Going Home by William Trevor
"Going Home" by William Trevor explores the complex relationship between Carruthers, a troubled adolescent, and Miss Fanshawe, a teacher with a supervisory role over him. Set during their train journey at the end of a school term, the story unfolds primarily through dialogue, revealing the dynamics of their unusual bond. Carruthers expresses his aggression and discontent towards authority figures, particularly targeting his mother and the school's headmaster, while Miss Fanshawe appears to navigate her frustrations and unfulfilled desires through her interactions with him.
The narrative delves into themes of loneliness, longing for connection, and the search for a sense of belonging. Carruthers shares his turbulent family background, including his mother's numerous relationships, which he views with adolescent disdain. Meanwhile, Miss Fanshawe reveals her own struggles with feelings of inadequacy and despair, culminating in a poignant climax where both characters confront their emotional needs. The story concludes with Carruthers leaving Miss Fanshawe to reunite with his mother, leaving her to reflect on their brief yet impactful connection, highlighting the ongoing search for understanding and comfort amidst personal chaos.
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Going Home by William Trevor
First published: 1972
Type of plot: Domestic realism
Time of work: Probably the 1960's
Locale: The South of England
Principal Characters:
Carruthers , a thirteen-year-old boy who attends boarding schoolMiss Fanshawe , a thirty-eight-year-old undermatron at the schoolAtkins , a waiter in the dining car of a train
The Story
At the end of each term, Carruthers and Miss Fanshawe travel together by train from the Ashleigh Court school to their separate destinations. The journey has become a ritual, and in this no-man's-land on the train an unusual relationship has developed. Although Miss Fanshawe has a certain supervisory responsibility for Carruthers, he seems to have taken advantage of the freedom on the train to act out his aggression, and she appears to indulge more than restrain him. He smokes, drinks alcohol, lies, and embarrasses her with outspoken comments and questions. The verbal aggression is directed against her and the waiter, but it is evident that his mother and the headmaster of the school are his real targets, and Miss Fanshawe's indulgence is the result of her tacit approval of his anger.
In the first part of the story, they are alone in the dining car, and because the story is almost all dialogue, the reader must slowly piece together the information about the characters. The waiter has a part only insofar as he becomes the butt of Carruther's aggression; because the waiter is new, the boy forces him to listen to his story. His father and mother divorced when he was three, and he spends his summers with his mother, mostly at fashionable Continental resorts. His mother "has men all over the place. . . . She snaps her fingers and people come to comfort her with lust." Adolescent disgust heightens this account, and it is clear that he likes to invent salacious fantasies about other people's lives, but what is most evident is that Carruthers does not feel that he is going to a real home. School is an equally loveless and unpleasant place, where he has joined in the communal games of sadism and victimization.
His conversation explains his aggressive behavior, but on this occasion, he is especially vindictive and seems to exceed the rules of the ritual. He tells the waiter about Miss Fanshawe's life of service at the school, where she is constantly put on and unappreciated. In general, he sketches Miss Fanshawe as a purposeless person who is "watching her life go by," and he demands to know whether it is fair that his mother, "the female," should have so many lovers and Miss Fanshawe none at all. In a frenzy, Carruthers tears the waiter's sleeve, and the furious waiter shouts, "That child is a raving lunatic."
When they return to their compartment, Carruthers reveals to Miss Fanshawe that this is their last time together because he has been expelled for attempting to steal from the headmaster's office. He apologizes to her and confesses that when she comforted him once, he had been crying because he had "thought [the school] would be heaven, a place without Mrs. Carruthers"—in other words, that school would provide him with a real home. Now he seems to break down, admitting that Miss Fanshawe was the only one there who was kind to him and that he does not know why he acts so aggressively.
Suddenly, the quiet Miss Fanshawe begins to tell him about her home life, prompted by her recognition that she has been drawn to him because of his need for care and love. She tells him about her concealed despair and her desperate craving for love, "to be desired, to be desired in any way at all." She tells of her unhappy and dull life with her aging parents, who treat her as a failure and have "sucked everything out of her." She begins to implore him to understand when he tells her that he does not, and her frenzied account of her dream that she could take him and provide him with a real home life terrifies him. When he tries to cut short her account of her life, she refuses to stop and, finally, withdrawing from the role in which she has placed him, he tells her that she "doesn't make any sense." She is forced to admit to him that she may be mad "beneath the surface . . . out of loneliness and locked up love."
By the end of the story, the boy is overwhelmed by the intensity of her revelations, resentful of her confession, and sick of alcohol. At his journey's end, he walks away from her onto the railway platform, and she watches him meet his mother.