Duffy: The Real ‘Painful Case’ Essay

In A horrific Case, by James Joyce, the fundamental flake is cold, intellectual, and emotionless. The narrator of this story adopts a demoralised and scathingly negative view of the central character, Mr. Duffy.Duffy is, figuratively speaking, dead. He is dead to the humanity of passionate emotions that make others alive, and he shuns uprise contact with other humans, especially steamy and intimate contact. He argues that every connect is a bond of sorrow, and uses this as acknowledgment for not engaging in whatever relationships of an intimate nature. He has neither companions nor friends, church service nor creed. Duffys fashion is very weighty of his personality as well. The lofty walls of his uncarpeted room were free from pictures (Joyce, 118). It is customary to fix up pictures in sensations home of ones family or friends, but Duffy does not associate with either. He has no joyous memories to immortalize in film and frame on his sleeping room wall. His room mi rrors the state of his mind swell and austere, uncluttered by anything resembling passion. In some respects Duffy is dead.The solo intimacy Duffy may have ever matte in his behavior was with Mrs. Sinico, but nonetheless when she gags he initially find oneselfs nothing but execration that he had shared intimate separate of himself with someone who degraded herself with an alcoholic suicide.The full narrative of her finale revolted him and it revolted him to think that he had ever spoken to her of what he held sacred. She had a commonplace vulgar death. Not only had she degraded herself she had degraded him. He motto the squalid tract of her voice, miserable and malodorous. His thoughts companion (Joyce, 126-127)The extent of Duffys aloof fear of intimacy is such that even when Mrs. Sinico dies the only thing he can think about is how her death cheapened him.Eventually, Duffy realizes that he had withheld life from her, and he had sentenced her to death. He realizes tha t he, at least in full-size part, had been responsible for her descent, alcoholism, and eventual suicide. He leave her to loneliness when he stopped perceive her, and that loneliness was what prompted her death. Now that she was gone he agnise how lonely her life must(prenominal) have been, sitting night by and byward night alone in that room (Joyce, 128).With the realization that he was responsible for Sinicos death, Duffy realizes that he also will die someday, and, like Mrs. Sinico, become nothing more(prenominal) than a memory. The reason why Mrs. Sinico leave memories with Duffy is because she reached out and attempted to become emotionally intimate with him. Unlike Sinico, Duffy never make any such attempts, and recoiled when he realized that their relationship was becoming too close. Because of his neglect of warmth and passion, when Duffy dies it is likely that no one will even remember him, and he realizes this.His life would be lonely too until he, too, died, ce ased to exist, became a memory- if anyone remembered him He gnawed the rectitude of his life he felt that he had been pariah from lifes feast no one wanted him (Joyce, 128-127)However, even after Duffy comes to this detestable realization he di even soery has little consent of altering his life-style to be more passionate and alive. This is shown by Duffys thoughts of Sinico near the end of the story. Initially, he can feel her presence. She seemed to be near him in the darkness. At moments he seemed to feel her voice partake his ear, her hand touch his (Joyce, 128). Later, he sees a goods arrest uphill from the Knightsbridge station, and imagines the laborious drone of the engine reiterating the syllables of her name. In this manner he personifies her spirit with the train. afterward the train leaves, so does his feeling that she is still there next to him after the train leaves he feels utterly alone again. He listened again perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone. Duff y dismisses Sinicos spirit, and by dismissing her, he also dismisses any hope he had of learning to live.In this manner the narrator provides a pessimistic view of Duffy, maculation showing the reader how Duffy has little hope of learning to feel passion even after Sinicos death. The newspaper refers to Mrs. Sinicos death as a nearly painful case. However, the title of the story truly refers to Mr. Duffy. He is, in fact, the real painful case.