The Sisters (short story)
| "The Sisters" | |
|---|---|
| Author | James Joyce |
| Country |
 Ireland
|
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | short story |
| Published in | Dubliners |
| Publication type | Collection |
| Media type | |
| Publication date | 1914 |
| Followed by | "An Encounter" |
"The Sisters" is a short story by James Joyce, the first of a series of short stories called Dubliners. Originally published in the Irish Homestead on 13 August 1904, "The Sisters" was Joyce's first published work of fiction. Joyce later revised the story and had it, along with the rest of the series, published in book form in 1914.
″The Sisters″ gives a portrait of the relationship between a nameless boy and the infirm priest Father Flynn. The priest who has been relieved of his priestly duties has acted as a mentor for the boy in the clerical duties of a Catholic priest. The story starts with the boy contemplating Father Flynn's illness and impending death. He is fascinated with interpreting signs and symbols, and their meaning. Later, while the boy eats his dinner, his aunt, uncle, and old Cotter have a conversation in which the boy is informed that the priest has died. The conversation focuses on the priest and his relationship with the boy. That night the boy is haunted by images of the priest. The next day the boy goes to look at the announcement that the priest has died, and then wanders about, further puzzling about his dream and about his relationship with the priest. That night the boy and his aunt go to the house of mourning. They view the corpse with Nannie, and then they sit with the sisters Eliza and Nannie. They are offered food and drink, and then Eliza and the aunt carry on a conversation that reveals that Father Flynn had apparently suffered a mental breakdown after accidentally breaking a chalice. The dialogue then trails off.
From the numerous flashbacks and memories scattered through the story, Father Flynn is shown to have been an intellectual priest, trained in Rome and having a strong religious vocation, but unable to cope with the mundane daily routine of being a parish priest - which finally led to his collapse. The boy narrator is seen to have initially admired Father Flynn and looked up to him, and later felt deeply sorry for him and guilty about not having visited him in his last days - all of which the narrator must conceal from his adult environment, where Father Flynn is considered to have been a complete failure, his death is in fact regarded with relief and he is considered to have been a bad example from which the boy must be preserved.
The choice of the title is quite curious as the story clearly focuses on the boy's relationship with the dead priest and the sisters Eliza and Nannie seem to be quite marginal to it. Joyce's intention in giving this title to the story is far from obvious, though a common theory is that the title comes from the fact that the priest's sisters are shown to be the only ones (besides the boy) who really knew and understood what Father Flynn was going through in the monotonous life of a priest in Dublin.
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