Notes. Page numbers in story are from Geddes.
Narrator. Most of the story is from Maria's point of view, as here in the first para. But the next para. shifts to narrator's point of view, as if giving the reader Maria's character as she is perceived by others. Click for other passages from narrator's point of view: p. 181 (from "and when" to "itself asunder"); p. 182 (from "Maria agreed" to "smiled agreeable"); p. 182 (sentence: "Maria remembering"); pp. 183-4 (from "At last" to the end). Interpretation: narrator appears to know little more than Maria herself; consider implications for understanding Maria's position; her isolation.
Free indirect discourse. Examples: p. 180 ("What a nice ... any drink"); p. 181 ("They were ... such was life"). Interpretation: so few examples: in part, suggests Maria's restricted powers of feeling and judgement.
Time. Iterative (a recurring event but told only once): e.g., p. 180 ("always" shows repetition: "always soothingly"; "always sent for"; and in 4th para., "Ginger Mooney was always saying"). See also p. 180 ("Often he had ... the laundry"); p. 180 ("whenever"). Notice how most of the iterative passages occur early in the story, situating Maria in her routine and life history. This is also combined at times with flashback, as at p. 180, "Often he had wanted." See also other flashbacks on p. 181 ("though Fleming"); p. 181 ("how she used to") -- perhaps a wish here that she was still young and could expect to marry; p. 181 ("when they were boys"). Flashforward occurs on p. 180, as Maria plans her evening, and again p. 183 ("Maria would enter a convent"). Interpretation: iterative passages convey rigidity and routine of Maria's life; comments she makes or hears tend to be hackneyed. Other aspects, flashback or forward, show constraints on her life and expectations.
Song. "I dreamt that I dwelt": the second verse that Maria omits to sing is:
I dreamt that suitors sought my hand
That knights upon bended knees,
And with vows no maiden heart could withstand
They pledg'd their faith to me;
And I dreamt that one of that noble host
Came forth my hand to claim.
But I also dreamt, which pleased me most,
That you loved me still the same.Epiphany. A Joyce story tends to offer an epiphany at or near its end, a moment of insight for a character or the reader. It may illuminate our understanding of a main character overall. He described his aim as follows:
This triviality made him think of collecting many such moments together in a book of epiphanies. By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself. He believed that it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care, seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments. (Stephen Hero, 1944, p. 188)
Document prepared September 4th 2002 / revised February 4th 2004