Women and a Lack of Gallantry Theme Analysis

As Lenehan and Corley walk through Dublin, the two men’s main topic of conversation revolves around women. Yet the way in which Lenehan and Corley speak about and treat women is far from respectful. Thus, the title of the story, “Two Gallants,” is ironic––Lenehan and Corley are anything but gallant. Their main goal, as becomes clear at the story’s end, is to manipulate the maid whom Corley has met into stealing money for them. They see women not only as sex objects, but as sex objects to be even further scammed for money. Yet even as the men mistreat the women around them, they also wish they could meet a “good” woman to settle down with, without ever realizing that they themselves are driving the culture that makes it nearly impossible for a woman to meet this ideal of being “good.”

While the story doesn’t explicitly explore the situation of women in Ireland, it portrays a society in which women are put in an impossible situation. Through Corley and Lenehan’s behavior toward women, “Two Gallants” implies that such men believe that women should be chaste and pure—yet they also hate women who won’t quickly sleep with them and ruthlessly work seduce the women they encounter. Corley and Lenehan agree that paying money to go on dates with women who won’t give you anything in return is a fool’s errand. Yet they talk disparagingly of the maid who does like Corley and is willing to have sex with him—they see her as someone to manipulate and use, not as someone worthy of actual care or love.

The women in “Two Gallants” have no way to navigate the men’s contradictory desires. The maid is dressed in blue in white, colors that are associated with the Virgin Mary in Catholicism. This subtly contrasts the maid, who offers Corley sexual favors, with the Virgin Mary. In Dublin, purity is out of reach––and “Two Gallants” makes clear that for women, a lack of “purity” is equated with a loss of worth. Though the maid apparently likes Corley, Corley views her as nothing more than an object of gratification. In contrast to Corley’s brags about sexual exploits, at one point the men mention a woman whom Corley once dated but who has since become a prostitute. This woman has sex for money—which isn’t that different from Corley himself, who brags about his skill at getting women to buy him presents, like free tram rides or cigars. Lenehan, however, is first excited that perhaps Corley was the one who drove the woman into prostitution, and then calls the woman a “betrayer” when he learns that other men were “at her” before him. Corley, Lenehan, and other Irish men treat women as objects to be “got at,” but then blame those women for actually giving in, with the implication that such women are then socially ruined.

Even as they mistreat women, though, Lenehan (and even Corley, to some extent) seems to long for a stable relationship with a “good” woman. While Lenehan seems to vicariously delight in Corley’s romantic “conquests,” as soon as he is apart from Corley, his behavior changes. While eating alone, Lenehan wistfully hopes to “settle down in some snug corner” with “some good simple-minded girl.” Even as Lenehan urges on Corley’s exploitation of women, he longs for a world where he can “settle down” with a “good” woman. Unlike Corley, Lenehan seems to recognize what he is missing in the absence of a loving relationship with a woman. It is not clear, however, whether Lenehan realizes that by egging Corley on, he participates in the male mistreatment of women that makes the qualifier “good” something no Irish woman can fulfill.

The story then further uses the symbol of the harp to connect the men’s lack of gallantry toward women more broadly to Ireland’s general decline. The harp is personified in the story as a woman, and it’s described as having “her coverings” “fallen about her knees,” and as being “weary alike of the eyes of strangers and of her master’s hands.” Like the many disrespected women of the story, “Two Gallants” portrays Ireland itself as a woman betrayed at the hands of ungallant men who won’t uphold her honor or dignity. So while women are often portrayed as “fallen”––like the prostitute that Corley once liked––men are, in actuality, the ones who are letting women down in “Two Gallants.” And in so doing, the story suggests, they are dishonoring their country in the same way that they dishonor the women they discuss and pursue. Ireland, like the harp, is akin to a disgraced woman, too often humiliated and abused by her “master”––in this case, both men as a whole and England as a colonial power. The parallel between colonial abuse and male dominance is made clear by the use of “conqueror” to describe Corley. But as this term could just as easily describe England and English rule in Ireland, the way men treat women in the story is paralleled by the way the English treat the Irish.

In its title, the story describes its two main characters as “gallants,” but it is quickly clear that the title is bitterly ironic. The men are far from gallant; they fulfill none of the bravery, elegance, or self-sacrifice that would be characteristic of a traditionally gallant man. Instead they are poor, lewd, lazy, and exploitative. The other characters in the story are similarly fallen, while the women have been used and manipulated by the men and have been driven to prostitution and crime. Through its symbolism and the plight of its characters, “Two Gallants” suggests that Ireland has so declined that gallantry within it has not just gone missing—it is impossible.