The Redemption of Selfhood in Brian Moore's The Luck of Ginger Coffey

Eric P. Levy

Issue 387, vol.97, Autumn 2008

He has, of course, to first cease relying on luck to bail him out of predicaments caused by his own refusal to assess his situation realistically; he has to move towards a maturer depth of hope.

Coffey’s development is notably incremental – but still cumulative. He had long been refusing to face “the facts of his life”; events, however, now lead to a progressive massing of these facts: and he finally proves receptive to recognition of those character-flaws which predisposed him to self-deception. A significant insight occurs in the wake of a drunken escapade which landed him in trouble with the law. In court, in order to protect his wife and daughter he gives a false name. This not only happens to win him leniency; it restores his standing in the eyes of his wife – who had begun another relationship. He now finds himself able to affirm the meaning of love with new conviction. (The drunken incident itself had been precipitated by the frustration of a vain hope for a promotion at work).

Our protagonist eventually comes to recognise that he must overcome his affinity for childhood (the wishful thinking phase, when he could count on others to remove his pain: “Nothing so terrible a kindness would not change it…Oh, to be a boy. But children must grow up”). Also to be overcome was a reliance on lying.

The novel charts the stages by which Coffey’s “self-respect” is put on a firmer footing: he shifts from pride in appearance or pride nourished by dreams of success, to pride in his own character. And he finally manages to replace the project of living for the sake of his fantasies, with the project of living for the sake of others.