User:Ateachou/sandbox/The Boarding House

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

Plot summary
Mrs. Mooney, separated from her husband, a butcher who descended into alcoholism, runs a boarding house for working men. Her daughter Polly entertains the boarders by singing and flirting with them. 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. On Sunday nights Polly, Mrs. Mooney's daughter, would sing with the various guests in the boarding house. It is noted that she sings "I'm a naughty girl," which Zack Bowen suggests foreshadows her affair with Mr. Doran. 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.

Criticism
Julianne Ulin calls "The Boarding House" "the least critically examined of Joyce's short stories."

In "Suspicious Readings of Joyce's Dubliners" by Margot Norris, she says "turns to Ulysses for less flattering depiction of characters, this time to counter the high-art pretension of Dubliners narrative that, by means of its occlusions and deceptions, hides the degraded moral condition of Mrs. Mooney's establishment".

"There Must be Reparation":A sacrificial reading of "The Boarding House" by Gerald Doherty is complete with criticisms on this short story. An example would be "Since reparation is also a key component in the complex definition of sacrifice, highlighting the necessity of payback or restitution, which expiates the guilt caused by “sin,” its pervasive presence in the story points to sacrifice as a focal element in its thematic, structural, and ideological organization". Doherty talks about sacrifice multiple times in his article and goes into detail about how the story shows reparation and sacrifice.