The Sisters by James Joyce - Short Story from Dubliners Summary, Analysis, Review

Welcome to the CodeX Cantina where our mission is to get more people talking about books! Let's talk about syphilis, final sacrament, and more religious implications with James Joyce's "The Sisters" today.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
0:00 Introductions
0:34 Publication Info
1:03 Context
2:00 Analysis
5:45 Paralysis
10:50 Syphilis Interpretation
15:48 Church Interpretation
#JamesJoyce
#Dubliners
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Citations:
Birmingham, K. (2015). The most dangerous book: The battle for James Joyce’s ulysses. Head of Zeus.
Timins, M. (2012). “The sisters”: Their disease. James Joyce Quarterly, 49(3-4), 441-454. doi.org/10.1353/jjq.2012.0027
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[@TheCodeXCantina]

Dubliners Playlist: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f3mzdoGvf7iiqpI Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/thecodexcantina Bookmarks: Publication Info: @0:34 Context: @1:03 Analysis: @2:00 Paralysis: @5:45 Syphilis Interpretation: @10:50 Church Interpretation: @15:48

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Thanks for watching!

[@jupiterishere8288]

I just want you guys to know, you've been carrying my semester as of late. Much love

[@raftermanhoward1883]

Bruhhhhhhhhhh. It's been like five years since I read Dubliners, this whole playlist feels like I just encountered a gem on YT.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Thanks for the kind words. Dubliners is an amazing collection!

[@ABelleRose1713]

Really insightful and helped me to develop an interpretation of the text - thanks!

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Nice!

[@igorfrederico2629]

Just have to say that you guys a probably my favorite channel right now. I dont comment as often, but I'm amazed with how much of the things I love to read and find to read is cover by you. I am in a reading fight with Ulysses (wich means love), and I just wanted to keep things insteresting and then I decided to read the Odissey and Dubliners, so I just begin the book and already want to re-read The Sisters after this video. Just never stop with tha analyes and the interesting picks, love it!

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Wow, thank you! I love seeing these comments and support when you do. Glad we have similar tastes.

[@igorfrederico2629]

@@TheCodeXCantina yeah. Thats why I was thinking. You guys usually read and discuss complex books with similar aesthetics (thats why I love the Channel so much). I'm Brazilian, and here in Brazil and latin America There are a Lot of authors and books who are influenced by Joyce/Faulkner that not much people outside of here tend to know or talk about. So I wanted to ask you guys If you know or have interest in Reading guys Like Guimarães Rosa (who wrote a type of Brazilian Absalom, Absalom!), Osman Lins (who have a complex work, puzzle-y and with the concept of ALL the aesthethic reflexting geometry), or José Lezama Lima (who wrote a type of cuban Ulysses), or Cabrera Infante who have a Lot of Faulkner in his Works, but in a cuban flavor and uniqueness, or Mario Vargas Llosa (a peruvian Faulkner). And of course, Juan Rulfo that I bet you guys know. I'm Sorry for the sumplistic comparisons, but knowing a bit of your taste, I guess you guys would be interest in checking It out, and If already know some of them, make some vídeos on It. Cause It would help having your kind of analyses dissecting these complicated books. If you read ALL of this, thank you, you are really Nice hahaha

[@TheCodeXCantina]

@@igorfrederico2629 Thank you for the recommendations. We're very into branching out. I'm going to add this to a list and we'll select some at some point. We're going to look at Malicroix by Henri Bosco (French Faulkner if you will) soon. I'm not sure the complexity is what draws me to the authors but the multiple levels of storytelling is what tends to make it complex so they kind of go hand-in-hand a lot. With that said, our analysis will suffer a bit with cultures we're not as familiar with but we will do our best and try to research and understand as much as possible.

[@QuestLegacy]

This one sounds pretty interesting. I haven't gotten a chance to read it, but your breakdown has fascinated me.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Michael Knipp All good, brother.

[@aditisarkar982]

It was more than helpful. Thank you so much ❤️

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Cheers

[@winniethuo9736]

YOU GUYS❤️. I have listened to other reviews on JJ's work since I found about him the other day but Dubliners' first story, Sisters you've opened my skull big time. I love JJ but your two are killing this. I feel he would be happy with the way you've gotten to his writing mind. I think you guys a right in your understanding his presentation of Dubliners at the time but 🍺 is calling me before I start looking at the way he has viewed the church men and women.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

He was a genius. Cheers

[@melodianarrativa_Rodrigo]

Wow! Amazing video, guys! Thanks for it. You just got a fan from Brazil.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Thanks! I'm in the middle of the Clarice Lispector biography now :D Looking forward to reading more.

[@melodianarrativa_Rodrigo]

​@@TheCodeXCantina Clarice is one of my favorite writers of all time:) and actually, her books lead me to Joyce.

[@helenkajsjs]

glad I stumbled upon your work 🍀 just finished Dubliners, and Sisters was one of the confusing stories for me, so appreciate your interpretations

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Thanks so much!

[@AliAli-vc4yi]

Love it! Thank you so much Ab Fab

[@TheCodeXCantina]

You're so welcome!

[@patriciapalpalandeo1160]

Excellent! Thanks a lot! Greetings from Peru.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

👍

[@aminasultan1749]

Best analysis everrrr

[@TheCodeXCantina]

There's a lot of opinions out there on Dubliners. Always fascinating the different ways people can take stories.

[@BookishTexan]

Digging the sweater Una! I gotta get me some of those for my retirement. Great job with this. I hadn't connected "The Sisters" to "The Dead." Looking forward to your breakdown of "The Dead."

[@TheCodeXCantina]

There was a day when I showed up for a family gathering on my wife's side and both her grandfather and I were wearing matching blue chinos, a gingham shirt, same-colored cardigan, and a low-profile cab hat. Needless to say, I took it as an excellent complement to our styles.

[@BookishTexan]

@@TheCodeXCantina As well you should have.

[@deanie3824]

This one really went over my head, so definitely needed this. Oh those ellipses... Full rendition of Soul Sisters coming soon??

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Deanie Every now and then you’ll find inside jokes in our conversations relate to some of our talks like with the ... 😂 I don’t know if I can stop a music video from happening some day...

[@Rajathon]

Great breakdown guys. I didn't know all those facts about Syphilis. Crazy controversial.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Yeah, not as important these days with a cure and all.

[@Rajathon]

@@TheCodeXCantina Isn't it just Penicillin?

[@TheCodeXCantina]

@@Rajathon Yessir. It took a while before they studied and used penicillin for this purpose, unfortunately. (1928-1947)

[@nehaprasad1333]

nicely explained

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Thank you 😃

[@naroc_team]

I really enjoy this review ,it was very benefit. Thanks a lot /////////

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Glad it was helpful!

[@dohaaymoon4096]

Thank u very much 👌👏❤

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Cheers

[@deborahojike1635]

I have a test tomorrow This was helpful 😅 Thanks!

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Good luck!!

[@griffins-c4892]

Excellent video and excellent Gojira shirt.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

When you change yourself, you change the world

[@fatimasameer5067]

I saw the video several times in a separate time. It is so helpful thank you!

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Glad it was helpful!

[@guillemiami]

So, I think I found the connection between the Gojira tshirt and Joyce.

[@LiteratureScienceAlliance]

Alright now I might try and read it, before I had it open and maybe its because its late but my brain was just not taking in any info haha but you guys make it sound really interesting and I have never read Joyce so I want to give it a show now that I know all these cool facts. Plus after reading Say Nothing last month I do have Ireland on the brain

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Literature Science Alliance Excellent! His Short Stories are the most approachable. I don’t think I will ever have the strength to do his Ulysses or Finnegan’s Wake. They just don’t sound like they’re for me but his Short Stories are definitely a fun experience and challenge for those looking for it.

[@LiteratureScienceAlliance]

@@TheCodeXCantina I think context helps me be less bored as well, cause without the context I am just confused about why we are telling this story, so thank you for that

[@ramblingraconteur1616]

Wow, fascinating tales and interpretations! Like Brian, I had never thought about “The Dead” and “The Sisters” having titles that could be interchanged. The “French disease” interpretation was a new one to me. Having recently read Ibsen’s Ghosts, which dealt explicitly with that theme and reality and which elicited a similar reaction, I can see the connection. For a guy who intentionally toyed with language ad nauseam, Joyce does love to have character misspell or mispronounce words. There is a telegram in Ulysses that spells “Mother” as “Nother”. Definitely looking forward to “The Dead”!

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Rambling Raconteur My play experience is so limited and I’ve seen you cover some great ones. That’s really interesting about Ghosts. I’ll check it out some day. Have you ever read Exiles? I imagine Ulysses will always be on my list of things that seem too daunting

[@ramblingraconteur1616]

The CodeX Cantina Exiles and Chamber Music are the two gaps in my Joyce reading. I have the Viking Critical editions of Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist, so I have read excerpts from Stephen Hero and the “epiphanies”. I also really like Anthony Burgess’s ReJoyce. My understanding of Exiles is that it feels like it’s the most juvenile and least developed of his works, despite not being his earliest, so I’ve never taken the time, much as I love “The Dead”. I may be way off on that though.

[@asburystan]

The Dead is , quite simply, the greatest short story ever written. (IMO)

[@gracekim3668]

I thought those were only spelling mistakes by having not been proofread properly (or the consequence because I got my copy from a pirate site) 😅 I'm only in the 1/3 part of Dubliners and so far, I have spotted just a few of those spelling "mistakes"

[@yuvalcherhi]

love the Gojira shirt :)

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Heck yeah

[@Mohammad_Abushaqra]

#رمضان_كريم #فلسطين #غزة #رفح #انقذوا_غزة #أوقفوا_الحرب

[@SeamasMcSwiney]

Bid Adieu to Girlish Days - Sung by George 'Giorgio' Joyce - James Joyce's Paris Imagined - kzbin.info/www/bejne/faHIpJSCpslpes0

[@sstxixo3975]

I'm so grateful for this analysis. I hope this channel never stops posting Is it possible that the boy was molested? It says that he was uncomfortable at the beginning from the priest and that could possibly explain why he hides his true emotions towards him.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

I think I've heard that theory before. One could definitely take that angle. I think it may be popular with how Joyce was very vocal about his feelings on the church's people it could make sense to take shots at them that way. That angle just never resonated with me personally but that's what is great about literature is you it can say different things to people.

[@sstxixo3975]

@@TheCodeXCantina yes, I can see how that interpretation has it's disadvantages and it's a little bit of a basic route but I was just trying to make sense of every feeling the boy had and every word in the text. Thank you so much for the reply. I found out your channel because I was studying Eveline at school and now I'm absolutely in love with the friendly way you discuss literature.

[@chowes41]

I lecture on the story at University level, and for the majority of my young students this is usually their immediate interpretation, having heard of similar news stories today. But, it is a contemporary one I think. Joyce never alluded to any child abuse going on in his life by any of his Jesuit teachers. If we interpret it through this angle, then we have clearly fallen into the very abyss of unfounded rumours and heresay that Old Cotter, as a Dubliner, represented. You would, then, also have fallen into Old Cotter's hands and thus be just as closed-minded as the Dubliners that Joyce portrays here. After all, the boy considers Cotter to an old fool. Perhaps this is puposeful on Joyce's part, as only those readers who can see the 'light' go beyond this temptation.

[@sstxixo3975]

@@chowes41 thank you for the comment.

[@nedgrant918]

I LOVE it: “I’d give it an ‘8’…” 😂🤣😂🤣😂

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Kids these days…

[@nedgrant918]

@@TheCodeXCantina I LOVED IT!

[@nedgrant918]

And your commentary has me researching the malapropism, “general”, in the way that, in “The Dead”, the maid’s 3-syllable pronunciation of “Conroy” (presumably as “Conaire”) leads to an Irish myth that lends a greater understanding of Mr. Joyce’s intent! The never-ending tale(s)… dot dot dot

[@gracekim3668]

What can you say about the priest smoking snuff? By having a 'vice', do you think it is an indication that Father Flynn is indeed one of those 'queer' priests who may have done some rule-breaking in the past, unbecoming of their vows as priests? P.S. I love all of your discussions about Dubliners! I'm currently reading the novel and now I'm in "The Two Gallants" :)

[@gracekim3668]

I also have a theory that the reason why the priest was seen inside the confessional box is because he himself is remorseful of the things he had done and he may want to confess it to someone. His persisting guilt and gradual descent to syphilis, unfortunately led him to insanity.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

You're not the only person to have this thought. I think that line of inquiry is more common today!

[@chowes41]

Thank you for this dicussion, and I found it interesting.I would agree with the second interpretation, although the sypillis one may also be present, it does not explain the nuances of the story in terms of Joyce's vision of the Dubliners and it is deeper than this alone. Joyce does, however, seem to be criticising the church and not christianity as such. The priest, most likely a Jesuit, encourages the boy to leave Ireland, to go East, which is implied in the text, (as did Joyce) to discover the 'truth' for himself elsewhere. He could not find it if he stayed in a paralysed Dublin, consumed by rumour, myth and ignorance upheld not only by the people themselves, but by the church, as embodied in Old Cotter. I think to understand it fully, you should closely analyse the poetic imagery used such as 'simony' and the chalice, not forgetting the scene when the priest drops it on the floor! It is put back in his dead hands. This is key.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Thanks.

[@Starscreamlive]

I'm intrigued by the snuff usage in this story. The narrator used to carry it to the priest, and the priest had snuff stains all over his robes. There's something more to the snuff than I'm picking up on. Did he use it liberally to mask the smell from his syphilis? Or was it just there to show how disgusting the priest was?With Joyce, every detail, even the most minute, always represents something deeper than what's on the surface.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Oh for sure, and then sometimes those small details flip our understanding of the story! My current interpretation is that the stains were besmirching his clerical robes in the same way that there was something wrong with him to begin with. The boy bringing it to him I didn't tie directly to the issues of the priest as we're in a first-person narrative and the boy must know about these details somehow for him to bring it up to us the reader. With that said, I'm sure there are alternate ways to have taken that.

[@andrewtrammell3482]

The video talks a lot about paralysis but largely ignores gnomon and simony, which are given equal weight in the quoted passage.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Hi

[@brendankane1879]

James might have just been un-abled to wear the concept of universal jurisdiction mixed in with Infallibility. Me neither.

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Don’t even need to use “might” for James in that instance

[@swaranshjaiswal3712]

5:15 You also did a mistake in journal and general. Lol

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Sure did!

[@swaranshjaiswal3712]

@@TheCodeXCantina sorry

[@swaranshjaiswal3712]

Sorry to point out the mistake

[@TheCodeXCantina]

@@swaranshjaiswal3712 All good. I tried to correct it right away but failed in a sense. Just a little misspeak is all. It's pretty funny given the context.

[@thepaulusmaximus]

Just read this as I found it yesterday in a box quarter filled with mostly old publications next door and am down to zero clean underwear and one pair of mismatched socks of questionable origin and cleanliness and my weekly study of The Tao Te Ching needed a rest. I appreciate your insights but was disappointed there was no analysis on the word simony. It seems to be the key to the whole story. Mentioned in the very beginning alongside gnomon (also a very intriguing word!) and then the narrator mentions later on a possible absolution for "the simoniac of his sin." It seems maybe the narrator was privy to the reverends indiscretions?

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Maybe a future video we'll cover it.