57 pages • 1 hour read
Douglas StuartShuggie Bain
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 5, Chapter 32Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 5: “1992: The South Side”
Chapter 32 Summary
After work, in his room at Mrs. Bakhsh’s boarding house, Shuggie breaks one of Agnes’s ornaments. He snaps the ceramic deer’s legs off. Afterward, he collects the tins of fish he gathered from work and sets off. On the bus, he thinks of Catherine who had not come to Agnes’s funeral; she wanted to remember her mother as she was before the alcohol ruined her.
Leek had taken a train back into Glasgow for Agnes’s service. The government provided a cremation, but they could not afford a proper funeral. Though Leek kept Agnes’s death from the papers, “word of her death leached out to Pithead, and all the old ghouls came out to Daldowie Crematorium” (417). Shuggie expected Big Shug to be there, but he never came. Leek was rather casual about his mother being cremated. Afterward, the Pithead folks offered condolences, either in person, or through a delegated family member. Eugene tried to say something kind to Shuggie and Leek, but Leek turned away.
Shuggie tries to stop thinking about the funeral. He thinks of calling Leek, knowing he would ask how his new baby is, but would not mention art school. They would make vague plans about visiting each other.
Shuggie stops at a bakery and buys some strawberry tarts. He meets Leanne at the end of the marketplace. Leanne has changed since he first met her: She is hardened and always on guard. They eat three of the tarts and save the last one.
They find Luanne’s mother, Moira, now homeless, harassing a man for a little company. Moira Kelly is “more of a ruin than the last time Shuggie had seen her” (424). Leanne brings her clean clothes and food, and Shuggie adds in his cans.
Shuggie sits aside as Leanne gives the last tart to her mother. Shuggie helps Leanne dress Moira in clean clothes; she is impatient and ungrateful for their help. Shuggie, unable to contain himself, scolds Moira for not thinking of Leanne’s feelings, to no avail. Moira leaves for a pub.
Shuggie asks if Leanne feels any better for having helped her mother. She shrugs. They decide to walk around as they usually do. Leanne teases that he just wants to “go gawp at the big handsomes up the Virginia arcade” (430). Shuggie mentions wanting to dance. Leanne scoffs, unable to imagine Shuggie dancing. Shuggie “nodded, all gallus, and spun, just the once, on his polished heels” (430).
Part 5, Chapter 32 Analysis
This chapter opens with Shuggie dusting Agnes’s things and accidentally breaking a piece. This moment reveals two things about Shuggie’s life post-Agnes. First is that he still cares for his mother, shown in the way he dusts off her old belongings. Second is that he recognizes the futility of caring for these items—he breaks a leg on the ceramic deer, but he knows it’s the symbolic cleaning of the ornament that’s important, not the ornament itself. This relationship to Agnes’s things mirrors his relationship to the woman; Shuggie was never able to fix her, only perform the futile duties that kept her alive.
That Leek has started a family and has lost all hopes of attending art school further develops the theme of victims of poverty and addiction. Leek will never have the foundation required to pursue his dreams. Instead, because of his impoverished upbringing, he has to struggle just to survive and will likely never thrive.
Still, the tone of the final chapter of Shuggie Bain is one of tempered optimism. Shuggie is now free from the burden of his mother’s addiction, but he must deal with the trauma she left with him. Where once he had nobody to unload his secrets on, he now has a close friend in Leanne. While he still has the worries of housing insecurity and school, as the first chapter shows, he is finally allowed to develop as his own independent person, as we see in the confident way he shows off his dance skills to Leanne.
Shuggie sees himself reflected in Leanne. Shuggie knows Moira, like Agnes, will not recover from her addiction. He also knows how hard it is to have that realization. However, he does not want Leanne to suffer the way he did, so he tries to convince her. In this, they are alike: Shuggie, too, ignored all of the warnings he was given about Agnes and continued devoting his life to helping her.
