Short Stories - The Sisters By James Joyce.

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Khalid Attia                               English Language and Literature                                Mr. Parsons

Short Stories

The Sisters

By James Joyce

        

The story opens with a very pessimistic comment from the boy narrator, starting the story with, “there was no hope for him this time”.  The boy is talking about the priest who had just had his third stroke.

        The boy passes by the priest’s window evening, as if to check up on him.  Every evening he sees “the lighted square of window: and night after night it was lighted the same way, faintly and evenly”.  The boys asks himself that if he were dead, he “would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind”, for he “knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse.”  The opening is very pessimistic and negative on the boy’s behalf.  We think that the boy may be pre-teen, and if so, these thoughts and questions are very analytical and cerebral.  

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        The boy is a close friend of the priest; he sees him very often and gets most of his education from him.  During their time together the priest often said to him, “I am not long for this world”.  The boy had “thought his words idle”, but now he knew they were true.  

The word paralysis comes up very often in the story and in other short stories

by Joyce.  He uses it not just in the physical and literal meaning, but also in the mental.  

        Old Cotter is one person who does not like the boy having ...

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