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Beth Zarqa, thank you for your comments on "Sisters." You raised many of the points I wondered about while reading the story. I kept coming back to the chalice. We first see it lying "idle" in the dead man's hands, and then hear from his sister that he broke another before descending into his final illness. "Of course they say it was all right, that it contained nothing . . ." My little Catholic education came by way of Latin American and Spanish literature, but doesn't the chalice hold the wine/blood of Christ during mass? So what implications is Joyce making about the priest's nervousness over a broken chalice that contained nothing? Guilt? Existential angst? Then laughing alone in a darkened confessional box . It has been a long time since I've read for the purpose of textual analysis, so these questions are half formed. I eagerly await further comments! Maureen yes, thanks zarqa for your comments on the sisters. very thorough and insightful. i am in a rush now, but let me just put something to everyone that ran thru my mind when i re-read the story this week. once again joyce is storytelling in blocks in this story. we begin with a setting and conversation, the men speak and leave out many words; we move to the boy remembering and feeling freed and tentative about entering the dead house, and so on; we move to the wake scene; and then, to the conversation between sisters, many words unsaid and many quite odd words said; at some poignant point the boy finally picks up his glass of wine and drinks; we end with the boy rather... disillusioned, is that it???? i'll be more specific tomorrow. but a question about these conversations is, what the devil are people really saying? anyway, i think the story is an allegory...it is not real, none of it, and it has to do with hypocrisy...every block discloses another form of hypocrisy...i think the real story is in all of the unspoken words...so, it is what everyone is *not* saying that joyce wants the reader to know and to understand and to *see* about ireland, catholicism, etc. -- at least his view of those things. another important segment is when the sister says she kept finding the priest 'mouth wide open and part of his vestments on the floor'; the *throwing* of the chalice; all of the references to the priest's being 'off his rocker', so to say, and what was the priest doing in the confessional that made him laugh? this story is very unkind, brutal in fact, but -- it is poignant and it comes from joyce's life, and probably his heart, and probably some anger. i do love this story, not because it is great *storytelling* per se, altho i think it is that, but because it is so rebellious and insightful and symbolic and intense and ... real. :) it reminds me of the writings of many moderns, like kurt vonnegut, rushdie and others. anyway i just wanted to throw out that allegory idea and also the notion of hypocrisy...i gotta run and i am sure am not making myself real clear... |
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