Cords by Edna O’Brien, 1968
The magic trick:
Subtly shifting point of view between mother and daughter using free indirect style
“Cords” involves a mother’s difficult and truncated visit to see her adult daughter, whose life in London she doesn’t particularly approve of.
It’s an excellent opportunity to bounce back and forth between different points of view. The story is told in the third-person. But we regularly get free indirect writing that aligns us with a certain character. More often than not, it is Claire, the daughter. But we also see things, occasionally, from the mother’s point of view.
It sets up the story very well, with the main theme being this mother and daughter struggling to connect. But because the changes in point of view are not broken into separate sections or anything so obvious, the affect is subtle.
And that’s quite a trick on O’Brien’s part.
The selection:
Claire met her mother at the airport and they kissed warmly, not having seen each other for over a year.
“Have you stones in it?” Claire said, taking the fibre suitcase. It was doubly secured with a new piece of binding twine. Her mother wore a black straw hat with clusters of cherries on both sides of the brim.
“You were great to meet me,” the mother said.
“Of course I’d meet you,” Claire said, easing her mother right back on the taxi seat. It was a long ride and they might as well be comfortable.
“I could have navigated,” the mother said, and Claire said nonsense a little too brusquely. Then to make amends she asked gently how the journey was.
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