The_boarding_house

"The Boarding House"
Author	James Joyce
Country	Ireland
Language	English
Genre(s)	short story
Published in	Dubliners
Publication type	Collection
Media type	Print
Publication date	1914
Preceded by	"Two Gallants"
Followed by	"A Little Cloud"

"The Boarding House" is a short story by James Joyce published in his 1914 collection Dubliners.

The story

Mrs. Mooney, the divorced ex-wife of a butcher who descended into alcoholism, runs a boarding house for working men. Her daughter Polly entertains by singing and flirting. Mrs. Mooney learns that her daughter is having an affair with Mr. Doran, a man in his mid-thirties who has worked in a Catholic wine-merchant’s office for many years. Mrs. Mooney bides her time before she intervenes, strongly implying that she is deliberately trying to trap Mr. Doran. After much background, the climax of the story commences on a warm Sunday morning. Mrs. Mooney intends to talk to Mr. Doran and demand that he marry Polly or risk open disclosure. The narration then shifts to Doran’s point-of-view as he nervously contemplates losing his job due to the affair and bemoans the girl’s lower class background and vulgarities of speech. After Polly enters in an agitated state, we learn through Doran’s memories that she initiated the relationship. After Doran leaves the room, Polly seems content, suggesting that she was putting on a show of anguish for his sake. The story closes with Mrs. Mooney calling Polly down so that Mr. Doran can speak to her.

A Free animated version of The Boarding House created by the AdamSmithAcademy.org for high school and college students.

References

• Joyce, James. Dubliners (London: Grant Richards, 1914)

v • d • e Works by James Joyce
Novels	A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) · Ulysses (1922) · Finnegans Wake (1939) · Stephen Hero (1944)
Dubliners (1914) (short stories)	"The Sisters" (1904) · "An Encounter" (1905) · "Araby" (1905) · "Eveline" (1904) · "After the Race" (1904) · "Two Gallants" (1906) · "The Boarding House" (1905) · "A Little Cloud" (1906) · "Counterparts" (1905) · "Clay" (1905) · "A Painful Case" (1905) · "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" (1905) · "A Mother" (1905) · "Grace" (1906) · "The Dead" (1907)
Play	Exiles (1918)
Poetry	Chamber Music (1907) · Pomes Penyeach (1927) · Giacomo Joyce (1968)

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