Writing is unmistakably therapeutic for Roseanne: “This morning Dr Grene came in, and I had to scramble and rush to hide these pages. For I did not want him to see, or to question me, for here contains already secrets, and my secrets are my fortune and my sanity. Luckily I could hear him coming from far off down the corridor, because he has metal on the heels of his shoes.” Roseanne’s efforts to conceal her writings indicate her desire to secrete the secrets which the writings embody. If Dr. Greene were to have a glimpse of Roseanne’s writings, then they would cease to be secrets. Accordingly, writing enables her to confront her enigmas, a process which could mollify her psychologically. Her writing is an embodiment of the world which she would not want to share with any other party.
The omnipresent dust in Roseanne’s room is emblematic of interminable mortality. John Kane declares, “I don’t know where all the dust comes from...I sweep it every day and there is always dust, by God there is, ancient dust. Not new dust, never new dust.” The ancient dust accentuates the longstanding nature of mortality. Sweeping is not categorically ample to exterminate the age-old transience which the dust epitomizes. Dust makes Roseanne cognizant of her looming expiry.
Historical allusion apprises a reader about the precise circumstances which Roseanne faced all through her lifespan: “I am quoting my husband’s brother Jack when I write this, or at least I hear Jack’s voice in the sentences. Jack’s vanished voice. Neutral. Jack, like my mother, was master of the neutral tone, if not of neutrality. For Jack eventually donned an English uniform and fought against Hitler in that later war – I nearly said, that real war.” Referring to the notable war depicts the degree to which Roseanne’s immediate household is impacted by the war. Jack’s resolution to enlist is an affirmation that he does not ratify Hitler’s ideologies. Joining the war is a subversion of Hitler and all the ideals that he sponsors.
Fr Gaunt portrays exceptional stoicism in the face of death: “Fr Gaunt himself was young and might have been expected to feel a special kinship for the slain. But Fr Gaunt was so clipped and trim he had no antennae at all for grief. He was like a singer who knows the words and can sing, but cannot sing the song as conceived in the heart of the composer. Mostly he was dry. He spoke over young and old with the same dry music. But let me not speak against him. He went everywhere in Sligo in his ministry, he walked into bleak rooms in the town where impoverished bachelors feasted on tinned beans, and lousy cabins by the river that looked like ancient starving men themselves, with rotting thatch for hair, and little staring, dull, black windows for eyes.” Fr Gaunt’s encounter with death bodies does not evoke conventional emotions in him. Perhaps, his stoicism is ascribed to religious teachings which affirm the reality of another life beyond the carnal expiry. Religion predominantly shapes his approach of war. Dedication to the ministry confirms his resolve to serve the dead unfailingly.
