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Chandra After reading Zarqa's detailed and complete introduction to The Sisters, I thought well, everything is clear about this story. What else can one add now? Then Maureen came up with the statement > anyway, i think the story is an allegory...it is not real, none of it, I said, that is true, it is not a story at all! And I told myself, "Now read the story carefully and look for things that are only hinted at, and not said openly". I followed what I told myself, and re-read the story, and would like to share with you here my thoughts about The Sisters. The Sisters is a story about the "awakening" of a Catholic priest. The priest stands for all the clergy of the catholic church. He has followed the rules of the church, he has tried to "educate" young boys, he has sat listerning to confessions, he has handled the chalice, I guess, everyday. It is when the chalice breaks that his eyes open to the truth about instituionalised religion. How does Eliza put it? > `It was that chalice he broke... That was the beginning of it. Of course, they say it was all right, that it contained nothing, I mean. But still... They say it was the boy's fault. But poor James was so nervous, God be merciful to him!'> When the chalice broke, the priest realized that it was empty, that like the chalice the entire religion was empty. Note that the priest did not break it himself. That means that he was not capable of looking for the truth, he was old already, and had got so used to the preachings of the church, he had long ago lost the ability to question. Eliza says this clearly when she says: > `That affected his mind,' she said. `After that he began to mope by himself, talking to no one and wandering about by himself. So one night he was wanted for to go on a call and they couldn't find him anywhere. They looked high up and low down; and still they couldn't see a sight of him anywhere. So then the clerk suggested to try the chapel. So then they got the keys and opened the chapel, and the clerk and Father O'Rourke and another priest that was there brought in a light for to look for him... And what do you think but there he was, sitting up by himself in the dark in his confession-box, wide-awake and laughing-like softly to himself?'> Naturally he began to mope by himself, talking to no one but himself. How could he voice his doubts? To whom? It would have been impossible. Eliza again says: > So then, of course, when they saw that, that made them think that there was something gone wrong with him... '> That is why he went to the confessions box. There where he had listened to the imagined (or real) failings of his people, he could sit and laugh softly to himself because he realized how he (or the religion) had succeded in fooling the people for such a long time. He was "wide awake" when they found him, because he had understood. He did not want anything to do with the church and its rules any more. That is what Joyce means when he makes Eliza say > Mind you, I noticed there was something queer coming over him latterly. Whenever I'd bring in his soup to him there, I'd find him with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and his mouth open.' > The brivairy, the book of rules, had fallen to the floor. The priest had abandoned them. He had no need of them. His mouth was open means that his mind was open. Joyce indicates clearly that though this story has to do with one human being's coming- to- grips- with- reality, things really do not change much, when he mentions the name of the drapery: "Umbrellas Re-covered. " Umbrellas stand for the church as an institution, as an institution which covers (shelters) everything. These umbrellas are re-covered. With the death of the priest, whatever would have been uncovered by the priest, has now been re-covered. The priest is dead. The life can go on as it had done all the years. That is why the boy feels freedom when he realizes that the priest had died. Though the boy broke the chalice, he did not realize its significance. This also shows that it is much easier to follow rules than to be free of them. That is why Joyce wrote : > I found it strange that neither I nor the day seemed in a mourning mood and I felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death.> And the priest had to die. Otherwise with his newly found knowledge he would wrecked havoc!With his death the institutionalised religion is victorious again. They hand over to him, though dead, a chalice, once again: > There he lay, solemn and copious, vested as for the altar, his large hands loosely retaining a chalice.> Another interesting story, particularly when one reads in between the lines! |
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