A passage that jumped out at me as similar to the discussions we had in class came early in Levine and Gibson’s piece. With awareness of the historical moment in which “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” is set, Gibson calls for attention to be paid to the importance of presence and/or absence. In class, we touched upon the significance of the absences of the narrator’s parents in “Araby,” as well as the absence of an often mentioned character in “Ivy Day” (Parnell). In our discussions, we seemed to focus on the use of such absences for characterization purposes (i.e. possible explanations for the narrator’s behavior and perspective–“Araby”), and how such a function encourages readers to fill in some remaining vague areas on their own. However, Gibson offers an analysis of absence that moves beyond character and plot. Instead, the author furthers the conversation into one focused on a duet of politically important aspects at the heart of absences in “Ivy Day”:

“‘Ivy Day’ has long been thought of as built around an absent center, the dead Parnell. It would, however, be better to conceive of it as having two absent centers or, better, two occluded foci: Parnell or nationalist hopes and aspirations, on the one hand, and Labour and socialist hopes and aspirations, on the other[…]The case for Parnell is obvious: from the title of the story to Hynes’s poem, Parnell is missing and missed, but also omnipresent. The question of Labour, by contrast, might be thought of as flitting in and out of the story as Hynes flits in and out of the committee room” (Levine & Gibson 265).

Gibson emphasizes not only the fact that Parnell and what he represents are absent, but also how an entire concept  –“Labour and socialist hopes and aspirations”–seems to be perpetually “in and out” of presence as well. While we as a class discussed the entrances and exists as similar to those of a play, Gibson offers an explanation of such that parallels the political importance of Parnell’s perpetual absent state. It seems as though this piece takes our conversation further by describing the Labour/socialist desires in comparison and connection to the continual flitting of Hynes. Whereas we had previously considered the connection between Parnell and “nationalist hopes,” it  appears as though this continued analysis of absence serves to reiterate the political complications so prevalent throughout the story. But I’m left wondering if either historical commentary or accuracy ends up being the main concern of the story (or if it’s neither). In other words, are the absences so crucial to this story highlighting a reality, or calling for the examination of certain hypothetical situations (and their potential outcomes)? Does the historically political context (moreover, the absences and presences) add or subtract from the sentiments being portrayed? Vice versa?