The Wren, the Wren

In Chapter 2, Enright revealed that the novel takes its title from a poem that Phil has dedicated to Carmel. The author later contrasts this detail in Chapter 7 against Carmel’s association with the folk song “The Wren Song,” whose lyrics hint at the violent character teeming underneath Phil’s whimsical surface. This detail solidifies the theme of The Private Lives of Public Personalities, highlighting that Phil’s public presence hid the violence of his interior. When David arrives at Carmel’s house, Carmel responds to him as though he were challenging her and Nell’s existence. She antagonizes him and refuses to see his charm but tries for Nell’s sake. This response stems from the tension she experienced with Phil, who overwrote her memories of violence by repurposing the wren into a symbol of his affection for her. She wants to expose the disappointments that Nell will feel later in her relationship so that Nell can move past them and decide whether David is worth keeping in her life.

It helps Carmel that Enright has designed David to be an easy target for her ire, not only making him posh but also English. This evokes the subtext of long-running cultural tension between Ireland and the United Kingdom, given the history of colonization that the latter imposed on the former. It is easy for Carmel to hate David the same way she has hated Phil all her life, but that is what makes Nell’s decision to resist her mother such a crucial turning point in their relationship. Considering that the novel begins with Nell being reticent to share any details of her life with Carmel, Nell’s decision to introduce David as the man she loves speaks to her attempt to assert her agency and maturity to Carmel. She acknowledges the disappointments that Carmel fears by defending David. She also stresses that Carmel’s protectiveness is natural to her behavior as a mother, but it isn’t something that Nell needs. Carmel’s childish reaction suggests that she doesn’t accept Nell’s defense at first, but she comes to understand that it is out of her control. What wins her over is her observation of an intimate embrace between Nell and David, which reminds her of Nell’s innocence as a child. Knowing that David can evoke this part of Nell’s personality is comforting enough to accept him as a suitable partner for her daughter. This resolves The Fraught Love of Mother-Daughter Relationships as a theme.

Nell likewise resolves The Attempt to Define the World Through Language by realizing that language is ultimately too limited to capture the true nature of reality. Her encounter with the bullfinch mirrors Phil’s encounter with the badger cub, though Enright reverses the mood of these moments by making Nell realize the peace that comes with the entropy she has feared since the start of the novel. Coming off her earlier realization that she does not need to define and understand people to love them, she realizes that language is not equipped to resolve the tension of contradiction in the world. As a heightened practice of language, poetry merely underlines that tension, aligning with Phil’s assertion that unrequited love poems are the only kinds of poems that exist. The novel thus ends on a note of resignation, particularly toward the inevitability of endings. Nell imagines death and the end of civilization, but she juxtaposes this against the hope that some beautiful things, like the bullfinch, will persist despite the failure of humanity to preserve them.