Significantly, however, the two truants never reach their destination.

do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.' Thus, he skips school one day and sets out for the Pigeon House across Dublin with his friend Mahony. Joyce continues here the themes of paralysis and spiritual death begun in 'The Sisters.' This story's main character wants more than to play cowboys and Indians with his schoolmates he wants 'real adventures.' But he knows that 'real adventures. When the stranger is done talking, the boy leaves, seeking Mahony. When Mahony leaves to pursue the cat further, the strange man talks obsessively to the protagonist (main character) about the need for boys who misbehave to be whipped.

After a while, the man crosses the field and does something that the boys find 'queer' - probably masturbating. The man quizzes the narrator and Mahony on the books they've read, and then asks them if they have girlfriends. When Dillon fails to show up, the narrator and Mahony leave without him.Īfter crossing the Liffey, the boys chase a stray cat across a field and encounter a stranger there. Here, the boy schemes with his friends Leo Dillon and Mahony to play hooky from their exclusive private school one day in June and walk across Dublin, and then ride a ferry boat across the River Liffey to the Pigeon House.

As in 'The Sisters,' an unnamed storyteller (possibly the same narrator featured in that story) recalls a transformative boyhood experience.

The sisters james joyce