"The Morning After the Big Fire" Analysis

In the short story “The Morning After the Big Fire” by Maeve Brennan, Maeve recounts a time when a house near her home burned down. The house was next to a garage where a majority of the neighborhood stored their cars. Maeve finds the fire fascinating, saying “it was a really satisfactory fire, with leaping flames, thick, pouring smoke, and a steady roar of destruction, broken by crashes as parts of the roof collapsed” (16). However, in spite of this great danger towards the family, the concern of Maeve’s parents is whether or not someone had saved the cars. In the morning, Maeve’s father goes to the scene of the fire and tells the family that most of the cars were damaged, but “some of the fellows connected with the garage had been very brave, dashing in to rescue as many cars as they could” (17). Once again, instead of reporting on the safety of the family, Maeve’s father and the neighbors were more concerned about the cars. This shows that during this time in Dublin, money and material goods were very valuable. Since poverty was widespread throughout the city, people valued their possessions.

Maeve also found pleasure in telling all the neighbors about the news, since many people had slept through the fire. However, once the other children come outside, Maeve remembers that “the fire was [mine] no longer” (18). Maeve “pretending to lose interest” (18), since she became upset that people were paying less attention to her story. Once a new garage is built, Maeve secretly hopes that it will catch on fire again. However, it never does, and the garage still remains standing when the family moves out of the house. While waiting, Maeve recalls thinking that “it some child should steal around with a match one night and set it all blazing again, [I] would never blame her, as long as she let [me] be the first with the news” (20). This shows the dullness of everyday life in Dublin. The most exciting thing that happened in Maeve’s childhood was a fire, and even that became less exciting after the news spread. Overall, this story shows that growing up in Dublin was boring and uneventful, and thus left the children looking for some form of excitement.