The Use of Mystery in Two 'Dubliners' Stories

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James Joyce once compared his method of writing with the religious ceremony of the Eucharist:

'Don't you think there is a certain resemblance between the mystery of the Mass and what I am trying to do? I mean that I am trying ... to give people some kind of intellectual pleasure or spiritual enjoyment by converting the bread of everyday life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own...for their mental, moral, and spiritual uplift.' (1)

In fact, Joyce's efforts to illuminate some of the inscrutable mysteries of life by isolating apparently commonplace incidents or objects and investing them with transcendent importance characterize all of the stories in Dubliners.

In `The Sisters', as well as in `The Dead', the principal subject is death, a matter of concern to the young and the old. Death both frightens and fascinates us because of the mystery which surrounds it. In the first story, however, the death of Father Flynn appears more mysterious because of the religious ritual which accompanies it than because of anything intrinsic to death itself. Only the young boy intuits a deeper, symbolic meaning in the event. Yet the reader's attention is focused chiefly on the protocol of the mourning: two candles at the head of the corpse; the chalice `loosely retained' (a telling phrase?) in the dead man's hands; the strong scent of flowers - perhaps to conceal the odour of death; and the slightly comical portrait of the mourners kneeling by the coffin.

Notice how Joyce gently pricks the solemnity of the occasion with his mischievous humour, quietly undermining the foundations of religious orthodoxy. The young boy, who was once instructed by Father Flynn in the various forms and rituals of the church, is joki...

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... of.' (4)

The mystery is solved with Gretta's confession to Gabriel in the hotel later that night, yet the image of Gretta on the stairs retains the mystical quality of a truth which transcends the crude intellectualism of a `thought-tormented age'. Whatever its meaning, Joyce has indeed fulfilled his promise to transmute the bread of ordinary human experience into something uniquely mysterious and beautiful - a work of art.

REFERENCES

(1) Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother's Keeper [quoted in] Richard Ellmann's James Joyce (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 169.

(2) Ibid., p.259.

(3) James Joyce, Dubliners, [ed.] Terence Brown (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992), p.224.

(4) Ibid., p.211.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966)

Joyce, James. Dubliners, ed. Terence Brown (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992)

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