Thursday, May 8, 2014

In James Joyce’s anthology, The Dubliners (specifically, ‘The Sisters’) what happened in the resolution?

  • In "The Sisters," a young boy, who is also the
    narrator of the story first considers the paralysis of the priest who has been his
    mentor; as he does so, he is filled with fear and a desire to look upon its "deadly
    work."  While he listens to the conversations of the two sisters of Father Flynn as well
    as that of his own aunt, the boy arrives at his epiphany, or sudden realization about
    someone or something.  This epiphany for the boy is his new knowledge about Father Flynn
    since before now there has been some ambiguity regarding Father. The boy himself has had
    a dream in which the priest has desired to confess something. The voice begins to
    confess and the narrator wonders at the spittle upon his lips. Then, the narrator smiles
    feebly as if "to absolve the simoniac of his sin."  Apparently, the priest's sin is too
    serious to be absolved.

This is, perhaps, why
the high priest is found to be "a disappointed man" as the boy's aunt describes him
whire Father Flynn's sister describes him as having a life that is crossed.  He is a
priest who has dropped his chalice, the symbol of his very priesthood.  For Joyce here,
the rituals of the religious sect mean paralysis. This spiritual paralysis manifests
itself at the end of the story: there, in the dark
wide-flying,silence


readability="7">

...there in "the dark, wild-flying silence" of
the confessional the priest sat "laughing-like softly to
himself.



From what he has
seen and heard after Father Flynn's death and from his dream, as well, the boy concludes
that there has been something  that has "gone wrong," something unforgivable with Father
Flynn.


'

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