The Sisters

While Father Flynn never appears in “The Sisters” alive, he functions as a central character in the story along with the narrator and is characterized through the thoughts and dialogue of other characters. This means that his character is seen obliquely by the reader, building mystery around his character and behavior. Flynn is described having suffered both physical and mental decline before his death and is a personification of the paralysis James Joyce associated with Dublin society. Descriptions of physical symptoms include a third stroke, paralysis, and a tendency to fall into a “stupefied doze” (104). Psychological symptoms center around the anecdote about Flynn being found in the confessional “wideawake and laughing-like to himself” (305). Other characters cultivate a sense of mystery around his illness and death; for example, Eliza alludes to “something queer coming over him” (253-54).

The story alludes to improper behavior, possibly of child sexual abuse by Flynn. Mr. Cotter suggests, “I think it was one of those […] peculiar cases” (27-28) and “When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect” (67-68). The narrator also mentions having felt uneasy around the priest early in their acquaintance. Flynn is portrayed as having had a disappointing life and of not being able to live up to the demands of priestly life (possibly celibacy). Eliza says that “[t]he duties of the priesthood was too much for him. And then his life was, you might say, crossed” (272-74). However, he is also characterized as being capable of being amused by putting certain questions to the narrator, and as indulgent when the narrator’s answers are not, by his own standards, sufficient: “Often when I thought of this I could make no answer or only a very foolish and halting one upon which he used to smile and nod his head twice or thrice” (139-42). Flynn’s character and role is highly ambiguous, and this ambiguity is a deliberate feature of the story.

Eliza, one of the titular sisters of the story, functions as a secondary character, as she is not represented with as much complexity as the narrator or her brother. She is characterized solely through her conversation with the narrator and his aunt at the conclusion of the story. When Eliza first appears in “The Sisters,” her choice of seating arrangement, “In the little room downstairs […] Eliza sit[s] in his armchair in state” (186-76), indicates that she is taking over her brother’s role in the household at least in terms of physical presence, and “in state” suggests a sense of self-importance. She speaks highly of her own and her sister’s actions with regard to her brother, potentially in an exaggerated manner: “—Ah, poor James! She said. God knows we done all we could as poor as we are. We wouldn’t see him want anything while he was in it” (223-25). In this passage, Eliza also suggests that their financial circumstances as a family are poor.

Eliza misspeaks several times: She refers to the “Freeman’s General” (234) when she means the Freeman’s Journal newspaper where the obituary would appear, and in describing a carriage’s pneumatic wheels, calls them “rheumatic” (264). These slips of the tongue create a sense of contradiction in comparison to the sense of self-importance she shows. There is also a sense of contrast between the fact that the narrator describes Eliza as speaking “shrewdly” (252), and some of her errors in speaking. Her characterization may be an exposé of the poor education of many girls and women at the time, and the fact that women’s status derived from their male relatives.

Eliza expresses affection for her late brother, and is portrayed as trying to come to terms with the change in her life and Nannie’s now that they no longer need to care for Flynn, saying: “He was no great trouble to us” (244) and, in response to the aunt’s comment that Eliza will miss her brother, “I know that […] I won’t be bringing him in his cup of beeftea any more […] Ah, poor James!” (248-50). As the conversation progresses, Eliza becomes more introspective, and there are several instances in which she is portrayed as becoming lost in thought. The narrator describes her as having stopped speaking “as if she were communing with the past” (251) before she begins to discuss her view of Father Flynn’s decline. She then seems to fall “into a deep revery” (280) before her final anecdote about Flynn laughing in the confessional, then stopping “suddenly as if to listen” (300). These pauses seem to suggest that Eliza is preoccupied with her brother’s condition and is attempting to process his life as well as his death. It may also hint at reticence about admitting (to herself and others) the nature of his secret.

The other of Father Flynn’s sisters, Nannie, does not participate in the conversation as Eliza does, and functions as a more minor character. The first detail to characterize Nannie is that, as she receives the narrator and his aunt at Flynn’s wake, she seems to have some degree of deafness: “as it would have been unseemly to have shouted at her, my aunt shook hands with her for all” (160-62). She communicates through gesture rather than speech. She is otherwise represented as disheveled by the narrator, who “noticed how clumsily her skirt was hooked at the back and how the heels of her cloth boots were trodden down all to one side. The fancy came to me that the old priest was smiling as he lay there in his coffin” (175-79). Nannie then follows Eliza’s instructions to pour the sherry and does not participate in the conversation, seeming to the narrator about to go to sleep. Eliza sees this as well and describes her sister as “wore out” (228-29) after helping make the arrangements for their brother’s funeral.

Mr. Cotter also functions as a minor character in “The Sisters.” He lives in the house with the narrator and his aunt and uncle, probably as a lodger. This is an instance of Joyce’s tendency to name characters with a characterizing detail, a cotter was the word for a laborer staying in a cottage in return for work in Old English, which suggests that he is living in the house as a tenant. In the conversation in which Mr. Cotter features, the narrator refers to him as old Cotter, and describes him derisively as “no doubt arranging his opinion in his mind” (22-23), which suggests that the narrator does not value his opinion or view it as genuine. The narrator describes having initially found Mr. Cotter interesting, as he told stories about his work in a distillery, but suggests that those tales have since become “endless” (25) and that he is a “tiresome old fool” (23). The narrator then describes Mr. Cotter as impolite and refuses to acknowledge him: “I felt that his little beady black eyes were examining me but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. He returned his pipe and finally spat rudely into the grate” (44-47).

Mr. Cotter inspires increasing outrage from the narrator as the conversation continues due to his negative attitude toward the narrator’s friendship with Flynn, and his educational interests. Mr. Cotter is derisive about focusing on education rather than playing with other children, and offends the narrator by suggesting that he is an impressionable child. The narrator’s overall assessment of Cotter is that he is a “Tiresome old rednosed imbecile!” (Line 70). The narrator’s dislike of Mr. Cotter may be because the narrator resents the lodger’s presence in his home or may be Joyce exploring an intergenerational conflict between young and old, life stages being a key part of Dubliners’ thematic and structural design. The narrator’s dislike may be because Mr. Cotter is disparaging of Father Flynn and his relationship with the narrator, suggesting that Mr. Cotter suspects that there is a sinister aspect to this. Joyce’s focus on Mr. Cotter’s “nose” and “beady black eyes” (44) suggest an unwelcome curiosity or perspicacity that angers the narrator.

Like Mr. Cotter, the narrator’s uncle, Jack, is primarily characterized through his views on the narrator’s friendship with Father Flynn in the opening conversation of the story. While he too is condescending to the narrator—referring to him jokingly as a “Rosicrucian” (55), a member of a religious mystic organization—Jack does not incite the same ire in his nephew as Mr. Cotter does. Jack is portrayed as being skeptical of the narrator’s friendship with Father Flynn, but more mildly so than Cotter. Explaining the narrator and Flynn’s friendship, Jack says: “The youngster and he were great friends. The old chap taught him a great deal, mind you; and they say he had a great wish for him” (40-42). While not going as far as Cotter, and though he admits that Flynn taught the narrator a great deal, Jack is dismissive by referring to his nephew as a youngster and Flynn as an old chap. The repetition of “great” seems to indicate a degree of skepticism and that Jack does not necessarily mean what he is saying in characterizing either the friendship or the wish as “great.” Jack is not present in the story after the initial conversation, and functions also as a minor character.