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Roopesh introduces: This story is more complex than either Sisters or Araby. It is longer and has more characters for one, though the protagonist is still a schoolboy. It starts with the depiction of Joe Dillon who loves cheap Wild West thrillers and mock battles, but who, to everyone's surprise is going to become a priest. So priests-to-be have to walk the narrow unemotional path of sobriety and priesthood is a burden? The schoolboys find the atmosphere of the Catholic school to be repressive, where they are held to a high standard of behaviour and compared to "National School boys" and long to get away for an adventure. The world they live in has the same quality for "But real adventures, I reflected do not happen to people who remain at home, they must be sought abroad." Joyce himself fled Ireland for Europe to find freedom from this repressiveness. (Or is it the lack of creative freedom or even real adventures? ) . The boys plot an adventure and prepare elaborately, with alibis for skipping school,timings and money. They are quite excited to get away from the dull school atmosphere. But only the narrator and Mahoney go: Joe Dillon deson't show up. Why does he chicken out? Does it signify an inability to break free from school rules or the rigidity of his future vocation? They wander around the streets of Dublin, construction sites and the ports. Here Joyce's affection for Dublin comes through and the passage depicts the activity and the common people of the city. Their wanderings are neither planned nor they cheer them up because at sunset, they find themselves left to "our jaded thoughts and the crumbs of our provisions". Then the " Encounter" : they meet the old man who talks of his carefree schoolboy days, his literary interest in poetry and is interested in their sweethearts. So why are they in discomfort at his asking them or at his talking of girls? And then it happens : he leaves them and does something that only Mahoney sees. We can guess that he might be masturbating. (with apologies to the squemish amongst us, but this is the most likely explanation. ) Then he comes back and delivers one more monologue on how he would punish any boy who had girlfriends - in detail and with relish. That spooks the boys and they flee. But why do they decide on false names for themselves? This last scene has strong sexual (homosexual/sadistic) overtones. I found this disturbing.. Anyways, so the story is of a couple of schoolboys from a highly regulated ,`safe' environment who go looking for adventure and a break from their repressive school and "Encounter" more than they can handle. There are a lot of underlying themes for us to look at : freedom and repression in a catholic school, Dublin, which comes up for the first time properly ,what this meant for Joyce and his life etc. Also just as sex can't be removed from life, you can't remove it from literature, which takes from life. I leave the field open for discussion on all these topics, but invite the brave minded amongst us to dissect the sexuality of the encounter and offer fresh perspectives. This is a complex story and I haven't covered everything that might be in there. I expect some juicy discussions! |
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