An Encounter
"An Encounter" | |||
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Short story by James Joyce | |||
Country | Ireland | ||
Language | English | ||
Genre(s) | short story | ||
Publication | |||
Published in | Dubliners | ||
Publication type | Collection | ||
Media type | |||
Publication date | 1914 | ||
Chronology | |||
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"An Encounter" is a short story by James Joyce. It is second in a collection of Joyce's short stories called Dubliners. In the story, two young boys experience an eerie encounter with a strange, old man. It deals with themes such as routine and wanderlust.
The story
The story, narrated in the first person, is about a boy and his friend Mahony taking a day off from school to seek adventure in their dull lives. The boy has sought escape from his daily routine in stories of the Wild West and American detective stories and in make-believe warfare with his schoolmates. However, "The mimic warfare of the evening became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad." His plan is to play truant, walk to the docks along the Liffey, Dublin’s river, cross it by ferry, and walk toward the Pigeon House, Dublin’s power station. The story describes the boys’ excursion and the people they see. They get a glimpse of the world outside Dublin in the foreign sailors at the docks and are exposed to the city’s social diversity. They become too tired to go to the Pigeon House and stop to rest. An older man approaches them and begins talk of such mundane subjects as reading Sir Walter Scott and boys having young sweethearts. At one point, the man excuses himself and masturbates. His friend Mahony leaves the boy alone. The man returns and begins a drawn-out monologue on the need to whip boys who misbehave. Deeply unsettled, the boy gets up to leave and calls to Mahony. He’s relieved when his friend comes to him, but also ashamed for having looked down on him.
Joyce’s brother Stanislaus wrote that the story was based on their encounter with an “elderly pederast” while playing truant.[1]
The boys’ journey to the Pigeon House has been interpreted as a futile quest for Ireland’s Church, like the visit to the bazaar “Araby,” and the pervert they encounter has been taken as a counterpart to Father Flynn in “The Sisters.” [2]
Adaptation
In 2021, an eponymous modern short film adaptation, written by Mark O'Halloran, was released.[3]
Online texts
- An Encounter – From the book Dubliners.
References
- ^ Joyce, Stanislaus (1958). My Brother's Keeper: James Joyce's Early Years. New York: The Viking Press. pp. 62–63. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
- ^ Tindall, William York (1959). A Reader's Guide to James Joyce. London: Thames and Hudson. pp. 17–19. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
- ^ "Mark O'Halloran: 'I can never retire. I can never afford to be sick, I can never falter'". Independent.ie. November 5, 2021.
External links
- An Encounter public domain audiobook at LibriVox
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Novels |
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Short stories |
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Poetry |
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Posthumous publications |
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- Ulysses in Nighttown (1958 play)
- Ulysses (1967 film)
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1977 film)
- Ulysses (1982 broadcast)
- The Dead (1987 film)
- James Joyce's The Dead (1999 musical)
- Bloom (2003 film)
- Waywords and Meansigns (2015–2017 audio)
- Harriet Shaw Weaver
- Obscenity trial of Ulysses in The Little Review
- United States v. One Book Called Ulysses
- Bellsybabble
- Bloomsday
- James Joyce Award
- James Joyce Centre
- James Joyce Tower and Museum
- Museum of Literature Ireland
- Quark
- Volta Cinematograph
- Zürich James Joyce Foundation
- Anthony Burgess
- Frank Delaney
- Richard Ellmann
- Alan Warren Friedman
- Francisco García Tortosa
- Stuart Gilbert
- Adaline Glasheen
- Michael Groden
- Hugh Kenner
- Ira Nadel
- David Norris
- William H. Quillian
- C. George Sandulescu
- Fritz Senn
- John Simpson
- Ronald Symond
- William York Tindall
- José María Valverde
- Ernst von Glasersfeld
works about
- Nora Barnacle (wife)
- Lucia Joyce (daughter)
- John Stanislaus Joyce (father)
- Stanislaus Joyce (brother)
- Stephen James Joyce (grandson)
- Mary Gertrude Joyce (sister)
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