(Little) Youthful Idealism Turned on its Edge

During the course of an otherwise lackluster school day, two young boys, pining for the Wild West, set out to find adventure in the city of Dublin. What they instead happen upon proves to educate the youthful idealists about the way of the world. James Joyce confronts the sometimes beautiful, though sometimes harsh realities of life in twentieth century Dublin in his short story, “An Encounter.” 

(A young James Joyce)

In this, the second story of the collection, James Joyce explores his hometown through an idealistic, youthful lens. This approach proves itself appropriate for the vignette as it is categorized as a story of childhood in the chronological sequence Joyce utilizes. As the two boys make their way through what they expect to be an adventurous afternoon fit for children, they find themselves encountering an array of rather adult themes.

The boys first notice the poor living conditions of the children they see walking the streets. The narrator repeatedly comments on the “ragged” quality of the children’s clothing as well as their unrefined attitudes. This may be the first encounter these boys have had with the poverty apparent in Dublin. While they take their charmed lives as private schoolboys for granted, these two fortunate youths stumble upon the harsh reality of life outside the shelter of their privileged existence.

Soon after their encounter with the impoverished children, the two boys are mistakenly recognized as Protestants. The same group of rabble-rousing kids starts flinging stones at boys because the narrator’s friend, as Joyce writes, “was dark complexioned” and “wore the silver badge of a cricket club in his cap.” In this moment, the boys first come into contact with discrimination. Though the encounter remains immature, simple boy-on-boy shenanigans, the underlying meaning has a profoundly adult quality.

The most climactic encounter the boys have comes later during the day when an elderly man approaches them. Harmless small talk evolves into the man’s disturbing rant about his fetish for young girls, as the boys come into contact with the most adult theme of the story, deranged sexuality. Joyce’s writing is coated in nuanced subtlety, but it is implied that the elderly man leaves momentarily to masturbate. Though the boys are perhaps too young to fully understand the situation as it plays out, the narrator admits that this man makes him feel odd. The story resolves shortly thereafter on a fairly disjointed note.

In this final encounter, Joyce’s characters experience uncomfortable, confusing feelings that parallel those notorious trademark feelings of adolescence. Joyce portrays Dublin as a city evolving with these characters, searching for an identity and managing the growing pains one encounters while on the road to maturity. 

A Quote to Remember: “The mimic warfare of the evening became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.”