All the Years of Her Life

Callaghan’s “All the Years of Her Life” does not so explicitly reflect the features of Modernist storytelling when compared to his novels. However, in its style, structure, narrator point of view, mode of characterization, and epiphany ending, Callaghan’s story echoes certain key modern conventions of the short story form.

Callaghan’s style in “All the Years of Her Life” is uncluttered in a manner reminiscent of journalism. This method of storytelling, which was also used by Ernest Hemingway, was important to modern realists of the 20th century, who worked to express more (e.g., about emotions, ideas, characters) by saying less. One way this is accomplished is through the sparing use of metaphor or symbolism. By using minimal figurative language and depicting characters as living ordinary lives, Callaghan’s story positions itself as raw, honest, and part of actual history (without offering direct commentary on the historical moment in which the story is set). This minimal and economic style of storytelling also lends works like “All the Years of Her Life” a certain timeless feel, offering characters and settings that (while relevant to the time when the story was written) can seem to hail from almost any relatively modern period.

The story’s structure reinforces the style in which it is told, as it opens on the cusp of a difficult moment for its protagonist, Alfred Higgins. In this way, Callaghan introduces readers very early on to the story’s central conflict, which largely takes place within Alfred himself and involves The Development of Empathy and The True Meaning of Maturity. This structural choice sets readers up to identify with Alfred but then to quickly question that identification as the protagonist is revealed to be a shoplifter and a liar. This revelation, which unfolds primarily through dialogue rather than narrator explanation, serves as the story’s exposition, heightening suspense about how the story will conclude.

As the story develops toward its conclusion, Callaghan maintains suspense through his narrator’s third-person perspective, which predominantly follows Alfred’s point of view. Consequently, readers’ understanding is mostly limited to what Alfred can see and understand of people and events around him. This encourages readers to share the emotions of the protagonist—namely, stress (awaiting Mrs. Higgins’s arrival), confusion (at Mrs. Higgins’s composure), and relief (as she bails Alfred out). To be sure, there are indications that Alfred’s perspective is lacking; for example, his preoccupation with acting grown-up in his interaction with Mr. Carr implies that he is insecure and overly focused on appearances. However, it is not until the very last scene that either readers or Alfred learn the true consequences of his shoplifting at Mr. Carr’s drugstore.

As a result of this structure and narrative perspective, readers (like Alfred) may overlook the subtle way characters around Alfred demonstrate grace and patience with him. Mr. Carr’s exceptional tolerance and fortitude as he confronts Alfred about shoplifting falls slightly out of focus because readers’ primary experience in this scene is of Alfred’s fear and stress. Mr. Carr’s characterization as a trusting and patient man becomes even more obscured as the narrative shifts focus to Alfred’s worries about how his mother will react when she finally enters the scene. The same is true of Mrs. Higgins’s characterization: The significance of her self-control in her dialogue with Mr. Carr is obscured because the narrative unfolds through Alfred’s point of view, focusing on his over-awed confusion and relief at his mother’s serenity. Indirect characterizations of this kind are also a hallmark of modern realist storytelling (James Joyce and Hemingway, in particular).

Callaghan maximizes the obscuring, suspense-building potential of the story’s point of view until the very last scene. Alfred suddenly decides to go back downstairs to the family’s kitchen to tell Mrs. Higgins how pleased he was with her handling of the situation at Mr. Carr’s drugstore. Even in this seemingly simple choice by his protagonist, Callaghan sets readers up. Alfred can only see his mother’s calm in terms of how it has benefitted himself: He (along with any readers who have not been paying close attention) does not yet perceive the strength and significance behind her composure at the drugstore, nor The Selflessness of Maternal Love. It is only when Alfred stands by the doorway to the kitchen, just out of his mother’s view, that the story’s crucial moment of revelation (or epiphany) unfolds. Instead of bounding into the kitchen to congratulate his mother for her drugstore performance, Alfred suddenly recognizes Mrs. Higgins’s weariness and exhaustion.

An epiphany, another convention in modern storytelling, refers to a character’s sudden moment of revelation and clarity; it is usually a split-second experience through which a character suddenly understands something about themself and their life. For Alfred, seeing his mother’s hand tremble as she pours and drinks her tea suddenly brings him new understanding of not only his mother but “all the years of her life” and his troublesome place within it (19). In this concluding moment, Alfred finally appreciates the strength, patience, and unconditional love behind Mrs. Higgins’s calm composure, in addition to the draining fatigue that her son’s recurrent negligence and recklessness has caused her. Thus, in his moment of revelation, Alfred realizes that “his youth seem[s] to be over” (19). His coming of age thus coincides with a broadened capacity for empathy—one that involves active compassion rather than the mere calculation of others’ thoughts and feelings when personally relevant.