Star Of The Sea is a very interesting novel authored by the Irish author, Joseph O’Connor. It is a detective story that develops upon a murder committed on board the ship, Star Of The Sea. Yet, the novel has a historical dimension that reflects upon refugees from Ireland and the journey that they undertake to the land of dreams, the USA, or to the city of opportunities in the US, New York where they were met with coldness. New Yorkers wanted to keep them out and isolated from coming into society due to their beliefs and prevailing ideas about those people. The novel and the theme in the story provide a humanistic view of refugees and their voyage to the dreamland where the expectations did not meet the reality despite the risky voyage that they undertook.
The author, O’Connor, develops the humanistic view of refugees from the very beginning of the story when the ship loads hundreds of refugees to take them from Ireland to their land of dreams, the USA. The situation in their homeland, Ireland, and the injustice that they suffer from in Ireland is illustrated which makes the reader compassionate about their situation as in the following quote:
“How the prisoner and the immigrant are treated by the government, how the poor are treated and those without influence: this is secretly how the government would like to treat us all.”
This quote does not only describe a biased situation and injustice but rather creates an image of how and why those immigrants are leaving Ireland. Simply, they are seeking a better life and a just society to build their lives and their dreams. This description creates an image of refugees that makes the reader feel compassion for them as the reasons for their leave are purely humanistic reasons.
Another aspect of the story is how the immigrant group on Star Of The Sea is formed. O’Connor illustrates a diverse group of immigrants that are not picky about their destination and who belong to different patterns of society with different professions and classes. Such a good example of this is the character of David Merrideth who belonged formerly to the Irish elite but now, he is bankrupt and therefore, he seeks a new life in America, the land of opportunities. That is, the author illustrates some of the ideas of some characters in the story which reflects upon an important matter which is that each immigrant has a story that pushed them to leave Ireland and get to the US. In simpler words, the characters in the novel, the refugees, have one thing in common and it is the reality that pushed them to make the decision to leave the country.
“They had no previous connection whatever with Connemara; but they saw connections where others who should have seen them simply looked the other way.”
The quote illustrates the reality of the immigrants not feeling any connection to Connemara. Feeling no connection to the place where they come from, regardless of whether it is Connemara or any other place, is their reality and the main reason for their voyage after they have been let down.
Beyond the characters and the events that take place in this fictional story, O’Connor’s novel provides a humanistic view of the voyage that those immigrants undertook to arrive at their destination on Star Of The Sea. That is, the journey is quite risky and they decided to undertake it no matter what the consequences should be.
“Truly the angels are come among us every day. Our difficulty is so often that in our vanity and worldliness we so utterly fail to recognise them for what they are.”
The quote shows how risky the voyage is and the only reason that those immigrants survived the voyage is pure luck and nothing else. This quote describes and illustrates how risky the voyage was as it is only a matter of luck that made them survive.
Finally, the novel is a rather interesting one that describes Irish immigration to the US and provides a humanistic view of immigrants which can be interpreted in terms of the new immigration issues in the world. That is, the humanization of immigrants is an image that the author created in the story and it applies to immigrants nowadays while at the same time in one way or another giving the reader insights into how the journey of immigrants can look like.