51 pages • 1 hour read
Breakfast on Pluto
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Symbols & Motifs
Pluto and Universe
The novel takes its title from a Don Partridge song “Breakfast on Pluto,” written in 1969. Braden quotes the song while describing the story of his conception at the hands of the lecherous Father Bernard and again when he falls in love with Brendan Cleeve. Braden finds in the song the idea of limitless freedom and traveling beyond the known and familiar: “You could be a dandelion seed floating out across with the world” (25). Pluto, for Braden, comes to symbolize the notion that he can escape the harshness of reality and rise above the mundane, the troublesome, and the dangerous and float away to unite with universe, which suits his high-spirited character. McCabe bookends the novel with quotations from the song to reinforce the meaning of the symbol.
Braden refers to traveling through universe several times in the novel. A particularly effective example occurs when Braden remembers his foster mother and the way she lit pieces of paper, sending them flying “as far as Pluto or wherever else they wanted to go” (106). Similarly, when Braden reunites with his mother in fantasy, they abandon Earth, catapulted by the sheer joy of their companionship. The idea of the endlessness of the universe and the distance of Pluto—then known as the furthest planet in the solar system—from Earth appeals to Braden because they represent the idea of a fantastic life far outside of the terrible stresses he experiences in reality. Thus, Pluto and the wider notion of the universe work as symbols of ending the slavery to the norms of tradition, gender, and religion and a welcome liberation from the troubles of reality.
The Bomb
The author uses the symbol of the bomb to indicate both the fraught political situation in Ireland and the UK during the Troubles and Braden’s rebirth and reclamation of his life.
As a symbol of conflict, the bomb appears several times in the novel: the explosion of a bomb in a restaurant, the preparation of a bomb, and its detonation in a disco-pub. McCabe combines the literal detonation with its symbolic connotation, in which the explosions become emblems for the long decades of political and religious unrest in the region. The bombs utilized in the conflict—those we see in the narrative, as well as those we can assume are exploding outside the frame—cause literal destruction, but they also destroy the fabric of community, killing loved ones and leaving others, like Charlie and Braden, in their wake.
As a symbol of a crucial point in Braden’s journey, the bomb represents the moment in which Braden’s fantasy life clashes with reality and threatens to lead him into madness. The destruction caused by the bomb also represents the shattering of Braden’s illusions (and eventually his delusions), so Braden can transform with time into Mrs. Riley, fully embracing his femaleness. In that sense, the bomb as a symbol introduces the necessary change that helps Braden survive.
Finally, the bombs denote the popular desire to destroy those who think differently. The explosive nature of the device brings to mind the abolishment of freedom, the obliteration of individual thought, and the glorification of violence and intolerance. These are all societal constraints placed on Braden throughout the course of the novel, further uniting Braden’s existence with the presence of bombs.
Role-playing
Braden’s role-playing is a symbol of his gender duality and identity confusion. From earliest childhood, Braden performs different roles for Braden and others, and through these, he explores the boundaries of his identity and the level of comfortableness he feels in each of them. Role-playing is also akin to his fantasies and dreams in that role-playing also allows Braden to escape the harshness of his reality. Braden’s role-playing begins as an introductory practice to transvestism when he plays in “modeling shows” with Charlie and Irwin. This practice is not just an expression of his gender exploration, however, but also a method for him to experience the more glamorous life he craves.
Throughout the novel, Braden takes on a variety of roles through role-play that allow him to explore the different elements of his desire and, more truthfully, the desires of others. At various points, he tries on the role of the mother Eamon has lost, Bertie’s goodtime girl, Louise’s dead child, and Dr. Vernon’s pupil to his strict headmaster. Through such experiences, Braden experiences various levels of identity shifts and adjustments that ultimately help guide him towards his final identity, that of Mrs. Riley, which appears at the opening and the end of the novel. These different roles also represent Braden’s gradual journey toward identity stability, as they indicate that without such experimentation, Braden might never reach the point of being unequivocally female.
Sense of Estrangement
McCabe utilizes a sense of estrangement as a motif in two senses: the estrangement of the reader from the narrative through defamiliarization of the language and narrative techniques, as well as a feeling of not belonging, which several characters experience throughout the narrative.
By vesting Braden with such an unusual voice—unorthodox sentence structures and colloquial expressions combined with Dickensian high style—McCabe distances readers from the impact of the narrative. Doing so allows the reader to observe Braden’s character from an uncommon vantage point: We are both a part of Braden’s stream of consciousness and removed observers. This sense of estrangement helps us realize how different Braden is from ordinary people. It also achieves an apparent paradox: What estranges us from the narrative begins to bring us closer to the narrator as we adopt the rhythm and flow of Braden’s ideas. This makes the reader feel the impact of certain plot points more strongly.
On the other hand, McCabe uses this motif as a characteristic that many of the characters share. Not only is Braden plagued by a sense of not belonging to the community in which he grows up, most other characters Braden meets during his quasi-picaresque adventures are outsiders, people whose lives fall outside of the norm: Charlie with her artistic ambitions and her traditional family that rejects her, the Silky String murderer, sad Bertie Wooster, and his landlady Louise—they all experience a sense of estrangement from their environment. In this sense, this motif becomes the leitmotif of the novel, uniting all the characters by their very lack of similarities.
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