32 pages • 1 hour read
James JoyceThe Sisters
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1904A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Uncanny Representation of Knowledge
One of the themes James Joyce advances in “The Sisters” is an association between knowledge and the uncanny, which takes several different forms in order to create suspense and dread. Theses dark and sinister elements form part of Joyce’s critical portrayal of Dublin society, especially Catholicism, and the story’s hints of transgressive (possibly abusive) behavior.
First, potential knowledge about the future—Flynn’s and others’ premonitions about his death—is often represented in an ominous tone. In the story’s opening paragraph, the narrator remembers that Flynn had “often said to [the narrator]: I am not long for this world, and [the narrator] had thought his words idle. Now [he] knew they were true” (7-9). Joyce quickly transitions from the idea of future knowledge or premonition to actual knowledge, as the narrator describes the meaning of words—gnomon and simony—that he associates with paralysis. The narrator notes that the word paralysis has since taken on a more menacing meaning, as a “maleficent and sinful being” (13). The narrator concludes the thought with the idea of simultaneous repulsion and fascination with learning more about this “being”: “It filled me with fear and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work” (13-15). The narrator’s mixture of complex feelings are suggestive of the possibly sinister nature of his relationship with Flynn, hinting that he wishes Flynn to suffer and die. The interrelation of knowledge and fear also alludes to the biblical story of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis, linking this theme to original sin, shame, and guilt.
Secondly, the uncanny representation of knowledge takes the form of Joyce’s critical representation of a parochial sense of skepticism toward knowledge and education. In the conversation between Mr. Cotter and the narrator’s uncle after Father Flynn’s death is announced, his relationship with the narrator is summarized by the knowledge he imparted: “The old chap taught him a great deal, mind you” (40-41). The conversation suggests the idea that a focus on the “wrong” kind of knowledge can be damaging. Cotter initiates the conversation by suggesting, “I wouldn’t like children of mine […] to have too much to say to a man like that” (48-49). When the aunt asks him to elaborate, Cotter suggests that “it’s bad for children” (51), and he and the uncle agree that exercise and playing with boys his own age would be preferable for the narrator. The conversation concludes, obliquely, on Cotter’s comment that “—[i]t’s bad for children […] because their minds are so impressionable. When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect” (66-68). Purposefully vague, Joyce allows his reader to draw their own conclusion about what “like that” refers to, and the comment incites the narrator’s anger and characterization of Cotter as an “imbecile” (70). It remains unclear whether Mr. Cotter and Jack’s dislike of Flynn is based on fear or derision about the type of knowledge he shared with the narrator, a belief that he was guilty of something malicious, or something else.
Through the uncanny representation of knowledge, Joyce emphasizes the potential edge of danger, real or perceived, knowledge can entail. Throughout Dubliners, Joyce is critical of the city’s inhabitants, and this theme emphasizes the problems that unquestioning belief (particularly in religion), or an avoidance of knowledge, can cause. The narrator’s idea of the word paralysis as a maleficent being he is simultaneously afraid of and interested in suggests his complex feelings about Father Flynn. Knowledge, really the lack of knowledge, about the priest is represented as eerie and ambiguous throughout the story.
Psychological Effect of Religious Ritual
The psychological effect of religious ritual is a prevalent theme throughout “The Sisters” that emphasizes the perspective that religion functions as a powerful force on individuals, whether one believes in or doubts its veracity. The story’s focus on the narrator’s internal life makes the story a form of psychological case study in religious effects. The story is deeply ambiguous about the value and benefits of religious ritual, possibly reflecting Joyce’s own critical opinions.
The narrator remembers that the priest “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” (127-29). This memory prompts the narrator to empathize with what he sees as the difficulty that must be experienced by those in the priesthood: “The duties of the priest towards the eucharist and towards the secrecy of the confessional seemed so grave to me that I wondered how anybody had ever found in himself the courage to undertake them” (132-35). This sense of fear associated with being in a position of power over others is striking in opposition to instances, which are well-documented in Irish Catholicism, in which those in this position of power abuse it. By emphasizing the theme of how religious ritual affects those who participate in it (both those in religious leadership and those who subscribe to the religion), Joyce criticizes those who do not take their power over others seriously, and those who use it to exploit others.
Eliza’s reflections at the conclusion of the story also serve to provide examples of the psychological effect of religious ritual on Father Flynn. She suggests that “[t]he duties of the priesthood was too much for him” (272-73). After the incident with the chalice, which Eliza suggests was the catalyst for Father Flynn’s decline, the anecdote about Flynn being found in the chapel also functions as a powerful illustration of religious ritual’s psychological effect: “And what do you think but there he was, sitting up by himself in the dark in his confession box, wideawake and laughing-like softly to himself?” (297-99). The ambiguity about why Father Flynn is laughing and the ominous tone created by the image of this occurring in a dark confessional suggest a dark side of religion and the power its ritual can entail. If Eliza is right, and the breaking of an empty chalice can be a catalyst for a descent into mental illness, then her reflections reinforce the power accorded to religious symbolism and its potentially significant impact on individuals.
Layered Notion of Paralysis: Illness and Stasis
The idea of paralysis or inaction is a key theme throughout Dubliners, and “The Sisters” introduces the concept through dual meanings of the term as both an effect of illness and a more abstract form of stasis. Throughout the collection, Joyce criticizes the inhabitants of Dublin for reluctance to take action and to expand their perspectives beyond the ideology and confines of the city and of Ireland.
After the opening paragraph in which paralysis is associated with a “maleficent and sinful being” (13), paralysis is again associated with fear, as it is represented in the narrator’s imagination/dream early in the story. The image of the “heavy grey face of the paralytic” (74-75) is made more unsettling by the paradoxical representation of its motion, which by definition it shouldn’t be capable of: “But the grey face still followed me” (76). By presenting the idea of paralysis as a defined word then as an abstract image, Joyce emphasizes the term’s layered meanings. In “The Sisters,” paralysis is represented literally, as a potential medical symptom of a stroke, as a more conscious choice of inaction, and as a potential effect of a psychological pathology. It is both a literal disease and metaphor for veniality, in Flynn, and in Dublin more widely.
Joyce blends psychological and bodily instances of paralysis in various characters’ descriptions of Father Flynn. The narrator describes Flynn as being roused from a “stupefied doze” (104), and when Eliza introduces the idea of a recent change in her brother, she describes the image finding him “with his breviary fallen on the floor, lying back in the chair and his mouth open” (255-56). The image of Flynn laughing In the confessional in the dark also conveys a sense of paralysis, in the ambiguity about how long he had been sitting there alone, not enacting the ritual for which the space is designed. After Eliza finishes telling the anecdote about the priest’s laughter, she and the narrator both stop to listen, before realizing the scene is silent, as the narrator “knew that the old priest was lying still in his coffin as we had seen him, solemn and truculent in death, an idle chalice on his breast” (301-03). In this passage, paralysis is implied by the stillness of Father Flynn’s body, which has been fully paralyzed by death, and the stillness of the “idle chalice,” which has also been paralyzed by Flynn’s death. Again, by representing paralysis as a layered idea with multiple meanings, Joyce emphasizes the different ways characters in the collection, and the city itself, find themselves paralyzed.
The representation of paralysis that occurs most frequently throughout Dubliners is the choice not to act, of which Joyce is often critical. In “The Sisters” such choices are more innocuous, but still marked by inaction on the part of the narrator. The narrator describes his difficulty understanding how priests could have the courage to undertake religious rituals, alluding to the idea that fear can prevent action. The narrator also describes fear-based paralysis in the choice not to go view Flynn’s body when first passing the house: “I wished to go in and look at him but I had not the courage to knock” (114-15). The theme of paralysis also highlights the story’s suggestion of denial or apathy in the face of very real wrongdoing, possibly the abuse of children by priests, a taboo subject that Joyce could only allude to in 1914. The theme of stasis and inaction is expanded in more detail throughout Dubliners, and “The Sisters” provides a compelling introduction to the transgressive, layered meanings of the concept.
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