The Catapult (Slingshot) Symbol Analysis

One of the things that sets the traditionally-masculine, athletic Mahony apart from the timid and studious narrator is Mahony’s slingshot, or catapult. When Mahony first meets the narrator on the bridge before their journey, he reaches into his “inner pocket” and pulls out the slingshot that visibly “bulged” from it, giving it phallic associations. While the slingshot certainly seems to drive the kind of aggressive masculine behavior that Joe Dillon demonstrates—Mahony brings it to shoot defenseless birds along the way and uses it to chase the ragged girls—it doesn’t feature again during the story. Mahony doesn’t pull it out to defend himself and the narrator from the strange old man, who vaguely threatens them by describing how much pleasure he apparently derives from beating young boys. As a symbol of masculinity, the slingshot certainly distinguishes Mahony from the narrator. But since Mahony doesn’t use it for any practical purpose, even when he and the narrator are in danger, the reader is invited to wonder what its purpose is—or should be. In the Bible, the slingshot is the young hero David’s weapon used to bring down the powerful Goliath. But in “An Encounter,” the boys don’t use the slingshot at all when it counts, which suggests that the kind of heroism they were after is beyond them, or perhaps no longer possible at all.