“A Painful Case” is a modernist short story. Modernism was a literary movement led by 20th-century writers who were disillusioned with the literature that came before. Rather than writing hopeful stories with powerful protagonists and clear moral takeaways, modernist writers told morally ambiguous stories centered on alienated people simply trying (and sometimes failing) to survive in exploitative, industrialized societies. As a result, these literary works tended to focus on working- and middle-class people rather than the social elite.
One of the modernist qualities of “A Painful Case” is the way in which there is no clear moral lesson. While some of Joyce’s contemporary readers may have thought that Duffy was correct in his decision to end his friendship with the married Mrs. Sinico when she reached out for physical contact, Joyce hints that this is not necessarily what he was trying to communicate. Joyce's decision to have Mrs. Sinico indirectly die as a result of a broken heart invites readers to question if perhaps Duffy is to blame for Mrs. Sinico’s death. Still, there is no narrator communicating a clear takeaway or lesson here. Readers must decide for themselves if Mrs. Sinico is to blame for her indiscretion, or if Duffy is to blame for his sexual repression and refusal to bend the rules of society in order to find connection with another person.
