The mood of “A Painful Case” is primarily a bleak and depressing one, with small moments of reprieve. The dreary, dissatisfied mood comes across from the start of the story, when the narrator introduces readers to Duffy and his home:
Mr James Duffy lived in Chapelizod because he wished to live as far as possible from the city of which he was a citizen and because he found all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern and pretentious. He lived in an old sombre house and from his windows he could look into the disused distillery or upwards along the shallow river on which Dublin is built.
The language that Joyce uses here communicates to readers that this is not a happy tale—Duffy wishes to “live as far as possible from the city,” views the Dublin suburbs as “mean, modern and pretentious,” and lives in “an old sombre house” that offers a view of a “disused” distillery and a “shallow” river. The adjectives that Joyce uses here communicate Duffy’s dissatisfaction with his life—nothing is positive or worth celebrating.
This bleak mood continues for the first half of the story but disappears briefly as Duffy and Mrs. Sinico develop their friendship and Duffy feels, for the first time in a long time, that someone truly wants to know him and hear his thoughts and ideas. Then—just a few paragraphs later—Duffy ends their relationship after Mrs. Sinico reaches out to touch his face in an intimate moment. After this, the story is quite bleak again, ultimately ending in an even sadder place than it began, with Duffy mourning Mrs. Sinico’s death and the fact that he is utterly alone.
