Conscience - “First Confession”
The Catholic praxis of confession is founded on the indiscernible conscience: “But the worst of all was when she showed us how to examine our conscience. Did we take the name of the Lord, our God, in vain? Did we honour our father and our mother? (I asked her did this include grandmothers and she said it did.) Did we love our neighbours as ourselves? Did we covet our neighbour goods? (I thought of the way I felt about the penny that Nora got every Friday.) I decided that, between one thing and another, I must have broken the whole ten commandments, all on account of that old woman, and so far as I could see, so long as she remained in the house, I had no hope of ever doing anything else.” The ten commandments are exercised in appraising a Catholic confessor’s conscience. The commandments delineate honourable and debauched engagements. Infringement of the commandments compels truthful declarations of guilt in the presence of a priest. Jackie endures a remorseful conscience because his association with his grandmother and sister hints that he has contravened all commandments; thus, he is a religious offender. Accordingly, he is not enthusiastic about his confession.
Alcoholism - “The Drunkard”
Larry illuminates the ripple effects of alcoholism on his father’s being: “Sooner or later, the spiritual pride grew till it called for some form of celebration. Then he took a drink—not whisky, of course; nothing like that—just a glass of some harmless drink like lager beer. That was the end of Father. By the time he had taken the first he already realized he had made a fool of himself, took a second to forget it and a third to forget that he couldn’t forget, and at last came home reeling drunk. From this on it was “The Drunkard’s Progress,” as in the moral prints. Next day he stayed in from work with a sick head while Mother went off to make his excuses at the works, and inside a fortnight he was poor and savage and despondent again. Once he began he drank steadily through everything down to the kitchen clock. Mother and I knew all the phases and dreaded all the dangers. Funerals were one.” Mick Delanay’s alcoholic predispositions are analogous to a lethal bandwagon that devastates his entire existence during the course of his wrecking drunkenness. The drunkenness defies 'diminishing marginal utility' reality because once he gets into the bandwagon he drinks disproportionately to the degree that his son and spouse dread that he might perish. The initial glass of beer heightens his enthusiasm for further glasses subsequently. Seemingly, a sole glass of beer would unequivocally shrink Delanay’s restraint.
