Dubliners

A penetrating analysis of the stagnation and paralysis of Dublin society. The stories incorporate epiphanies, by which Joyce meant a sudden consciousness of the soul of a thing. The Sisters An Encounter Araby Eveline After the Race Two Gallants The Boarding House A Little Cloud Counterparts Clay A Painful Case Ivy Day in the Committee Room A Mother Grace The Dead Show Excerpt AN ENCOUNTER IT WAS Joe Dillon who introduced the Wild West to us. He had a little library made up of old numbers of The Union Jack, Pluck and The Halfpenny Marvel . Every evening after school we met in his back garden and arranged Indian battles. He and his fat young brother Leo, the idler, held the loft of the stable while we tried to carry it by storm; or we fought a pitched battle on the grass. But, however well we fought, we never won siege or battle and all our bouts ended with Joe Dillon's war dance of victory. His parents went to eight- o'clock mass every morning in Gardiner Street and the peaceful odour of Mrs. Dillon was prevalent in the hall of the house. But he played too fiercely for us who were younger and more timid. He looked like some kind of an Indian when he capered round the garden, an old tea-cosy on his head, beating