Homosexuality in Joyce's "Dubliners"
...fy abhorred anything which betokened mental or physical disorder” (104), show that Joyce is creating this character as more than just a boring, somewhat recluse bachelor. Joyce goes on to use the line “He had neither companions nor friends, church nor creed” (104). This line is brilliantly used to show how Duffy is more than just a loner. He is alone spiritually as well as physically. The fact that he does not even fit in with the church, perhaps the most prominent institution in Ireland, suggests that his lifestyle is that of few others around him. When Duffy’s life takes a turn for the better and he meets Mrs. Sinico, it seems that his lust for the female persuasion will at last be unfolded, however neither she nor her daughter provoke any interest in him. The daughter in the tale is used to further illustrate the idea of homosexuality. If it were merely Duffy meeting Mrs. Sinico, the reader could assume that the difference in age between them deters any advance on his part but the fact that he has no interest whatsoever in her daughter, who happens to be around his age, suggests that perhaps no woman can win his heart in a sexual sense. At last when Mrs. Sinico makes what seems to be a leap at physical affection between the two, Duffy becomes disillusioned over what their relationship represents and decides to break off communication between them. This break shows how Duffy’s feelings and desires can be met by almost no one around him. In his writings he uses the lines “Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and a woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse” (Joyce 112). Regarding this line in the story, David Norris explains that “the fact that Joyce includes these sentences in a context that clearly exposes their rigidity to the forces of irony suggest that he did not fully discount the love between men” (364). The line written by Duffy can also be interpreted as a way for the character to maintain a formal view of himself externally, even though internally he knows that he does not feel this way. Joyce’s “An Encounter” uses a very different way of approaching the idea of homosexuality. Rather than hiding it in the subtle thoughts and actions of an extremely enigmatic character like Duffy, he uses the extremely blunt nature of the old man to show a mix of sexual feelings which include everything from the softness of little girls to the misbehavior of the little boys who chase them. The old man is an example of someone who doesn’t deny his homosexual tendencies but yet doesn’t understand them either. This is clear after he leaves, presumably to masturbate, and comes back bearing his true nature. Unlike Duffy, he is very open with his actions. Rather then letting his feelings overrun his life, he acts upon them, instead of denying them, and ends up living his life as a “queer old josser” (18). The contrast between the old man and Duffy shows just how harsh Dublin’s society can be on people who don’t fit in. Joyce shows that although Duffy is a loner, he is in no way disrespected or shunned by the community but rather chooses not to partake in it. The old man acts on his instincts and thus becomes somewhat of a vagrant, not because he chooses to be but because the Irish society of the time made him this way. It is this shunning of any sexual preference other than heterosexuality that causes both these characters to be isolated in one way or another. Although they choose very different paths away from the Irish society, they are both negatively affected and as a result become mere fractions of the men they could have been. The third and final approach to homosexuality can be found in Joyce’s “The Sisters”. This story follows the past relationship between Father Flynn an old priest and a young boy who had befriended him. Although this is long before sex scandals between priests and alter boys were common knowledge and stories would pop up every other week, the celibacy of priests still lead this to happening even in early twentieth century Ireland. Though there is no guarantee that any explicit action ever occurred between the two, Joyce lays out a number of different subtle references to it. First of all, the way Old Cotter scowls at the idea of the boy spendi...