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Taylor Gridley

Dr. Ginger Jones

English 4320

17 November 2022

Religious Authority in Dubliners

James Joyce, in his collection of short stories Dubliners, explores the overwhelming

presence of the church, particularly in the development of young boys. Priests are a limiting

influence on the boys’ spiritual growth. The priests’ restricting nature and questionable morals

generate a kind of spiritual paralysis in that the narrators are unable to explore their own ideas

about religion and come to their own conclusions.

In Joyce’s short story “The Sisters,” the priest James Flynn is representative of the

hypocrisy of church leaders in their own behaviors and their restrictive nature. Reverend Flynn

was a kind of teacher to the narrator, “Sometimes he had amused himself by putting difficult

questions to me…whether such and such sins were mortal or venial or only imperfections” (13).

Flynn made it a point to underscore the differences between the severity of sins, indicating he

believed that not all sins were equal in their immorality. This belief highly suggests that Flynn is

more lenient when it comes to certain misdeeds, possibly those he has been guilty of committing.

The community’s view of Flynn supports the theory of his questionable behavior, with the sisters

discussing how “The duties of the priesthood was too much for him” (17) after Flynn’s death,

suggesting he had failed in his duties in some way. They stated, “It was the chalice he broke…

That was the beginning of it” (17). Breaking an important holy relic, serving as a symbol of the

morality and honor of the church, indicates he was not able to meet these high standards of
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behavior and morality. Even at his funeral, his corpse was “loosely retaining a chalice” (14),

echoing his loose grip on his principles. The chalice was largely symbolic, “it contained nothing”

(17), implying that Flynn’s behavior and position in the church were largely for show, and

devoid of substance. Flynn’s dubious ethics, though not questioned until his death, is seen as a

hindrance to our narrator’s spiritual and social development. Mr. Cotter discusses Flynn’s effect

on our narrator, “What I mean is…it’s bad for children. My idea is: let a young lad run about and

play with young lads of his own age and not be…” (10). He leaves his last thought unfinished,

unwilling to face and define the negative qualities of the priest. Our narrator feels restricted as

well, “discovering in [himself] a sensation of freedom as if [he] had been freed from something

by [Flynn’s] death” (12). Again, the narrator does not define what the “something” is that he has

been freed of, unable to define the possibility of growth outside of the priest’s influence as he

does not have the language or experience to do so.

The priest in “An Encounter” is an aggressive and strict authority figure, exercising

control over his students and preventing them from forming their own spiritual ideas.

“Mahoney…spoke of Father Butler as Bunsen Burner” (22), a reflection of the Father’s tendency

to be quick to anger. His aggressive nature is evident when he confiscates the western comic

from a boy during school, “What is this rubbish? he said. The Apache Chief! Is this what you

read instead of studying your Roman History? Let me not find any more of this wretched stuff in

this college” (20). Though the comic does not contain any ideas that conflict with the religious

nature of the school, Father Butler is angry it is distracting the boys from their studies. He

disparages the author of the English comic, “The man who wrote it, I suppose, was some

wretched scribbler that writes these things for a drink” (20), showing his bias and lack of his own

morality by suggesting the comic was a result of alcoholism. The boys would likely not have
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considered this possibility otherwise. The aggressive nature of priests is shown again in the

character of Joe Dillon. A bully in the school, “he played too fiercely for us who were younger

and more timid” (19). His tendency towards violence did not, however, prevent him from

becoming involved in the church, “Everyone was incredulous when it was reported that he had a

vocation for the priesthood” (19). This character serves as an example of the continuation of the

immorality of church leadership. Having strict, hostile authority figures in the church and school

prevents the boys from experiencing outside influences and thus, prevents them from forming

their own spiritual beliefs. Our narrator describes “the restraining influence of the school” (20),

and feels the desire to leave Dublin and expand his horizons. He feels he is unable to grow in this

limiting environment, “real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home:

they must be sought abroad” (21). This feeling is understandable as the boys do not have any

intellectual freedom in their studies and are under the control of immoral religious leaders.

The priest in “Araby” is an example of the greed capable of religious institutions and the

power those authorities have over us, even in death. The priest in this short story is an influence

on the narrator despite being dead before the story beings, “The former tenant of our house, a

priest, had died in the back drawing-room” (29). He is described as “a very charitable priest; in

his will, he had left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister” (29).

His “charity” is notable for several reasons. First, the fact that this distinguished the priest from

other priests is an indication that a charitable priest is an exceptional one, not an expectation of

the role. Additionally, the phrase “all of his money” implies that the priest had quite a bit of

money to give away at his death. His wealth must have been earned through his position as a

priest, calling his ethics into question and suggesting a measure of greed. Our narrator is actively

aware of the priest’s death as he moves throughout his home, stating “One evening I went into
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the back drawing-room in which the priest had died” (31). It is in this room that the narrator is

overcome by emotion, “I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled,

murmuring: O love! O love! many times” (31). The only way the boy is able to process his

intense emotions concerning his love for Mangan’s sister is through a kind of prayer. He

indicates this equation of love and religion again, carrying the thought of her like a holy relic,

stating “I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes” (31). His inability to

understand love outside of religion is an indication of the intensity of the influence of church

leaders he has been exposed to.

Overall, the priests’ authoritarian natures are a restricting influence on each of the

narrators in the first three short stories in Dubliners. The boys are unable to develop outside of

the confines of what the religious community has deemed acceptable, despite this acceptability

being morally questionable. The boys are aware of this tension between morality and religion but

are unable to resolve it in their minds, generating spiritual paralysis. In each story, the boys

experience epiphanies as a result of these tensions. They are forced to reconcile the negative

attributes of the priests and the church with their experiences. These boys are exceptions to other

characters in these stories who are content to live and operate under the hypocritical rules of

religious expectation. Other young boys, in particular, are unaware of the epiphanies the

narrators have undergone. Joyce leaves readers questioning their own ability to see beyond

convention, wondering what truths they may be missing as a result of spiritual paralysis at the

hands of authorities or themselves.

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Work Cited

Joyce, James. Dubliners. Edited by Robert Scholes and A. Walton Litz, Penguin Books, 1996.