the 20th century was a dangerous place for Cyril to live. This is evident from Book 1 when Seán is killed by his own father after his father confirms that he is gay. After witnessing Seán’s death, Catherine gives birth to Cyril in an environment of violence; the moment initiates his role as a witness to prejudice and hatred. This sets a precedent for his life and narrative; in telling his life story, Cyril effectively calls out instances of intolerance to gay people, women, those with AIDS, and others, pointing out the need for social chance in Ireland and around the world.
Growing up, Cyril does not understand his own feelings due to the shame and secrecy surrounding being gay at the time. Ironically, when he finally does confide in Julian years later, he is shunned and rejected for the lies he told. In Ireland at this time, being gay is not only considered a mental illness, but is also a criminal offense punishable by law. Gay men are seen as being “afraid of women” (69). Historically, Garda in Dublin were known to patrol common places for gay men to meet and arrest them in the act. In the novel, Cyril describes this very injustice—though ironically, instead of pursuing intimacy, he is trying to help a young anxious man. Cyril manages to escape arrest due to a twist of fate that leaves the officer dead after a political rebellion explosion; though he is not directly involved in the act of rebellion, Cyril again serves as witness to the animosity and violence in his society that stems from prejudices and intolerance.
Cyril spends his childhood and much of his adult life unable to reveal or wholly accept his own sexuality after experiencing the repressive and intolerant actions of societal institutions such as the Church and medical profession. He believes due to the doctrine under which he was raised that he will one day rid himself of being gay; he asks God for help in doing so, pleading, “Please stop me from being a homosexual” (167). He also enlists the “help” of a doctor who stabs his testicles with a needle repeatedly. The doctor tells Cyril, “Perverts, degenerates, and sickos have existed since the dawn of time, so don’t for a minute think you’re anything special” (209).
In the early 20th century, Irish attitudes toward gay people begin to shift, but the shift is slow and labored. Cyril continues to bear witness to attitudes such as “If you’re going to ride your bicycle on the wrong side of the street, you can expect to be knocked over, am I right?” (524). As he grows older, Cyril sees that even as people become slightly less bigoted, they still view gay people through the lens of stereotypes and often ask him ridiculous and overly personal questions. In 2015, Ireland finally makes an amendment to their Constitution allowing people of any sexuality to marry. Having witnessed and experienced prejudice and hatred throughout his life, Cyril feels joyous about this change, but also cheated out of the life he could have had.
Cyril observes prejudices, intolerance, and acts of violence in others’ lives and in locations other than Ireland as well. Cyril’s adoptive son, Ignac, suffers trauma at the hands of men who are ashamed of their own sexuality. Bastiaan, Cyril’s partner, is killed by a group of men who are disturbed by the sight of two men being affectionate, showing how prejudice exists outside of Europe. President Reagan comments on gay people, saying, “Society can’t condone that lifestyle and neither can I” (363).
When Cyril returns to Ireland, he sees that attitudes are not changing fast enough; Miss Ambrosia refers to gay men as “one of them,” Cyril goes on a date with a man who is engaged and hiding his sexuality, and people in Cyril’s daily life often question his sexuality. Alongside the violence and daily prejudice that Cyril experiences, he also witnesses the AIDS epidemic. Cyril volunteers visiting patients and observes that prejudice against gay men has only increased; many people see them as the sole cause for the epidemic. People with AIDS are isolated, many of them intentionally refusing to tell their families about their condition. Even Cyril’s best friend, Julian, blames gay people for his illness, refusing to tell anyone about his disease and dying with only Cyril to keep him company.
The Interconnected Web of Human Life
Cyril’s life is shaped by a series of interconnections between people and places, past and present. Ireland’s population is relatively small, and Cyril’s world is as well; even when he tries to escape his past or the people he has failed, he finds it impossible to do so. In the later years of his life, Cyril comes to terms with this, returning to his home in Ireland and spending his final months in the very house in which he was raised.
Throughout his life, Cyril meets his mother, Catherine, several times. Each time, neither of them is aware of who the other is, but Cyril does find himself oddly trusting of Catherine, and she finds herself drawn to him. She helps Cyril when he is attacked by a press officer, cleaning his wounds and allowing him to confide in her. Cyril is unsure why he feels able to trust Catherine with the truth about his sexuality, but instinctively knows that he can. When Cyril moves to Amsterdam, he meets Jack, who now owns a pub there. Unaware that Jack is Catherine’s best friend, the two become close, and Jack introduces Cyril to Bastiaan. Jack also saves Bastiaan’s life the night that Damir comes for Ignac, and Catherine is there to help Jack dispose of the body. That night, Cyril unknowingly picks up the same stick that Catherine used when Seán was attacked. Just before Cyril realizes who Catherine is, she ironically says, “Our paths seem to cross every so often, don’t they?” (533). Upon his realization, the two reunite and spend the golden years of their lives as mother and son. Catherine even takes Cyril to Goleen in the novel’s conclusion, causing their lives to come full circle.
Charles comes in and out of Cyril’s life as well, showing up in times of need and neglecting Cyril blatantly in others. When Charles is dying, he professes his joy in having Cyril in his life. During that time, Cyril sleeps in his old bedroom.
The Averys and the Woodbeads share a lifelong trail of connections that continue to compound as Cyril gets older. He first meets Julian and his sister when their father acts as Charles’s lawyer after Charles is caught for tax evasion. Cyril becomes Julian’s roommate in college and the two become best friends. This leads Cyril to eventually marry Alice and produce their son Liam, and Liam eventually has a son he names Julian. Cyril encounters Julian again decades after their rift when Julian contracts AIDS. Cyril accompanies Julian in his final days, just as he did Charles.
Despite trying to escape Ireland and the memories it holds, Cyril is drawn back after he loses Bastiaan. It’s necessary for Cyril to distance himself from his past and the places that caused him trauma, but it is ultimately necessary for him to go back, too. He considers Ireland his home, and like his mother, Cyril feels the need to return to the beginning when his life reaches its end.
Loneliness as Part of the Human Condition
As represented by many of the story’s circumstances, loneliness becomes the human condition within the novel. The first half of Cyril’s life is characterized by loneliness, isolation, and the societal prejudice that leads Cyril into a life of hiding. Cyril’s loneliness both propels many of his actions and serves as his tragic flaw. During his life, Cyril encounters many other lonely people, each of whom deals with loneliness in a unique way. The novel’s resolution concerns loneliness as well: By the end of his life, Cyril has reconciled the conflicts within and outside of himself and resolves the seclusion that once ate away at him.
Cyril’s life is defined by his isolation from conception. When his mother, Catherine, becomes pregnant with him, she is cast out of her hometown and disowned by her family. She is forced to start afresh and on her own. Being separated from his mother from birth and establishes in Cyril a feeling of disconnectedness from his surroundings. He is taken in by a couple who are less than empathetic and more concerned with their own affairs than his emotional wellbeing, and Cyril’s loneliness intensifies as he grows. In young adulthood, Cyril feels alone with his feelings of desire for other men, particularly Julian. He thinks of Julian constantly, leaving him pining for something he can never have. He feels he cannot discuss his sexuality with anyone and instead finds affection in dark and disturbing places, largely as a result of the traditional mindset that was prevalent in 20th-century Ireland. Each stranger that Cyril has sex with is just as lonely and isolated as he is.
Cyril’s need to find love and connection spirals when he doubtfully marries Alice, then leaves her after the wedding. He realizes how his life has built to this moment:
Years of shame and regret began to overwhelm me. A lifetime of lying, of feeling that I was being forced to lie, had let me to a moment where I was not only preparing to destroy my own life but also that of a girl who had done nothing whatsoever to deserve it (290).
When Cyril looks back, he realizes that he was surrounded by people who loved him his entire life, and it was often his own choices that led to his loneliness. At the end of his life, Cyril is happy and grateful for the large if unusual family that grew from his mistakes. He is no longer lonely, and even reunites with his biological mother, Catherine.
Cyril is not the only character driven by his loneliness. In each character, there is a desire and longing for human connection. Both Charles and Maude are lonely despite living together; Charles copes by seeking the affection of other women, and Maude expresses her isolation through the novels she writes. Alice sees Maude’s aloneness: “It was as if she understood completely the condition of loneliness and how it undermines us all, forcing us to make choices that we know are wrong for us” (260). When Bastiaan and Cyril find Ignac, it is clear to them that he has experienced a lifetime of neglect and loneliness. A victim of child sex trafficking, Ignac escaped Slovenia in the hopes of finding refuge in his father; instead, Damir only sold his son to men and eventually tried to violently kidnap him, resulting in Damir’s death. Ignac’s loneliness is resolved when Cyril and Bastiaan take him in, although he is still affected by the trauma of his past. Catherine points out the human condition of loneliness and abandonment years later in guilt over leaving Cyril: “Why did they abandon me? Why do we abandon each other? Why did I abandon you?” (558).
The Strength of Women Against Misogyny
The Heart’s Invisible Furies features several strong female characters that go against the grain of traditional Irish-Catholic culture, including Catherine, Maude, and Alice. Ireland in the 20th century maintained antiquated and misogynistic views toward women, as reflected by the views of everyday citizens as well as many of their laws and policies. In 1945, for example, there were only four female members of parliament and no female TDs, and throughout the mid-20th century, a law remained in place that barred women from being both wives and workers; in other words, they were forced to quit their jobs if they decided to marry, or to live life alone and pursue their career passions—almost as a punishment for not choosing the traditional route.
Unjust treatment toward unplanned and teenage pregnancies was also commonplace, and Catherine’s experiences reflect this. When Cyril meets Julian, Julian tells him about a case his father worked on in which the man was forgiven for murdering his wife because she cheated on him. Julian adopts his father’s misogynistic and harmful views of women, telling Cyril that women are “crazy and mentally unbalanced” (60). This sentiment is repeated often throughout the novel, with Charles and other men regularly making jokes to this effect.
As the most prominent female figure in the novel, Catherine represents the strength of women to resist repression and to actively pursue personal fulfillment in the face of misogyny. The story begins with her experience of being banished from her town and family after it’s discovered she is pregnant at age 16. From the first page, Catherine is “denounced as a whore” (5) by her priest, setting the premise for the ways that prejudice against women are rooted in Catholicism. In Ireland, the Catholic Church is a strong influence on peoples’ views of women; for example, the townspeople of Goleen allow the priest to publicly chastise Catherine and punish her with banishment. The novel reveals the repression of women in a city environment as well; when she arrives in Dublin, Catherine acquires one of the only jobs available to women at the time: a waitress for a tearoom. Unwilling to allow her experiences and others’ views of women to define her, she makes her roots there and works until retirement. She is more full of spark and up to date with current affairs than Cyril when they finally meet, and when she is in her eighties, she gets married for the first time as a final rebuking of the traditional norms that tried to destroy her life: “I’ve lost people before. I’ve known violence, I‘ve known bigotry, I’ve known shame and I’ve known love. And somehow, I always survive” (532).
Both Maude and Alice also serve as strong female figures in the novel. Maude is a writer who spends her days alone, writing for nobody but herself; she despises the idea of fame and popularity. As a result, she is only writing because she loves to do so. The novels that Maude writes feature lonely women abused by narcissistic and unintelligent men, reflecting her experiences with Charles and a common experience of a woman growing up in a culture like hers. Alice, one generation younger, deeply admires Maude for these reasons and identifies with her struggles. She writes her thesis on Maude’s work. Alice is intelligent and patient and shows her strength when she raises Liam alone after Cyril leaves. Alice further demonstrates her strength, love, and openness when she forgives Cyril and accepts him into her family.
Despite the misogyny ingrained in their environment, Catherine, Maude, and Alice each have a powerful influence on Cyril’s life and the person he becomes: Catherine lays a foundation for Cyril’s respect for women, Maude demonstrates true female independence to Cyril, and Alice shows Cyril that he is not immune to the patriarchal mistakes of the 20th century.
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