Ivy Day in the Committee Room Themes

In “Ivy Day in the Committee Room,” seven men are supposed to be out drumming up votes for the Irish Nationalist Party (the group seeking independence from British rule). Instead, they are do-nothing gossips, sitting around the fire in the Party’s meeting room. Their laziness is especially obvious in the context of Ivy Day, an annual commemoration of the late Nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell, whom Joyce (and many of his generation) idolized…

The men in “Ivy Day in the Committee Room”—all employed by the Irish Nationalist Party—should seemingly be united by their political values. However, the story shows a disturbing disharmony among the seven colleagues, which reflects Ireland’s political discord following the untimely death of the Nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell. The word “silence” dominates the story, and—when the men do talk—their conversation is mostly two-faced gossip, which suggests mistrust and disrespect among them. This portrait…