Woman Who Walked

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Roddy Doyle, the author of 'The Woman Who Walked Into Doors", won the Booker Prize in 1993 for "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha". This novel made him the largest selling author in the history of the prize. His novels deal with the gritty world of his home town, Dublin, showing it as the warm-hearted place that it is, despite the poverty and deprivation of certain areas. "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors" describes the experience of a 39 year old woman, Paula Spencer, who survives the physical and mental abuse she is subjected to by her husband. Paula is an alcoholic but the novel shows her trying her best to look after her children and get her life back on track. It ends with her finally throw~ husband out. I intend to examine how Paula was affected by her ~~~ domestic abuse and her struggle to regain control of her life. Before her marriage to Charlo, Paula had a comparatively happy life. Even though her family were not very wealthy she was very outgoing and always full of fun. She was pretty and also mature for her age so she was popular with both the boys and the girls in her school, although she was not so popular with the teachers. Paula did not like her teachers either. "She didn't ask us if we'd had a nice holiday or if we were nervous. She was just horrible"

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Her misbehaviour in classes was, I feel, caused by her need to gain admiration. Paula realised she was not going to succeed academically so she fooled around and told jokes as she knew she was good at this. There are several flashbacks in the novel where Paula remembers her childhood to be very happy. She recalls family caravan holidays, trips to the beach and the many boyfriends she had as a young girl. Her early relationship with Charlo, before they were married, it appears was also very happy. "It was perfect, I'm able to remember it ... Warm dry wind, his hand"-Clryas well-the manly clip of his heels, his smoke" "

Marriage to Charlo, however, changed Paula's life dramatically. The most obvious effects, perhaps, on Paula's life were those caused by his physical abuse . During her marriage to Charlo, Paula had injuries such as a dislocated arm, broken bones, cracked ribs, missing teeth and even had hair ripped from her head. "He lost his temper. And he hit me... He sent me flying across the kitchen."

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Charlo regularly beat up Paula for the most trivial of reasons. This meant that Paula was always worried about when Charlo would next lose his temper and she always tried to make everything perfect to keep him happy. "Nicola's tears, John Paul's snotty nose, spilling sugar on the floor, everything made me panic. Everything was heading to disaster ... Something I'd do, something I'd say. Anything." Charlo's beatings also caused Paula to lose a baby. I feel this has affected her very deeply as she has frequent flashbacks about this throughout the book. However, the effect of his mental abuse on her character is just as damaging, perhaps even more so. Due to his mental torture, Paula turns to drink. 'The bottle the bottle ... off with the top. Up to my mouth. Head back, down . l hate it I love it I hate it I uroe it I love it I love it ... No more pain." To me this repetition shows how desperate Paula is to get the bottle open and how much she longs for the drink. Paula would drink herself into oblivion. This is her way of escaping the hell that was her life with Charlo. "Drink helped; drink calmed me. Drink gave me something to search for and do." The novel is written in the first person, interspersed with her stream of consciousness, which takes us inside Paula's head. I think this shows us exactly'how she is feeling, in all her different states of mind, which makes Paula a sympathetic and realistic character. Doyle has also divided the novel into sections, which are not arranged in chronological order, and some of the sections are repeated several times through the book. I think this mirrors Paula's state of mind, showing us how she is unable to think straight and how mixed up she really is. As an alcoholic, Paula becomes very confused. To show this, Doyle uses the punctuation technique of putting full stops in the middle of sentences. "I have two sisters and three brothers. I had another sister who died; I'm close to. my sisters. 11

In my opinion, the full stops are there to show Paula's mental confusion, as if she is pausing, struggling to clarify her thoughts. This is an effect of the long term violence she has been subjected to by Charlo.· . "I couldn't think properly"

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Paula also deludes herself about her childhood. She remembers things very differently from her older sister, Carmel, who does not remember their childhood in the happy way Paula does. "It was a happy home. That's the way I remember it. Carmel doesn't remember it like that" CarmeI does not have fond memories of their father the way PauIa does and tries to point out many of his bad points to Paula. However, Paula refuses to believe her sister. In my opinion, this shows how desperate Paula is to think of happy times she had before Charlo became part of her life and also how she isn't going to let CharIo give ~er a prejudiced view of all men. After his attacks Charlo often tried to convince Paula that her injuries had not been caused by him. He told her that she had fallen or had walked into a door. As he continued to tell·her these stories Paula found herself starting to doubt her own memories. "Do I actually remember that? Is that ~xactly how it happened? Did my hair rip? Did my back scream?" Sometimes Paula, like many abused women, even genuinely believed she was to blame. "I provoked him. I was stupid. " This was a symptom of her loss of self-esteem, the most damaging effect Charlo had on her. Paula, who had been once been very confident, had become a shadow of her former self due to CharIo's violence. "He killed parts of me. He killed most of me. He killed all of me. " Her lack of confidence also causes Paula to think she is good at nothing and will never succeed in anything. "I was hopeless, useless, good for f***n' nothing ... 1. was hopeless and stupid." To me, this shows how Paula has started to believe all the insults Charlo directed at her during their years of marriage. Despite her constant subjection to domestic abuse, Paula does try to regain some control of her life. The thing that seems to keep Paula going is her four children. They seem to become a lifeline for her. She knows she has to survive for the sake of them and finds great comfort in them throughout the novel.

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"Whenever I feel really poor I always search for Jack '" Getting hugged by Jack is like.nothing else in this world."

Sometimes when Paula is on one of her frequent hospital visits it seems as if she is going to tell someone what is happening and thus regain some control in her life. However, her lack of self esteem leads her to back down at the last minute. Paula wants to be asked. She says she would tell if only they asked. "J waited to be asked. Ask me. Ask me. As me. I'd tell her. I'd tell them everything"

I feel.rhowever, that Paula is deluding again herself and, if asked, she would make yet another excuse. It was not only Paula who refused to face. up to what was happening. also "saw nothing".

Her family

"My mother looked and saw nothing.,My father saw nothing. My brothers saw nothing ... The woman who kept walking into doors."

This excuse, which is also the title of the book, is the one Paula gave to medical staff when asked about her injuries. It is Paula's love for her children that causes Paula finally to throw Charlo out of their home. When Charlo was annoyed at their eldest daughter, Nicola, Paula saw Charlo giving her a threatening look. It was the same look he had given her many times prior to his violent attacks. This is what made Paula snap. She had put up with him abusing her but she was not going to let him ruin Nicola's life as well. "He'd killed me and now it was Nicola. But no. No f***n' way"

Before physically throwing Charlo out of the door, Paula hit him on the head with a frying pan. In my opinion, this released a lot of the anger that had built up inside Paula and made her instantly feel better about life. . "His blood on the floor. My finest hour ... I was something. I loved. Down on his head."

I was relieved when Paula finally threw Charlo out. I didn't think she would actually do it. Reading "The Woman Who Walked Into Doors" made me think about the abuse Paula and many other woman suffer. I could not understand why she did not throw him out sooner but I suppose the loye she felt for him and the fear she had of him prevented her from doing so. I feel that Paula triumphed in the end' of the novel. Her struggle to regain control was finally over and I think that she would go on to make a better life for her and her family without Charlo. .

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