Shuggie Bain (CH 12 – 16, pp 137 – 197) by Douglas Stuart
1982 Pithead (pp 137 – 197)
p 138 “The boy had grown so much over the past two years in Pithead…She could see he had slid deeper into himself and become more watchful and guarded. He was nearly eight now, and often could seem so much older.”
Catherine brings Shuggie to see Big Shug: “Shuggie, if you tell her she will take more and more drink, and she won’t ever be able to stop…She will drink so much she will wash all the goodness out of her heart…If she does that, I don’t think Leek will ever speak to you again” (138).
“Catherine pointed at the bones of the Clyde, the cranes that were out of work for good. She told him about how Donald Jnr had been let go from the shipbuilders, how he wanted to go to Africa for work” (138).
p 139 Shuggie meets his Uncle Rascal (Shug’s brother)
Donald Jnr is Uncle Rascal’s son (Shug’s nephew)
Aunt Peggy is Donald Jnr’s mother
p 140 Catherine tells Shuggie she is going to marry Donald Jnr
p 141 Shug flicks Shuggie on the neck and says “…give your old man a hug…”
“It’s Bain code. Hit them afore they hit you” (141).
“I like your tie, very dashing. Are you breaking hearts yet and taking after your old man?”
“I swear traveling on an Old Firm day is a bad idea” (141)
Old Firm = collective name for Celtics and Rangers (Glasgow football teams). The two teams have a deeply embedded rivalry between them (worse than Red Sox/Yankees)
“‘Say hello to your new mother,’ baited Shug, still grinning. ‘Go on, give your new mammy a hug” (142).
Joanie vs. Agnes
Joanie is kind to Shuggie, and says he only has to call her Joanie. Gives him roller boots with yellow wheels as a present (he loves them)
Shug thinks they should have given him a football
Donald Jnr: “It’s a good job in the palladium mines. Out in Transvaal…” (143)
“‘Youse gonnae be a Kaffir master!’ Said Shug, his bottom lip stuck out in genuine pride. ‘Don’t use that horrible word in front of the boy,’ Catherine said” (144).
“Shug sucked his teeth in disappointment. ‘I don’t think that boy is mine” (144).
Shug wonders how upset Agnes will be when she finds out Shuggie and Shug saw each other
Catherine calls Shug a bully
“He heard Catherine say she would be settled there by Christmas. He wondered what black people were like and why they needed Donald Jnr to make them work better. He wondered why his big sister had to go off and leave him” (144).
Slowly, Shuggie’s family is leaving him and his mother. First Shug, now Catherine. Leek next.
“It was getting harder and harder to get up in the mornings, to let the day in, to come back to his body and stop floating around behind his eyelids, where he was free. He was turning up later and later for his apprenticeship. The gaffer was giving up, Leek could see it. They floated by each other with equal disinterest” (147).
“The gaffer might have let him go, but this was a YTS, and as long as Thatcher was subsidising his wages the man would let him stay on.”
p 148 Leek was accepted to art school two years ago, and never responded.
p 149 “[Shuggie] was a notorious grass…” Shuggie tells on Leek to Agnes who hits him with a slide sandal.
“It was the dust that bothered Agnes. It was what the neighbors must think when they saw him come back covered in soot and dirt. How she could no longer pretend she was nothing like them, that she was better born and stuck only temporarily in their forgotten corner of misery. It was pride, not danger, that made her so angry” (150).
p 150 “Why can’t you just be normal for once?” “I am normal.”
Leek and Shuggie discuss the boys at school who pick on him and say he does “dirty things” with Father Barry
Shuggie is 8 and 1/2
“Anyway, you’re big enough. It’s time you learned how to blend in more” (151).
Shuggie uses the word “Common” (“Wee boys shouldn’t talk like old women”) (152)
p 152 Leek shows Shuggie how to walk
Shuggie asks Leek: “Am I in your plans?” (153).
p 153 Leek goes into the mine for scrap to sell
mine has been closed for 3 years
Leek tells Shuggie to keep watch, but he wanders off
p 157 – 159 A man starts chasing Shuggie and Leek
Shuggie won’t go home without his boots that Agnes is still paying off
Leek has to seriously injure the man chasing them to get away
p 160 Leek doesn’t go back to the mines again
man he injured was hospitalized and will receive disability for life (seen as a good outcome by the Pit)
p 160 – 161 Leek’s dentures were damaged and the NHS takes forever to replace them with a worse set that make his jaw hurt
“He felt something was wrong. Something inside him felt put together incorrectly. It was like they could all see it, but he was the only one who could not say what it was. It was just different, and so it was just wrong” (161).
“…the two women had spent whole afternoons hiding behind settees from the Provident man” (163).
Provident Financial is a door-to-door cash loaning firm, giving out loans with MASSIVE APRs (ex: 170%)
took advantage of poor families
p 164 The Pit women teach Agnes how to trick the meters (TV, heat, hot water, electricity) and take back the coins
“To Colleen, diddling and shoplifting were one thing, necessary sins. Black tights and high heels were altogether more mortal” (164).
also see paragraph leading up to this quote
Big Jamesy is Colleen’s man
p 165 Agnes talks with Jamesy about taking Shuggie with him on his next fishing trip
“No! It’s not his fault. it’s hard growing up without a man around.”
“Whit about yer Leek?”
“Agnes, I’m no whanting yer money” (166).
Agnes sleeps with Jamesy and he promises to bring Shuggie fishing, but when the time comes he does not bring Shuggie to go fishing (167)
“Shuggie had heard her there, sat in the cold water, crying to herself. She had been mostly sober, and to him it was different from the drunken poor me’s” (166).
“I’m sorry you have a prick for a father” (169).
p 171 – 174 Jamesy leaves Colleen, and Colleen has a breakdown in the street, Agnes (who had come out to fight) helps Colleen
“Ah should have left well alone instead of getting on at him while he was down. All ah said was ah didnae want any more mouths to feed…Since that mine shut he was coming at me night and day like a teenager on the boil. He was never any use at all that pulling out nonsense” (173)
Colleen was on Valium, or another drug, and passes out and needs the ambulance to come
CHAPTER 15: Wullie is sick in the hospital with cancer, he is dying. Lizzie is heartbroken. Agnes and Shuggie go to visit them in the hospital.
“Shuggie heard the nurse say to the male attendant that she thought for sure Agnes was a working girl. ‘She is not,’ said Shuggie, quite proudly. ‘My mother has never worked a day in her life. She’s far too good-looking for that” (177).
p 179 – 181 Shuggie talks to the nurse about how people get to heaven. The nurse tells him the body does not go to heaven, just the spirit.
“So if your body doesn’t go to heaven, it doesn’t matter if another boy did something bad to it in a bin shed, right?” (181).
p 182 Agnes tells her mother she’ll go to AA. “…God gave you a will. You should use it to save yourself.”
“Lizzie took a deep breath and held it as long as she could before she spoke again. ‘Whatever it takes Agnes, keep going, even it it’s not for you, even if it’s just for them. Keep going. That’s what mammies do'” (184).
p 184 – 192 Lizzie tells Agnes that when Wullie was a soldier (in North Africa), Lizzie had slept with Mr Kilfeather (deli owner where Shuggie works at age 15) so that she could afford food for her and Agnes. She had Mr Kilfeather’s baby, and when Wullie returned home he took the baby away and did not say where he took it.
p 193 Lung cancer kills Wullie
“On the days she was sober, Agnes cried for her father. Then she cried for herself, jealous that Shug had never loved her the way Wullie had loved Lizzie.”
“When she was in the drink, she phoned her mother and railed at the old woman for having spoilt her memories of her father. What man takes a baby and just makes it go away? Then within a month of her father’s death, he mother died, and there was no one left to scream at any more.”
p 194 Lizzie likely killed herself by stepping backwards in front of a bus.
p 196 – 197 Leek, Agnes, and Shuggie call Catherine. Only Leek has the number, and only he speaks to Catherine.
About Shuggie: “‘Oh, he’s fine. Nearly died up the Pit but he’s fine. Still a bit funny. You know, funny funny.’ He held his wrist out and lisped into the phone, ‘Gerald Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fits Gerald. Like.”
Leek tells Catherine both her grandparents are dead
Leek: “Well, it was my decision not to tell you, actually, that’s the thing about being left behind in all the fucking shite, you get to make all the shitty decisions” (197).
Leek weakly congratulates Catherine (pregnant?)
Closing Thoughts:
Sibling relationships and connections… siblings respond to family/parents differently and this creates different outcomes for different children. Siblings mold and shape the family as much as parents do, especially when one or both parents are unreliable/unavailable.
Men/Fathers and Children… this book explores complicated fatherly relationships. Why are the father’s in the book so willing to leave children behind?
Why is Shug willing to leave his bio children easily and take on new step children?
Why did Wullie “rid” of Lizzie’s second child when he loved Lizzie so deeply? If Shug was willing to raise Catherine and Leek when his love for Agnes was more superficial and possessive?
Why does Jamesy respond to being out of work with wanting more sex (and therefor, possibly more children).
Sex and bartering… women in this book have very few options. The men cannot find work, so of course it’s even harder for the women. Some men don’t like their women leaving the house. Women are often left with only sex as a bargaining tool.
Colleen’s Situation: cannot afford more children, stops having sex with husband, husband cheats and leaves, now Colleen has no man, even less money, and 6+ children. She has no choice when it comes to sex.
Agnes sleeps with men for resources. For her, sleeping with her husband was not enough to keep him from roaming. She often doesn’t get what she wants when she barters with sex. Agnes’s appearance makes her feel powerful, and feeling sexy and desirable is important to her. I think part of her connects to the more positive sexual experiences she’s had (as a younger woman), but now they are almost exclusively negative.
Shuggie is seen as feminine. He is taken advantage of by older male characters in the book because his more “feminine” nature makes him vulnerable. It’s already commonplace in the culture for men to take advantage of women when possible, so they do the same thing to a young boy who doesn’t act as they expect. Shuggie so far has not offered himself to anyone, and has only been forcibly molested. While Agnes at least knows that sex can be for showing and expressing love and feeling good, Shuggie has only had forced, traumatic sexual experiences that were not his choosing.
The other men in the book use sex to feel powerful and assert control on a woman, or Shuggie (when they think they can get away with it)
Homophobia… the 80s were not a welcoming time for gay individuals. It was dangerous depending on location. Shuggie is at risk for being beaten for behaving differently, but also at risk for getting taken advantage of.
Shuggie’s personality, speech, dress, and behavior is different, stands out (making him a target)
Because other’s see him as “feminine” they treat him just as poorly as women are treated
Bonny Johnny makes fun of him for being a “poof” but then molests him; since Bonny Johnny was just beaten by his father, I assume this scene was to show that Johnny wanted to assert power and control over someone else, after feeling like his father had asserted his power and control on Johnny. Johnny sees Shuggie was easy to take advantage of and likely to do what Johnny says
Being a mother… the family hierarchy expectation is clear: father –> mother –> children
in family structures like this, mother’s are left feeling like they must protect their children from their fathers, and/or use the father as the ultimate disciplinary tool
when mothers and fathers are not seen as equally important parents, children grow up thinking mothers must be this way, and fathers must be that way, which sets the framework for how each gender treats the other, and how each gender treats those of the same gender
Female competition… since women are relatively unable to support themselves through work at this point (only a few decades since women were welcome in the workplace), women must compete over men who will provide resources
sleeping with a woman’s man seen as the most egregious crime between females
younger women, or more attractive women seen as a threat (Agnes is beautiful and this makes her a target for both men and women)
Addiction… using substances to cope with reality. Attempting to escape reality. Avoidance. Numbing the pain.
mostly alcoholism so far, but drug use has been mentioned (prescriptions pills used by moms, sniffing glue for teens)
The rise and fall of being drunk / partying:
as everyone gets more intoxicated the party intensifies in fun and enjoyment
breaking point where everyone (or individual) is too intoxicated – Agne’s switch from a fun, flirty drunk to a mean and angry drunk
bad things start happening because emotions are high, self control is low, and the most intoxicated are unable to stop bad things from happening
bad thing(s) happen(s) – the party starts going south
sobering up, realizations of what happened, feelings of regret, “poor me’s” – Agnes is often weepy and always sick after being drunk
Agnes transitioning from someone with a drinking problem or dependence to a full blown alcoholic with shakes
with physically addictive drugs, there is a turning point where you no longer choose to take the drug, you need it to even be normal
