Religion, Colonization, and Power Theme Analysis

“An Encounter” takes place in Dublin, Ireland in the late 19th or early 20th century, when Ireland was still under British colonial control. British colonization exploited Ireland both politically and economically, and during Joyce’s lifetime, debate surged over whether Ireland could—or should—attain self-rule. Though it does so subtly, “An Encounter” directly engages with the complicated Irish social dynamics around colonization and power. Joe Dillon reads Wild West stories and convinces his friends to pretend to be Native Americans, who were of course subject to increasing domination by the United States. The narrator’s Catholic-school teacher shames his class by suggesting that they act like boys from the British-established, lower-class “National Schools” as opposed to the private, pro-Irish, Jesuit-run school that the boys attend; and a group of orphans on the street make fun of the narrator and his friend Mahony by calling them “swaddlers,” a pejorative term for Protestants (pro-England Irish people were usually Protestants, as opposed to the pro-Irish Catholics). By foregrounding the boys’ fascination with Native Americans and their fights for freedom, and by subtly including other instances of the manifestations of English colonial rule, “An Encounter” emphasizes colonization’s impact on Joyce’s characters and explores the complex and shifting social and cultural hierarchies in Ireland between Catholic and Protestant, rich and poor, and Irish and colonial English characters.

Joe Dillon’s fascination with the Wild West draws parallels between Native Americans and the Irish as people subject to colonization. His desire to play as a Native American, not a cowboy, in his cowboys-and-Indians games shows his allegiance with a group of people who are under colonial rule, just as the Irish themselves are. Furthermore, his ferocity at play, and the detail that Joe’s version of Native Americans always win, suggests that despite the long history of failed Irish rebellions, there are still Irish people who are fierce enough to lead and to break from the status quo against their oppressors. At the same time, the fact that Joe’s victories are in a pretend game might be taken as suggesting that, in fact, the idea of such leaders is itself a fantasy.

When Joe decides to join the priesthood, the significance of his decision is complex. The Catholic Irish had long been at the forefront of attempts at rebellion against the Protestant English. However, at the end of the 19th century, the Catholic Church turned its back on Charles Stuart Parnell, Ireland’s greatest diplomatic hope at attaining independence, after it was revealed that Parnell was engaged in an extra-marital affair. Many Irish people felt the Church had betrayed both Parnell and the Irish Nationalist cause, which makes Joe’s decision to join the Church ambiguous, particularly in light of the way Joyce portrays the only other holy man in the story: the narrator’s teacher, Father Butler.

Father Butler’s rebuke of Leo Butler at school touches on numerous hierarchical beliefs about Catholics and Protestants in Ireland and represents how those beliefs get passed down through generations. First, Father Butler criticizes Leo Dillon and the class at large for reading Wild West stories instead of the Roman History he assigned, suggesting that the stories are beneath them as “educated” boys in the Jesuit system and maintaining order. Furthermore, the reading Father Butler assigns, the Roman History, glorifies an empire—albeit the Roman Empire—and carries complex connotations about the place of the Catholic Church in Ireland: while the Catholic Church tends to side against the English politically, its connection to Roman imperial history makes it yet another force that enacts colonial power over Irish people. In the time of Irish Nationalism, the fact that the boys learn Latin in school but not their own dying Irish language also makes the Church’s position in Irish independence ambiguous. As a part of Butler’s public shaming of Leo, he also tells the boys that they are better than the boys in the National School, a British-established school designed to educate Catholics and Protestants together and a school which the Irish Catholic hierarchy thought was a force of cultural suppression. However, by reaffirming this hierarchy, Father Butler deepens the divisions between young Catholics and Protestants. Overall, Father Butler encourages conformity with the status quo, attempting to quash the beginnings of the same kind of rebellious spirit that Joe Dillon has and that, the story suggests, Ireland needs for its independence.

The narrator and Mahony’s encounter with the “ragged troop” of boys and girls further reveals how prominent the cultural and class divisions between Irish-aligned Catholics and English-aligned Protestants are, even to the youngest people in Dublin. When Mahony chases the “ragged girls”—poor children who are likely orphans—with his slingshot, the story hints at the widespread poverty in Dublin and gives a glimpse at the kinds of children who probably attend the schools that Father Butler thinks are beneath his class. The “ragged boys” defend the girls from Mahony, and while Mahony and the narrator are both Catholics who attend a Jesuit school, the children call them “swaddlers,” pejorative slang for Protestants, when they see a cricket club’s badge in Mahony’s hat. The children assume that since Mahony and the narrator are wealthier, and cricket fans, they must be English-aligned Protestants, highlighting how religious divisions also reflect class divisions in Dublin—though not necessarily the cultural hierarchy. The conflict between young children reveals how stuck Dublin is in its conflict. Even small children have a grasp of the hierarchies at play in their daily lives and continue sowing division among themselves.