The Landing quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Which literary genres best describe "The Landing"?

   • Romance & Love Story
   • Satire & Social Comedy
   • Fable & Allegory
   • Correct answer: Realism & Sea Story
   • Gothic Horror & Ghost Story

   Realism & Sea Story is the best fit. The story shows real island people (knitting, gossiping, swearing, crossing themselves) in a real kind of place, with exact detail about curraghs, landing rocks and the tide, and its whole plot is three men bringing a boat in through a storm.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What are Big Bridget and Mary Mullen doing when the story opens?

   • Gutting the morning's catch of mackerel on the slipway
   • Correct answer: Knitting woollen stockings on the rocks on a calm spring evening
   • Gathering seaweed from the low rocks at the turn of the tide
   • Waiting on the quay with lanterns for the boats to come home

   "Two old women were sitting on the rocks that lay in a great uneven wall along the seashore beyond the village of Rundangan. They were knitting." The sea is "blue and calm," the winds silent, and the women talk "in low voices sleepily as they knitted woollen stockings." The calm is what makes the storm so sudden.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What is the name of the fishing village?

   • Correct answer: Rundangan
   • Kilmurrage
   • Inverara
   • Kilronan

   The women sit "along the seashore beyond the village of Rundangan." It is a fictional name; O'Flaherty used Inverara and Kilmurrage for Aran places in other stories, and Kilronan is the real port of Inishmore.

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4. 4

   Question 4. How does Big Bridget know that bad weather is coming?

   • She hears the sea beginning to growl against the cliffs to the east
   • She sees the gulls flying inland over the crags
   • Correct answer: She gets a pain in her right ear, just as her grandmother did
   • She notices the seaweed on the low rocks standing stiff in the air

   "I always get a pain in that ear when there's bad weather coming. There it is now, just as if there was a little stream running along inside in it. My grandmother, God have mercy on her, suffered the same way." When the gust comes she claims her due: "That pain in my ear is always right."

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5. 5

   Question 5. Why is Mary Mullen feared in Rundangan?

   • For the curses she is said to be able to lay on cattle and boats
   • For her great size and strength and her readiness to use her fists
   • For her wealth, since she lends money to the fishermen of the village at interest
   • Correct answer: For her slandering tongue and her habit of eavesdropping at doors by night

   Mary Mullen "was greatly feared in the fishing village of Rundangan for her slandering tongue and her habit of listening by night at other people's doors to eavesdrop on their conversation." She has "shifty grey eyes" and a "lazy and insincere sigh." It is this unlovable woman whose husband and son are out in the storm.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What does "Arrogated" mean in this story?

   • Hid carefully away from the prying eyes of all their neighbours
   • Correct answer: Claimed or took for themselves without any right to it
   • Gave away freely to anyone in need of it
   • Argued about loudly and at great length

   "They arrogated to themselves a vast importance from the fact that their men were in danger of death from a common enemy, the sea." To arrogate is to claim something as one's own without warrant. The wives become the centre of attention and, O'Flaherty hints, enjoy it.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What does Big Bridget mean when she says the villagers "only live by the Grace of God" with "the sea always watching to devour us"?

   • Correct answer: That the sea is both the thing that may kill them and the thing that feeds them
   • That the village should give up fishing and live off the land instead
   • That only prayer, not seamanship, can bring a boat home safely
   • That God punishes the village for its sins by sending storms

   "Sure, we only live by the Grace of God, sure enough, with the sea always watching to devour us. And yet only for it we would starve. Sure, many a thing is a queer thing, sure enough." The sea is the village's enemy and its livelihood at once, which is the paradox the whole story turns on.

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8. 8

   Question 8. Who is out fishing when the storm rises?

   • Half the men of the village, in six curraghs
   • Big Bridget's two grandsons and a boy from the next village along the shore
   • Correct answer: Mary Mullen's husband, her son Patrick, and Stephen Halloran
   • Peter Mullen's brother and two of the Halloran boys

   "That man of mine is out fishing with my son Patrick and Stephen Halloran... they are the only people out fishing from the whole village and a storm is coming." Their being the only boat out is why the whole village gathers for one curragh.

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9. 9

   Question 9. Why does Big Bridget turn on Mary Mullen with such ferocity?

   • Because Mary is blocking the view of the sea from the boulders
   • Correct answer: Because Mary's cries of 'Drowned, drowned they will be' may tempt the sea to make it so
   • Because Mary has put on a man's waistcoat, which Bridget thinks unlucky
   • Because Mary has accused Bridget of wishing the men drowned

   "Oh, God forgive you, woman of no sense... Abandoned woman, don't tempt the sea with your words. Don't talk of drowning." In the village's belief, naming a disaster can call it down. Bridget's fury is described with a battle simile, "like bullets flying across a battlefield fired by unknown men against others whom they have never met."

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does Mary Mullen put on as she kneels on the boulder?

    • Correct answer: A man's frieze waistcoat
    • A black oilskin coat
    • Her dead mother's shawl
    • A fisherman's woollen cap

    "She had gone on her two knees on a boulder and she had put on a man's frieze waistcoat. She looked like a diver in it, the way it was buttoned up around her neck and three sizes too big for her."

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does "Delirium" mean in this story?

    • A calm and clear-headed sense of purpose
    • A sickness caught from staying too long in cold sea water
    • Correct answer: A state of wild excitement in which reason is lost
    • A deep and dreamless sleep after exhaustion

    "In the moment of delirium when their boat bore down on death they no longer feared death." Delirium is a frenzy in which the mind is carried away. O'Flaherty's point is that the men's courage at the last moment is a kind of madness shared with the crowd on the shore.

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12. 12

    Question 12. Why had Stephen Halloran's wife told her husband not to go out that morning?

    • Because Big Bridget had warned her of the pain in her ear
    • Because the priest had preached against fishing on a holy day
    • Because she had dreamed of a black boat the night before
    • Correct answer: Because it was the day her grandfather died of pneumonia twenty years ago

    "I told him this morning when he was setting his hooks in order, not to attempt going out, on account of the day that was in it, because it was this day twenty year ago, if anybody remembers it, that my grandfather died of pneumonia." The omen has nothing to do with the sea, which is part of O'Flaherty's gentle comedy.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What do the men on the beach say when the curragh vanishes under a great wave?

    • "It's a mistake to have him in the stern. He's too weak on his oars"
    • "God between us and all harm"
    • Correct answer: "That was the 'Wave of the Reaping Hook' that came down on them"
    • "Keep away as long as ye can"

    The women shriek and pray, "But the men simply said to one another, 'That was the \"Wave of the Reaping Hook\" that came down on them.'" The men's matter-of-fact naming of the killer wave, against the women's cries, shows two ways the village copes with the same terror.

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14. 14

    Question 14. What criticism do the men on the beach make as the curragh comes along the lull?

    • That Patrick Mullen is rowing too fast and will tire before the landing
    • That the boat is overloaded with fish and sits too low in the water
    • That the crew should have stayed out at sea until the storm blew over
    • Correct answer: That Stephen Halloran is too weak on his oars to be rowing in the stern

    "They said, 'That's Stephen Halloran in the stern. It's a mistake to have him in the stern. He's too weak on his oars for a rough day.'" From the safety of the rocks, "All gave advice and none took heed of the advice given."

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15. 15

    Question 15. What does "Callously" mean in this story?

    • Correct answer: In a cruel and unfeeling way
    • In a slow and clumsy manner
    • With a sudden burst of noise
    • With great care and gentleness

    "It seemed to those on the beach that a monstrous wave surmounted it callously and that it had been engulfed and lost for ever." Callous means hardened and without feeling. The adverb gives the sea a cold will of its own, part of the story's personification of the storm.

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16. 16

    Question 16. What is the landing-place like?

    • A sandy strand at the head of the cove where the curraghs are usually beached
    • Correct answer: A jagged rock with a smooth space cut out of one corner by a thunderclap
    • A narrow slipway of cut limestone running down between the boulders
    • A stone quay built by the Congested Districts Board a few years before

    "It was a jagged rock with a smooth space at the brink of the left-hand corner, where a slab had been cut out of it by a thunderclap a few years before. In calm weather the sea just reached level with the rock at half tide and it was easy to land a curragh there." Now the waves come over it "like hills that had been overturned."

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17. 17

    Question 17. Who makes a megaphone of his hands and shouts to the boat to keep away?

    • Correct answer: Peter Mullen's brother
    • Big Bridget
    • The parish priest
    • Stephen Halloran's father

    "Peter Mullen's brother, a lanky man with a lame leg, made a megaphone of his hands and shouted to the men in the curragh, 'Keep away as long as ye can, ye can't come through this sea,' but he couldn't be heard ten yards away."

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18. 18

    Question 18. What do the rowers do when they are two hundred yards from the landing-place?

    • They ship their oars and let the wave carry them straight at the rock
    • They signal to the men on shore to throw out a rope
    • They throw their catch overboard to lighten the boat for the run in
    • Correct answer: They turn the boat sideways and row away, then manoeuvre for position

    "Two hundred yards away they turned their boat suddenly sideways and began to row away from the landing-place. Silence fell on those on the beach... For half a minute there was silence that way while the men in the boat manoeuvred for position." They are waiting for the right wave.

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19. 19

    Question 19. How do the women on the boulders react as the curragh dashes in at the rocks?

    • They turn their backs and cover their eyes, unable to watch
    • They kneel together in silence and say the rosary
    • Correct answer: They scream with a wild, mad joy, tearing their hair with pretended fear
    • They run down to the water's edge to help the men hold the boat against the wave

    "Then the women standing on the boulders became mad with excitement... They screamed and there was a wild, mad joy in their screams. Big Bridget's eyes were no longer mournful. They were fiery like a man's." All but the two wives "looked greedily at the curragh, but at the same time they tore their hair and screamed with pretended fear."

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20. 20

    Question 20. What does Mary Mullen do as the boat comes in?

    • She rolls herself in her shawl between two boulders and goes into hysterics
    • Correct answer: She falls on her face on the boulder, biting her finger and whispering "Oh noble son of my womb"
    • She wades into the sea to seize the boat alongside the men
    • She stands on the highest boulder and shrieks "Drowned, drowned they will be"

    "Mary Mullen fell on her face on the boulder and resting her chin on her hands, she kept biting her little finger and saying in a whisper to herself, 'Oh noble son of my womb.'" It is Stephen Halloran's wife who rolls herself in her shawl "and went into hysterics." The slanderer's whisper is the most moving line in the story.

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21. 21

    Question 21. What does "Transcended" mean in this story?

    • Repeated over and over without change
    • Correct answer: Went beyond the ordinary limits of
    • Changed suddenly into the opposite of
    • Fell far short of what was expected of

    Mary Mullen "seemed to be possessed with a frenzy in which sorrow and joy had lost their values and had intermingled in some emotion that transcended themselves." To transcend is to rise above or go beyond. The idea returns at the climax, when the whole village is "mingled together for a wild moment in a common contempt of danger."

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22. 22

    Question 22. Why do the men in the boat yell "a mad joyous yell" as they bear down on the rocks?

    • Correct answer: Because the speed, the roaring sea and the screaming wind have driven out their fear
    • Because they want the men on the beach to hear them and get ready
    • Because they are mocking the women who screamed that they would drown
    • Because they have seen that the water at the landing-place is calmer than they had feared

    "And the men in the rapidly advancing boat yelled too, a mad joyous yell, as if the rapidity of their movement, the roaring of the sea, the hypnotic power of the green and white water about them and the wind overhead screaming, had driven out fear. In the moment of delirium when their boat bore down on death they no longer feared death."

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23. 23

    Question 23. What does O'Flaherty mean by "It was the defiance of humanity hurled in the face of merciless nature"?

    • That God has answered the women's prayers and calmed the storm
    • That the men should never have gone out and are being punished for it
    • Correct answer: That for one moment boat, crew and crowd are united in a shared contempt of danger
    • That the villagers have learned to predict and master the sea

    "The boat, the crew, the men on the beach, the women on the boulder were all mingled together for a wild moment in a common contempt of danger. For a moment their cries surmounted the sound of the wind and sea. It was the defiance of humanity hurled in the face of merciless nature." The sea is not beaten; it is defied, and the defiance is collective.

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24. 24

    Question 24. How is the curragh finally brought ashore?

    • A rope is thrown from the boulders and the boat is hauled in hand over hand
    • The rowers wait for the tide to drop and then step out onto the smooth corner of the rock without help
    • The crew leap out in the shallows and drag the boat up the rock themselves
    • Correct answer: The men on the beach stand in two lines, waist-deep, and seize the boat as a wave covers them all

    "The men on the beach waited in two lines with clasped hands. The foremost men were up to their waist in water. The boat rushed in between the two lines. They seized the boat. The wave passed over their heads." When it recedes, boat, crew and rescuers are left "clinging to the rock and to one another, like a dragged dog clings to the earth."

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25. 25

    Question 25. How does the story end?

    • Correct answer: With a single flat sentence: "They had landed safely."
    • With Mary Mullen embracing her son and weeping on the rock
    • With Big Bridget declaring that her ear has been proved right again
    • With the villagers kneeling to give thanks as the storm dies away

    "They rushed up the rock with the boat. They had landed safely." After pages of shrieking, battle similes and delirium, the rescue is reported in four plain words. For a village that fights the sea every week, a landing like this is not a miracle but a fact, and O'Flaherty refuses to dramatise it.

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26. 26

    Question 26. Which device is O'Flaherty using when the sea begins "to growl and toss about and make noises as if monstrous teeth were being ground"?

    • Alliteration (repeating the same consonant sound at the beginning of several nearby words)
    • Correct answer: Personification (giving a non-human thing the qualities of a living creature)
    • Understatement (saying less than is meant, for effect)
    • Irony (saying the opposite of what is meant)

    The sea growls, grinds its teeth, "became alive and spoke with a multitude of different yells," and swallows the boat "into the belly of the ocean." Personification turns the storm into an animal enemy, which is how the villagers themselves experience it: they look at the sea "as if they thought it was going to rush up each minute and devour them."

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27. 27

    Question 27. Which statement best describes what the story shows about the village and the sea?

    • The villagers have made peace with the sea through prayer and superstition
    • The sea is a fair opponent that rewards the brave and punishes the careless
    • The villagers are too foolish and quarrelsome to help the men in the boat
    • Correct answer: The villagers hate the sea but cannot leave it, and face it together with a mixture of terror and joy

    The sea is "always watching to devour" the village, "and yet only for it we would starve." The storm hypnotizes the crowd "into feeling mad with the sea"; the women scream with "a wild, mad joy"; and at the climax everyone shares "a common contempt of danger." O'Flaherty shows a community whose fear of the sea has become a kind of festival.

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28. 28

    Question 28. Which of these events actually happened in the story?

    • Big Bridget cleans out her ear with a corner of her black shawl.

      Happened

      "She made a wedge of a corner of the little black shawl that was tied around her neck and cleaned out her right ear with it."

    • Big Bridget has a habit of making a gesture as if throwing her teeth at the person she is talking to.

      Happened

      "She covered her mouth with the palm of her right hand and then made a motion as if she were throwing her teeth at the other woman. It was a customary gesture with her."

    • The two old women are the only people on the shore when the curragh comes in.

      Didn't happen

      "People came running down to the beach from the village as the storm grew in intensity," and the men on the beach wade in to seize the boat.

    • The curragh is seen first as a tiny black dot coming round a cliff to the west.

      Happened

      "Around that cliff the curragh appeared, a tiny black dot on the blue and white sea."

    • The men in the curragh hear the shout to keep away and row back out to sea.

      Didn't happen

      Peter Mullen's brother "couldn't be heard ten yards away on account of the noise of the sea and of the wind." The rowers turn away on their own judgment, to manoeuvre for position.

    • The people on the beach can see the rowers' faces, distorted and wild, with their teeth bared.

      Happened

      "The people on the beach could see the faces of the rowers distinctly. Their faces were distorted and wild. Their bodies were taut with fear... their teeth bared."

    • Stephen Halloran's wife wades into the sea to help hold the boat.

      Didn't happen

      "Stephen Halloran's wife rolled herself in her shawl low down between two boulders and went into hysterics." Only the men go into the water.

    • The curragh is smashed on the rocks and the crew have to swim ashore.

      Didn't happen

      The boat is seized by the men in two lines, covered by the wave, and left on the rock with its crew: "They rushed up the rock with the boat. They had landed safely."

    • The boat comes in riding on the back of a wave with the oars stretched out, their points tipping the water.

      Happened

      "On the back of a wave the boat came riding in, the oars stretched out, their points tipping the water. Then the oars dipped."

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29. 29

    Question 29. In which collection did "The Landing" first appear?

    • The Mountain Tavern and Other Stories (1929), his third collection
    • Two Lovely Beasts and Other Stories (1948), a much later collection
    • Correct answer: Spring Sowing (1924), O'Flaherty's first collection of stories
    • The Tent (1926), his second collection of short stories

    'The Landing' was published in Spring Sowing (London: Jonathan Cape, 1924; New York: Knopf, 1926), alongside 'The Sniper,' 'Going into Exile' and 'The Wave,' the sketch of a cliff and a wave with no people in it. Read together, 'The Wave' and 'The Landing' show the same Aran sea with and without a village watching.

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