Nora Webster

“And, after all, our surroundings influence our lives and characters as much as fate, destiny or any supernatural agency.” once said Pauline Hopkins. This phenomena refers to an individual’s environment having a residual effect on a person, just as much as fate, destiny or the supernatural world, is clear in the novel Nora Webster: A Novel by Colm Toibin. The novel takes place in the late 1960s, in a small rural town near Wexford, England where a forty-year old mother of four finds herself widowed and left to find her own identity. The death of her husband is what incites the metaphorical change in her because she is left to fend for her family and herself. She begins by selling the vacation house, which hoarded many important memories she

Nora decided to sell the home to a close friend, but in that same way releasing the thoughts it provoked of her husband while bringing economic stability to her household. She decided to return to the house in Cush for one last time to collect any last memorabilia and tell her goodbyes just as she would have to her husband. “What surprised her was the hardness of her resolve, how easy it seemed to turn to her back on what she had loved, leave this house on the lane to the cliff for others to know, for others to come to in the summer and fill with different noises... Finally, she let herself feel how much she had lost, how much she would miss.” (Toibin, 9) The easiness of her resolve which surprised her was a sign of detachment from reality. She has now lost a part of her life which used to symbolize the family she had with Maurice, but she does not seem to show any evidence of remorse. Nora did not notice that she had become unaware of how insensitive she had been to the people around her; which was why she was able to leave the house so easily without notifying some of her own children before hand. When she is speaking with her daughter shortly after visiting the house in Cush for the last time, she notices she does not know how to reply when she asks her if she has made up her mind about selling the house. This begins

Instead she defends Maurice as well as her dignity and leaves her job before her shift ends, which implies that she quits. A very important aspect of the attitude Nora withheld while quitting her job was that of almost no remorse, she left as if nothing had happened although she knew she no longer would have an income supporting her family. The reaction Nora Webster has shows that from her husband’s death there is a sense of courage developing, which is attributed to the harassment Miss Cavanagh constantly subjected her through during her employment at the Gibney’s. Nora’s work environment was the character building atmosphere that she needed to provoke the courage and strength that would make her the woman she needed must be for her family. She also begins to find an old passion for singing which she had lost as a married woman. Beyond selling her family’s vacation home and working under abusive conditions, Nora rejoiced in a peaceful environment where she began to re-explore an old love of singing. Her love for singing gave her a safe haven where she was able to find herself as well as make peace with life which allowed her to make better relationships with the people around