Pius Mulvey, a murderer?

Pius Mulvey is an interesting character in the novel, ‘Star of the Sea’. The fact that he is so mysterious at the beginning of the novel makes the reader wonder what kind of person he really is. On the first page of the preface of Joseph O’ Connor’s novel, Pius is described as being “disfigured with scars”. He is given this ugly appearance and apparently has some weird social skills. He avoids the women and he sleeps during the day to stay clear of the men. Not that he has no social skills; it is clear [later in the book] that he can hold a decent conversation with the captain. [Of course he does this just to find a way to get closer to Merridith, his future victim]. And this is the point that I wish to discuss, why does Mulvey have to murder Merridith?

Okay, Pius Mulvey has to kill the noble Lord Kingscourt in the name of the poor Irishmen. Let’s look deeper at this shall we? So supposedly Mulvey doesn’t even want to kill Merridith, he is being forced to by some men who have threaten to kill him if he should fail. When I heard this, the first thought that came to my mind was, “Wait a minute; if this group of Irishmen really want Lord Kingscourt dead, why don’t they do it themselves? They already have people who are willing to kill Mulvey for failing. Just tell those same people to kill Merridith. I am sure they would enjoy it more than Mulvey anyways.”

Well, it is apparent that there is going to be no explanation for the reason why those Irishmen decided to come up with this particular ‘diabolical’ plan. So the next step is to look at it from Mulvey’s point of view, what should he do in this situation? Well, if I was Mulvey I would look at it in two ways: If he kills Merridith, there is going to be consequences [presumably death; probably by hanging]. Come on, there’s no way that he is going to walk away scot-free after just killing a man. If he does not kill Merridith he might get killed by those people who are threatening him. That is, if those ‘poor’ Irishmen were even able to afford to get someone on the ship to see the dirty deed done. Personally, I’d take my chances with the ‘poor’ Irishmen. He already has a bad foot, so it will be difficult to get away after killing Merridith anyways. Maybe he can convince whoever is watching him to kill Merridith instead of him. [Very unlikely though, he probably wouldn’t be able to get a word out. I imagine them jumping him without giving him a chance to explain.]  He should just hope that there is no one really watching him and that it is all a bluff.

Guess we will have to wait and see what Mulvey is going to do. Does he have what it takes to be a killer? That is what I want to know.

Thoughts over the History of Ireland

So the first thing that caught my attention in the history of Ireland were the penal laws. Okay, we all know suppressing people is bad. It still shocks me when I hear that people actually did this in the past and nobody stopped to say, “Hmm this is probably wrong”. But okay, let’s look past this minor detail and analyze the laws that were made. One law in particular that caught my attention was the law that didn’t allow Catholics to own land more than 31 years. The reasoning behind this law was to prevent Catholics from passing on their land to their children. Talk about being harsh. Most parents strive to have something to pass on to their kids [land included].

I don’t wish to only focus on the mistreatment of the Catholics though; another aspect of Ireland’s history that caught my attention was the relationship between Ireland and England. You would think that being under the control of one of the most powerful countries at the time would benefit you to some extent. That wasn’t the case for Ireland. Many people were dying and others were ‘jumping ship’ [more like jumping on ships to go ‘anywhere but here’ but you know what I mean]. So after hearing of the hardships of Ireland and the misery that its people endured, one thought came to mind, “England needs to give up control of Ireland. They aren’t helping much anyways, and by giving back control that would give the Irish at least one thing to be happy about since everything else is going wrong.”

Luckily the Irish eventually gain their independence and the Catholics are emancipated. Sounds like a happy ending I guess.

About Me…..

I’m a Georgia Tech student who is majoring in International Affairs and Spanish with a minor in Pre-Law [hopefully]. I aspire to be a lawyer one day. My parents are from Peru, but I was born here in Georgia [Stockbridge, GA to be exact]. I like soccer [used to play it in high school], and I used to watch a lot of dramas/telenovelas. I think that pretty much covers everything basic about myself…..I’ll add a random picture to this general post to make it interesting.

I used to be obessed with Eminem….random fact. [That’s why I posted a picture of him….]