23/11/21 8:52 The Woman Who Walked Into Doors

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors

(Roddy Doyle)
This novel is about a battered housewife called Paula. It is told from a first person perspective and in a non-
linear order. Because we only hear one side of the story, it means that the author has to get immediate
sympathy with his character and maintain this. We do not know, for example, why the husband (Charlo)
decides to bully his wife and what causes him to change from the adoring husband to a drunken serialising
womaniser.

The novel has no beginning middle or end, so it is more about trying to convey a sense of hopelessness and
ask a series of open-ended questions such as: Why does Paula not leave her husband if she is so miserable?;
Why do the social services, medical staff or her social network not intervene on her behalf?; What takes her
so long to decide to stand up to her husband and return his violence in kind?

The writing style suits the subject material because Paula herself cannot recall her own past in a linear order
– her memories are blank no doubt to erase the trauma of her experiences:

“It’s all a mess – there’s no order or sequence. I have dates, a beginning and an end, but the years in
between won’t fall into place… I missed the 80s. I haven’t a clue. It’s just a mush.” (P.203)

It is these interesting issues which causes the reader to want to continue reading. As we read, we are drawn
into Paula’s world. She herself cannot rationalise the answer to the questions that we so desperately want her
to find. Almost like reading a detective novel or watching a pantomime, we want to advise her to seek out
the nearest Women’s Refuge or shout out ‘he’s behind you’ to make her notice that her husband is no longer
in love with her.

Of course logic cannot bring the answer to any of her questions. Only when she loses her last fragment of
love for Charlo can she move on with her life. This happens in a tense scene in the book when Doyle
describes the situation where Charlo takes to his mind the idea of continuing his violence towards their
daughter Nichola:

“It wasn’t the way men look at women – I could nearly have understood that. It was almost natural,
something to be careful about. But it was sheer hate. It was clear in his face. He wanted to ruin her, to
kill her. His own daughter.” (P.216)

Much of the writing is written in a ‘stream of consciousness’ style which shows Paula’s thought processes as
she herself tries to make sense of what is happening to her. Sometimes whole pages are written in this way –
short sentences of four or five words:

We were in love. I was mad about him. He was mad about me; he was. He loved me. He loved being
with me. We laughed. He cuddled up to me…” (P.130)

This style adds to the pace of the work. What also prevents the plot from becoming stale is the introduction
of future events whenever the reader reaches a point of frustration with Paula.

If the book had been written in sequence, we would be subjected to a short beginning (their initial romance),
a turgid and depressing middle (the constant beatings) and a short sharp end (the husband is imprisoned and
so Paula can begin her new life). As it is, by breaking the novel up and interspersing interesting snippets of

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information which indicate that salvation will eventually come to Paula, the reader can continue to read
without feeling too depressed.

Descriptive prose is quite brief, reflecting the blinkered life that Paula has. Most of the characters, aside from
Charlo and Paula, appear a little one dimensional but this is to be expected as it is a novel about their
relationship together. Doyle is better at describing character than he is place, but this may be more of a
failing of the choice of the first-person narrative than anything else because Paula’s life has little extension
beyond her domestic environment. Paula also is (becomes) an alcoholic, though it is difficult to unwind the
novel to determine the initial trigger for her alcoholism.

For example Doyle describes Paula’s view of the town she lives in as – ‘…like a tonic or a good drink’
(P.105), whereas she describes her friend Fran as:

‘… like me, a widow-woman. She’s eight years younger than me with five kids. She’s always
laughing but you can see what’s behind it; you can see it in her face, her eyes go red, her mouth
stretches. Her laugh comes out like a scream.’ (P.105)

The novel succeeds because it does not try to make Paula too saintly or perfect. After becoming pregnant for
the first time, physical changes cause her to become less loving toward her husband. Maybe this is what
forms part of the cycle of abuse to which she is subjected: she begins to feel less attractive, so drinks more,
so is less attractive – a vicious circle. She knows that her husband has ‘the devil in him’, but she still clings
on with the hope that he will change back to the man she fell in love with. This helps to explain why the
reader is required to read so many flash-back memories – to try to re-enforce our empathy with Paula
whenever we start to understand why Charlo is being so abusive to her.

Another method that Doyle uses to prevent the novel from becoming too depressing to read is to allow Paula
to reveal intimate incidents in her life. This is a trick. As readers our attention is raised by our need to know
more than is strictly necessary for the plot to unwind. In other words, Doyle plays on the reader’s voyeurism
to entice them to read on.

The constant explicit description of the physical abuse is also lightened by comedic excerpts. Charlo is
depicted as a romantic hero at the beginning of their relationship and as a bumbling hapless moronic bully
towards the end. These are not so much jokes as details of the human condition which we can relax and
laugh at.

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors is overall a novel about denial. The principal denier is Paula. She will
not tell the truth about the injury and pain she suffers daily at the hands of her tormenting husband. This
reluctance is quite easy to understand – Paula is encouraged to believe (by Charlo) that to enunciate the truth
of her injuries will lead only to an increase in the abuse that is administered to her.

The point that Doyle is trying to make is that it is not only Paula who is in denial but society in general. This
is made most clearly in the passage beginning on P.190:

None of them looked at me

- As right as rain
None of them saw. Tut tut tut and another prescription. More pills to wash down…

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23/11/21 8:52 The Woman Who Walked Into Doors

Such tension cannot continue indefinitely. Seeking refuge in alcohol does not change Paula’s circumstances,
nor does it bring the matter to light in the outside world. Only when Charlo murders the bank manager’s wife
and loses his own life to the Guards is this internal tension finally relieved. Thus action in the real world
solves Paula’s inner suffering.

A novel provides a far more intimate medium than say, a film or a television program. This is because it is a
one to one communication between reader and writer. Doyle creates a very strong link by making his text
explicit. Very few moments are censored. The text is quite raw to read. For example there is one comedy
moment where Doyle describes Paula’s dash to the loo after she has been to the pub drinking cider:

“…(I) found the switch, turned on the light; it was a bedroom and there was a man lying on one of
the beds. And my knickers were heading down over my knees before I realised.”  (P.67)

A nightmare by definition runs in fragments. To live life in a serialised continuum of bad days would be
unbearable. I think this is one area where the author is quite clever. Doyle has interspersed dark material with
comedy material. If the novel had been written with sequential black moments, then the reader would
undoubtedly struggle to find any worth in it. Without brighter moments, why would Paula continue? She has
to have a light at the end of her alcoholic, abusive tunnel. She obviously (and quite remarkably) maintains
faith that the things she is experiencing are episodic and will reach a terminus. And, indeed, this is made
quite clear at the beginning of the novel because the revelation about the Guards visiting her house is a clue
to the future discovery that her husband will be ultimately imprisoned causing her release from his vicious
bullying.

For example, early on in the book the narrative turns to Paula’s adolescent experiences which are quite
amusing:

“I began to learn. It was alright to sit or lean on the wall during the day but not when it began to get
dark. It wasn’t respectable. Sitting on a wall in the dark would get you a name for yourself, making a
show of yourself. Getting yourself a bad name…” (P.48)

The page is one light descriptive moment which is sandwiched between two darker experiences. One is the
description of her sister (Carmel) being brutally abused by her father who “…washed her face with a
nailbrush” (p.46).

The second is at the beginning of Chapter 13 (P.54), when she discusses this brutality with both her sisters
who deny their earlier happy family life. Here is an excerpt of their conversation:

- He was nice, she said – He sang a lot, didn’t he?

- So did Hitler.
- Ah, stop Carmel, will yeh, I said. – Is that the best you can do?
- I know what you’re up to, she said.
- What?
- I know.
- What?
- Rewriting history, she said.

(P.56)

In summary, ‘The Woman Who Walked Into Doors’ is a cleverly written novel. Although it is not a book I
would choose to read it is one which, once read, is difficult to forget. After reading the book twice over, the
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sequences in the book fall into place. On a first reading it is confusing and maybe this is a weakness as it
could be off-putting to a casual reader. But the point it makes about a society in denial is hard to refute.
Despite the rights and wrongs and the unbalanced point of view, the issue of alcoholism and its connection
with abuse of women is one which perhaps should have a higher profile and a novel such as this provides an
appropriate platform for advertising it.

Bibliography
 

Doyle, R., The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, Vintage Books Ltd, London, 1998.

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