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Chandra What Maureen just now said about Joyce leaving it all to us to makewhat we want outof his stories also pushed me to read the story again.This time I wanted to find answer to the question: "What was it that was bothering the boy?" That something was bothering him is obvious. The freedom he feels after he made sure that the priest is dead, by looking at the death notice, says that. On re-reading I thought that the priest must have been a homosexual person. That was kind of backed up by the following sentence: "Old Cotter looked at me for a while. I felt that his little beady black eyes were examining me, but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. He returned to his pipe and finally spat rudely into the grate." But, I donot think that the priest had anything physical going on with the boy. Perhaps he was too old for that! Look at the sentence: "It was always I who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box, for his hands trembled too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor." It was the discussions which the boy had with the priest which made the boy uncomfortable to be with the priest. But he must have been fascinated nevertheless. It was something which the boy could not define to himself clearly. He was drawn to the priest as to the devil. The boy says: "Sometimes he had amused himself by putting difficult questions to me, asking me what one should do in certain circumstances or whether such and such sins were mortal or venial or only imperfections. His questions showed me how complex and mysterious were certain institutions of the Church which I had always regarded as the simplest acts." Though it is not clearly said how old the boy is, he must have been on the threshold of adulthood. Being a poor boy, he must have been exposed to the "simple acts" of life. That is why he feels how complex and mysterious certain institutions of the church are when the priest points to him certain things and asks him to judge. The priest had no other outlet for his fantasies, but for talking to the boy. He lived with his two sisters, and so could not have hidden any of his act. It is this behavious of the priest which is behind the dream the boy has after he hears of the death of the priest. "I remembered that I had noticed long velvet curtains and a swinging lamp of antique fashion. I felt that I had been very far away, in some land where the customs were strange - in Persia," The boy does not know that he is dreaming of a harem. The priest wants to confess, his lips are wet. The boy guesses, but his thoughts are not clear even to himself. That is why he wishes he had understood what old Cotter left unsaid. What is the significance of the breaking of the chalice in this interpretation? Perhaps the loss of innocence of the boy. Remember it was the boy who broke it, not the priest. Perhaps this means that the boy understood what the priest was leading to. But this act of causing the loss of innocence does not go unpunished. That is why the priest suffers paralytic stroke. Joyce writes in the very first sentence that "There was no hope for him this
time: it was the third stroke." |
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