|
Dublinersby James Joyce |
|
| Home > Dubliners > Notes by Bob Williams > An Encounter |
|
An EncounterAn Outline CommentaryBob Williams - © 1999Joe Dillon, who was later to study for the priesthood, is the first Dillon on which Joyce focuses but we get heavily involved with the whole Dillon family even though no Dillon appears in the mainstream of the story. It is, in fact, the nonappearance of Leo Dillon that is important. He is the absent brother, the surrogate for Joyce's own older brother, the firstborn son of his father.But it is Joe Dillon whose addiction to sensational stories made his youthful companions dissatisfied with the dullness of their lives. Most of the playmates accepted the Wild West tales but the narrator sensibly preferred detective stories "traversed . . . by unkempt fierce and beautiful girls." Stuffy Father Butler (based on Father Henry at Belvedere College) discovers Leo Dillon reading The Apache Chief in class and dismisses it as fare appropriate to National School boys, a remark that betrays snobbery of class as well as religious prejudice since the National Schools were non-sectarian. The narrator, affected by Father Butler's attack and weary of make-believe, thirsts for real adventures. He and two others, Leo Dillon and Mahony, plan to play truant. Note that Mahony is almost as nameless as the boy since he is never called by anything except a last name. They collect money from each other. This acts as earnest money to keep each boy's intention steady. Although the boy sleeps badly, he is the first at the rendezvous and as he waits is, although he little suspects it, the happiest he will be on this day in early June. The year is probably, or may as well be, 1894, the year that James and Stanislaus played truant. Mahony joins him but Leo Dillon does not. They set out without him, his money forfeit to the common purse. Joyce describes their route meticulously. The rendezvous is a safe distance from their school and an earlier objection (What if Father Butler should see them at their destination, the Pigeon House?) is answered by commonsense (What would Father Butler be doing at the Pigeon House?). Tindall, relating it to the dead priest in ÔThe Sisters' and the priest who has gone to Melbourne in ÔEveline,' likes to see this as another instance of the importance of absence. The pace is leisurely and their actions are disconnected and lack focus. They abandon their plans to go as far as the Pigeon House, a symbolic defeat for their aspirations comparable to Eveline's inability to board the ship. Jaded, they rest on an embankment near the Dodder. The vacant field is theirs for only a short time before a man appears. He walks by them, returns and greets them. He sits beside them and talks of the weather and of school. Neither boy responds until he begins to talk of books. This interests the boy although not, as the man observes, Mahony. The boy professes to have read or to be familiar with everything that the man mentions, somewhat as Joyce, at any age, would have done. Books prove to be a dangerous subject as the man considers what books may be unsuitable for young readers. As if it were for him an easy transition, he begins to talk of girls. This develops into an incoherent monologue as the man sinks into the compulsive morass of his obsession. He breaks off, excuses himself and, at a distance from the boys, indulges himself in a way that causes the boy to remark on the oddity of his behavior. The boy suggests that, if the issue arises, they use false names. Mahony becomes Murphy and the nameless boy adopts a name that is hardly more than no name at all, Smith. This is a symbolic act, an expression of the sudden need for withdrawal and the protection of secrecy. The man returns and Mahony leaves the boy alone with him. The man now talks about punishment and falls into another incoherent monologue. This time his talk is punitive, not permissive, and he talks obsessively about his pleasure in whipping boys. The boy takes advantage of a pause in this demented tirade and with affected nonchalance leaves the man but he is afraid that the man will seize his ankles and prevent his escape. He calls Mahony by his alias. Mahony, after a delay, comes to the boy's relief and the boy reproaches himself that he had always despised him a little. Joyce presents Mahony throughout as loud and boisterous, a companion to cause one embarrassment. Since we are in the time of the story and the time when Joe Dillon surprises everyone by his aspirations to the priesthood, it is ambiguous about which temporal situation accounts for this closing remark. Tindall sees the boy's experience with the man as recognition that the boy responds to the man's oddities on some level. This shocks and humbles him to the extent that he repents of his disdain for Mahony. One must cast a fairly wide net to bring in this particular fish but it may be a good catch for all that. Joyce emphasizes certain colors. He mentions yellow and both Mahony's clothes and the man's moustache are gray but the chief color is green. Green is the color of the man's eyes, a disturbing fact for the boy who had earlier looked for green eyes among the Norwegian sailors.
An Encounter: Characters (*mentioned)
|
|