32 pages • 1 hour read •
The Sisters
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Background
Authorial Context: James Joyce
James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, in Dublin, Ireland. His parents were John Stanislaus Joyce and Mary Jane “May” Joyce (née Murray), and he was the oldest of 10 surviving children. He was born into a Catholic family and attended a Jesuit school but was critical of the Catholic church from an early age, seeming to grapple with complex feelings on religion throughout his entire life. “The Sisters” includes reflections on the psychological effects of religious ritual that are characteristic of Joyce’s complex views on Catholicism. James met his future wife, Nora Barnacle, in 1904, and they moved to Europe soon after. They had two children, Giorgio (born in 1905) and Lucia (born in 1907), and were married in 1930.
Joyce’s most significant major works are the short story collection, Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939). He also wrote several collections of poetry and one play, Exiles (1918). Joyce’s writings have been the subject of extensive literary criticism, and he is considered one of the most important figures in literary Modernism, particularly in the development of the stream of consciousness narrative style. Joyce’s work has inspired numerous adaptations and contemporary cultural references. In Dublin, the day on which Ulysses takes place, June 16, is treated by many people as a national holiday: Joyce devotees perform dramatic readings of the book while they follow the path of Ulysses’s main character around the city. Some of Joyce’s works, particularly Ulysses, were previously banned on the basis of “obscenity” including sexual and blasphemous content and anti-establishment sentiment. Joyce’s deliberate boundary-pushing at a time when traditional values and “moral” censorship were the norm forms part of his modernist vision.
While Joyce’s literary works are almost exclusively set in Ireland, he spent a great deal of his life as an expatriate—primarily in Switzerland and France. His work is often critical of Ireland, and it explores the sense of exile he experienced after leaving the country of his birth. In “The Sisters,” this is reflected by narrator’s interest in faraway lands and Joyce’s use of the image of paralysis. Joyce had a close working relationship with Samuel Beckett, the ex-patriate Irish playwright who wrote Waiting for Godot (1953): Beckett served as Joyce’s typist when his eyesight deteriorated in later life. Joyce died in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1941, after undergoing surgery for an ulcer.
Historical Context: The Interrelation of Religion and Politics in Ireland
Religion and politics have been closely interrelated on the island of Ireland throughout its history, including popular uprisings against the colonial (Protestant) English rule of Ireland in the early 17th century and the late 20th-century political conflict around the position of Northern Ireland as part of the UK. While Irish history is often viewed as a story of Catholicism (associated with political nationalism) versus Protestantism (associated with unionism as a political position), the relationship between religion and politics is much more complex. At the time of Dubliners, the island of Ireland was a single country under the rule of Great Britain. A considerable number of both Protestant and Catholic Irish people were in favor of Irish independence, with a complex network of co-operation and conflict across numerous political and religious factions.
Key events in the early 20th century are relevant to the context of “The Sisters” given its focus on religion, its historical setting of 1895, and its publication in 1914.
“Home Rule” was a political campaign for self-government in Ireland and was opposed by unionists who sought to preserve the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (established in 1800). The Home Rule movement was established and led by the polarizing politician Charles Stewart Parnell from the 1970s until his death in 1891 and continued until after the First World War. Joyce is strongly associated with “literary Parnellism,” treating Parnell as a mythological figure betrayed by his followers (Foster, Roy. Modern Ireland 1600-1972. Penguin, 1988, p. 428). A later story in Dubliners, “Ivy Day in the Committee Room,” takes place on the anniversary of Parnell’s death and is critical of Irish politicians’ decision not to support Parnell, which effectively ended his career.
Home Rule was a form of Irish nationalism, strongly associated with the Catholic-majority population of (Southern) Ireland; many Irish Protestants viewed preserving the Union as central to their religious identity, which they feared would be lost in a strongly Catholic country, subject to Catholic laws and values. A series of prevaricating Home Rule bills passed in the United Kingdom eventually prompted the Home Rule Crisis of 1912, which was a catalyst for the War of Independence (1919-1921). This resulted in Partition in 1921, which established the Republic of Ireland as a sovereign state and Northern Ireland as one of the home nations making up the UK. This context of religiously influenced political turmoil is relevant to the portrayal of the city of Dublin and the politics of Catholicism in “The Sisters,” set in 1895, written and published in 1904, and then reworked and republished in Dubliners in 1914.
Cultural Context: The Irish Wake Tradition
The “wake” is a longstanding and important funereal tradition in Ireland, within both Catholic and Protestant traditions. The wake is a candlelit vigil between death and the funeral, and the name refers to the tradition of keeping watch over a dead body (i.e., staying awake to do so). The wake ritual is an ancient one, attested in early pre-Christian and Christian Celtic traditions. Its origin is likely related to superstition about the possibility of malevolent spirits interfering with the soul or body between death and burial. The ritual has persisted into the modern day, with many families hosting a wake in the deceased person’s home as an opportunity for family and friends to view the body, which is then carried from the house to the church for the funeral service. Open-casket wakes and funerals are still common in Ireland, and this opportunity to view the body of the deceased is often an important aspect of the grieving process and emotional recovery.
Over time, the Irish wake ritual has involved prayer and “keening,” the practice in which appointed women perform a chorus of ritual wailing. In a Catholic context, the rosary may be said at regular intervals. More celebratory merriment like drinking, games, and socialization is also associated with the tradition of the Irish wake, especially for men and the wider social circle. The title for Joyce’s last novel, Finnegans Wake (1939), is taken from a comedic ballad first published in the late 19th century. The refrain of the song is “Lots of fun at Finnegan’s Wake!”, and its narrative involves an intoxicated Tim Finnegan falling from a ladder and being assumed dead. During his wake, a brawl leads to whiskey being spilled on the “corpse,” at which point Tim wakes up and scolds his friends for both spilling whiskey and thinking him dead.
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