A Painful Case

by

James Joyce

Mr. James Duffy Character Analysis

Mr. James Duffy is the story’s protagonist, a harsh and somewhat pessimistic middle-aged man. Duffy lives alone on the outskirts of Dublin, and he lives a very regimented life: he follows the same schedule every day, eats at the same restaurants, and avoids socializing and family obligations. Occasionally attending concerts is the only time he ever changes this routine. Joyce suggests from the outset that Duffy is symbolically connected to Dublin itself, by describing Duffy’s face as the same color as the city streets. Like many characters in Dubliners, Duffy represents something more general about life in the city. Specifically, he represents the alienation and tragedy that can result from moral superiority and sexual shame. At first, Duffy is characterized as a misanthrope—someone who dislikes other people and avoids their company. He’s not lonely, even though he rarely spends time with others. Duffy’s placid life changes, however, when he meets a married woman named Mrs. Sinico at a concert. They develop a friendship that becomes quite close, spending evenings alone talking. Duffy fancies himself superior to others in Dublin, and in Mrs. Sinico’s attention he finds the recognition he has been missing. One night, though, Mrs. Sinico makes physical contact with Duffy. This shocks him because he thinks she is making a sexual overture. Duffy is described as “living a little distance from his body,” and his distaste for the physical combined with his strict moral code lead him to end his relationship with Mrs. Sinico and cut off all communication with her. When he learns of her death four years later, he is forced to reckon with this decision. Duffy shows a capacity for growth in his change of heart over Mrs. Sinico. Initially revolted by her fate, he reflects further and eventually empathizes with her sadness, blaming himself for her death. In the end, he experiences an epiphany, a sudden realization that his fear and moral rigidity have made him lose his chance at true companionship, and he is now condemned to live out his days alone.

Mr. James Duffy Quotes in A Painful Case

The A Painful Case quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. James Duffy or refer to Mr. James Duffy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Alienation and Connection Theme Icon
).
A Painful Case Quotes

Mr. James Duffy lived in Chapelizod because he wished to live as far as possible from the city of which he was a citizen and because he found all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern and pretentious. He lived in an old sombre house and from his windows he could look into the disused distillery or upwards along the shallow river on which Dublin is built.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy
Related Symbols: Duffy’s House
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:

He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glasses. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a predicate in the past tense. He never gave alms to beggars and walked firmly, carrying a stout hazel.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:

He had neither companions nor friends, church nor creed. He lived his spiritual life without any communion with others, visiting his relatives at Christmas and escorting them to the cemetery when they died. He performed these two social duties for old dignity’s sake but conceded nothing further to the conventions which regulate the civic life.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:

One evening he found himself sitting beside two ladies in the Rotunda. The house, thinly peopled and silent, gave distressing prophecy of failure. The lady who sat next him looked round at the deserted house once or twice and then said:

—What a pity there is such a poor house tonight! It’s so hard on people to have to sing to empty benches.

He took the remark as an invitation to talk. He was surprised that she seemed so little awkward.

Related Characters: Mrs. Sinico (speaker), Mr. James Duffy
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:

Her companionship was like a warm soil about an exotic. Many times she allowed the dark to fall upon them, refraining from lighting the lamp. The dark discreet room, their isolation, the music that still vibrated in their ears united them. This union exalted him, wore away the rough edges of his character, emotionalised his mental life. Sometimes he caught himself listening to the sound of his own voice. He thought that in her eyes he would ascend to an angelical stature.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy, Mrs. Sinico
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:

He wrote seldom in the sheaf of papers which lay in his desk. One of his sentences, written two months after his last interview with Mrs. Sinico, read: Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy, Mrs. Sinico
Page Number: 108
Explanation and Analysis:

Just God, what an end! Evidently she had been unfit to live, without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits, one of the wrecks on which civilisation has been reared. But that she could have sunk so low! Was it possible he had deceived himself so utterly about her? He remembered her outburst of that night and interpreted it in a harsher sense than he had ever done. He had no difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy, Mrs. Sinico
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 111-112
Explanation and Analysis:

It was after nine o’clock when he left the shop. The night was cold and gloomy. He entered the Park by the first gate and walked along under the gaunt trees. He walked through the bleak alleys where they had walked four years before. She seemed to be near him in the darkness. At moments he seemed to feel her voice touch his ear, her hand touch his. He stood still to listen. Why had he withheld life from her? Why had he sentenced her to death? He felt his moral nature falling to pieces.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy, Mrs. Sinico
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

He turned back the way he had come, the rhythm of the engine pounding in his ears. He began to doubt the reality of what memory told him. He halted under a tree and allowed the rhythm to die away. He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 113-114
Explanation and Analysis:
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Mr. James Duffy Quotes in A Painful Case

The A Painful Case quotes below are all either spoken by Mr. James Duffy or refer to Mr. James Duffy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Alienation and Connection Theme Icon
).
A Painful Case Quotes

Mr. James Duffy lived in Chapelizod because he wished to live as far as possible from the city of which he was a citizen and because he found all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern and pretentious. He lived in an old sombre house and from his windows he could look into the disused distillery or upwards along the shallow river on which Dublin is built.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy
Related Symbols: Duffy’s House
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:

He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glasses. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a predicate in the past tense. He never gave alms to beggars and walked firmly, carrying a stout hazel.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:

He had neither companions nor friends, church nor creed. He lived his spiritual life without any communion with others, visiting his relatives at Christmas and escorting them to the cemetery when they died. He performed these two social duties for old dignity’s sake but conceded nothing further to the conventions which regulate the civic life.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:

One evening he found himself sitting beside two ladies in the Rotunda. The house, thinly peopled and silent, gave distressing prophecy of failure. The lady who sat next him looked round at the deserted house once or twice and then said:

—What a pity there is such a poor house tonight! It’s so hard on people to have to sing to empty benches.

He took the remark as an invitation to talk. He was surprised that she seemed so little awkward.

Related Characters: Mrs. Sinico (speaker), Mr. James Duffy
Page Number: 105
Explanation and Analysis:

Her companionship was like a warm soil about an exotic. Many times she allowed the dark to fall upon them, refraining from lighting the lamp. The dark discreet room, their isolation, the music that still vibrated in their ears united them. This union exalted him, wore away the rough edges of his character, emotionalised his mental life. Sometimes he caught himself listening to the sound of his own voice. He thought that in her eyes he would ascend to an angelical stature.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy, Mrs. Sinico
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:

He wrote seldom in the sheaf of papers which lay in his desk. One of his sentences, written two months after his last interview with Mrs. Sinico, read: Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy, Mrs. Sinico
Page Number: 108
Explanation and Analysis:

Just God, what an end! Evidently she had been unfit to live, without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits, one of the wrecks on which civilisation has been reared. But that she could have sunk so low! Was it possible he had deceived himself so utterly about her? He remembered her outburst of that night and interpreted it in a harsher sense than he had ever done. He had no difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy, Mrs. Sinico
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 111-112
Explanation and Analysis:

It was after nine o’clock when he left the shop. The night was cold and gloomy. He entered the Park by the first gate and walked along under the gaunt trees. He walked through the bleak alleys where they had walked four years before. She seemed to be near him in the darkness. At moments he seemed to feel her voice touch his ear, her hand touch his. He stood still to listen. Why had he withheld life from her? Why had he sentenced her to death? He felt his moral nature falling to pieces.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy, Mrs. Sinico
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

He turned back the way he had come, the rhythm of the engine pounding in his ears. He began to doubt the reality of what memory told him. He halted under a tree and allowed the rhythm to die away. He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.

Related Characters: Mr. James Duffy
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 113-114
Explanation and Analysis: