Analysis Of Young Lonigan

Erica Gray-O’Leary

ENMO 301

October 1, 2014

Young Lonigan Essay

Hope for Young Lonigan?

In the book Young Lonigan, James T Ferrell, we spend the summer with William “Studs” Lonigan pondering if he will follow his parent’s wishes and attend high school, or follow his own ambitions to be the toughest young man in pants on the streets of Chicago, or at least Indiana Avenue. Like William Lonigan, many new students at Mount St. Mary’s spent their summer pondering a similar transition to college. When accepted to Mount St. Mary’s, we committed to the tenets of the University’s mission statement and it guides us as we grow. William Lonigan, struggled with many of these tenets, leading to the question, could Studs Lonigan be a good fit for

(Farrell, 1932, p. 32)His parents insist he continue his education. William does not understand their perspective particularly his father who had an impoverished upbringing. “Often there had not been enough to eat in the house. Many’s a winter day he and his brother had to stay home from school because they had no shoes.” (Farrell, 1932, p. 15) Studs really was naïve to the sacrifices his parent have and still make. In the end, he relents and enrolls in high

159)

Studs, parents had a more challenging youth. The result was that Lonigan really took much of his life for granted and his parents really were largely absent in his life. They wanted what was best but really did not invest in keeping Young Lonigan out of trouble. Toward the end of the book, his father lamented that he did not put William to work all summer painting. Things may have turned out very differently for Studs if he did not have the ability to run free and get in to trouble.

Can Lonigan change? If he chooses to he can. He is constantly thinking about his place in the world and toward the end he is starting to learn it is not all as wonderful as he imagined it to be. Lucy was a hard lesson for him and no doubt he sees that direct correlation that lead him to this end. Similarly he noticed he can no longer talk to Helen, he is starting to feel guilt and he makessa mental promise to go to confession.. In the end, he leaves the reader with a sense of great resignation like a child who has just finished a great tantrum and had now decided there might be a better way. Studs is not a good fit for the Mount as he is portrayed in this book, but he is work in progress, he is young and still had a lot of growing to do. Just like his father who “pulled himself up by his own boot straps.” (Farrell, 1932, p. 19) He had the hunger