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Chandra introduces: Two Gallants is quite different to the other stories we have read from The Dubliners. In one sense. If we read Joyce talking in a woman's voice last week in Eveline, here we is talking like two young men from the country. The similarity comes in the fact that it is a very joycean in texture and feeling - structure of the story and the language used. The story takes place on one Sunday evening, when the two gallants, Corley and Lenehan, return from a walk. How does Joyce describe Lenehan? "His tongue was tired, for he had been talking all the afternoon in a public-house in Dorset Street. Most people considered Lenehan a leech, but in spite of this reputation, his adroitness and eloquence had always prevented his friends from forming any general policy against him. He had a brave manner of coming up to a party of them in a bar and of holding himself nimbly at the borders of the company until he was included in a round. He was a sporting vagrant armed with a vast stock of stories, limericks, and riddles. He was insensitive to all kinds of discourtesy. No one knew how he achieved the stern task of living, but his name was vaguely associated with racing tissues." And Corley? "Corley was the son of an inspector of police, and he had inherited his father's frame and gait.'... He spoke without listening to the speech of his companions. His conversation was mainly about himself: what he had said to such a person and what such a person had said to him, and what he had said to settle the matter. When he reported these dialogues he aspirated the first letter of his name after the manner of Florentines." Both come across as being adolescents. They are like those boys you have read in many stories, boys who spend their time boasting about what they did with various girls. How much of is really true is anybody's guess. In this story Corley is having an affair with a girl he has met a couple of nights ago. The entire story revolves around whether > Well... tell me, Corley, I suppose you'll be able to pull it off all right, eh?' Whatever it is, it should be pulled off this night. Corley thinks he can, he knows the way to get around (girls), and he is up to all their little tricks. On what should happen to night your guess is as good as mine! Corley goes off with the girl with a promise that he will meet Lenehan later. Lenehan goes off to a pub and eats a plate of grocer's peas. (Is this a poor man's food?) It is there that Lenehan comes across like Papageno in Mozart's charming operrette "Die Zauberflöte" (The Magic flute). Like Papageno, Lenehan also wants nothing but a simplle minded girl to share his life with. "This vision made him feel keenly his own poverty of purse and spirit. He was tired of knocking about, of pulling the devil by the tail, of shifts and intrigues. He would be thirty-one in November. Would he never get a good job? Would he never have a home of his own? He thought how pleasant it would be to have a warm fire to sit by and a good dinner to sit down to. He had walked the streets long enough with friends and with girls. He knew what those friends were worth: he knew the girls too. Experience had embittered his heart against the world. But all hope had not left him. He felt better after having eaten than he had felt before, less weary of his life, less vanquished in spirit. He might yet be able to settle down in some snug corner and live happily if he could only come across some good simple-minded girl with a little of the ready." I was surprised to read in this section that Lenehan is almost thirty years old. Till then I had assumed that both were young boys, in the prime of adolescence! Lenehan waits for the time to come when he will meet his friend again. At first he is worried that the friend has cheated him, and has gone off. But Corley does appear with his girl. Lenehan is bursting with curiosity to find out whether C has pulled it off. The answer to that question is a good point to start the discussion on what had happened between the girl and C. Because, Joyce ends the story saying: "Corley halted at the first lamp and stared grimly before him. Then with a grave gesture he extended a hand towards the light and, smiling, opened it slowly to the gaze of his disciple. A small gold coin shone in the palm." What do you think is the significance of the small gold coin? This story being about two male characters, I would very much like if the guys in this list become vocal. Afterall you must have known quite a few such characters. At least that is what I used to here in my college days. Tell us guys, how you find this story, can you understand, sympathise with the characters? It does not of course mean that the girls in the list should keep quiet. Certainly not. And note, I have not used the word symbolism once even so far! |
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