Pastoral Dreams in Innisfree, Ireland, U.S.A.
35
rest on Sean’s back as she feels his passion and returns his kiss. Due to the
fabulous photography, the sexual tension initiated by previously exchanged looks,
and the great effect of having the wind blowing open and shut the shutters and
doors in the cottage, it’s a marvelously romantic scene, one of the most famous in
cinema history. However, it’s purely a masculine fantasy; in countless films the
man merely has to kiss the woman, invited or not, for the woman to succumb to
his undeniable charms, which is exactly what happens in The Quiet Man. But it is
after their marriage that the real difficulties set in. There is in The Quiet Man the
problem of Mary Kate’s dowry, which Will denies her because he thinks he has
been tricked (he was, and by a priest no less) into allowing Mary Kate to marry
Sean.
Mary Kate was said to come with her belongings and a dowry of 350
pounds in gold. Will allows her things to leave, but not her gold. To Sean, who
though not a millionaire appears to have acquired some means in America, the
money is not an issue. He thinks that Mary Kate’s desire for the dowry is merely
greed, which he associates with all that he detests about the motivation for
industrialism. In an industrial society money is the key to success, and after not
achieving it as a steel worker, Sean Thornton turned to his fists and became a
successful boxer. But he didn’t fight for the love of the sport; he fought, as he
says, “for the purse, for dirty money.” In his last fight, Sean, fueled by his desire
for fortune, fought so savagely that he killed his opponent, at which time he left
the ring and returned to Ireland. In adhering to the age-old adage, Sean believes
that money is the root of all evil and that his wife’s pursuit of the 350 pounds is
indicative of corruption. But he is dead wrong.
In his films Ford valued the importance of traditions perhaps more than
any other singular thing. The onslaught of urban civilization made the pace of life
such that tradition, and the social continuity it provided, was lost. Unbeknownst
to him, Sean has fallen prey to the pace of life dictated by an industrial society.
He resents the courting rituals the Irish value so highly as they are just too slow
for an American. He laments that he can’t just pull up in a car outside of Mary
Kate’s house and honk for her to come running. Through deception he is able to
avoid most of the courtship rituals, but Mary Kate won’t let the dowry go. It’s the
principle of the thing. Of course no one can put a value on a life, but the dowry
symbolically does just that, making Mary Kate’s hand in marriage worth
something. Sean says the money doesn’t matter, but it does to Kate, although not
the amount. Without a dowry Kate is symbolically worthless, and, by extension,
that her husband doesn’t care means that Sean too thinks she is worthless.
Accordingly, Mary Kate refuses to engage in sexual relations with Sean, as
without her dowry she doesn’t think she’s really married. As he’s planting roses,
Mary Kate asks why he isn’t planting food. “No potatoes?” she asks, to which
Sean coolly replies, “No children.”