Modernist narratives tend to unsettle moral frameworks. For example, at the end of most of the stories in Dubliners, readers are faced with either a moral problem that defies judgment or shown a character having a sudden epiphany, but it is not clear what they have learned. “A Painful Case” fits both of these patterns. In its portrayal of Mr. Duffy and Mrs. Sinico’s relationship, the story questions moral conventions regarding love, marriage, and sexuality. Additionally, the story muddies the waters with respect to Mrs. Sinico’s death, leaving its cause ambiguous and questioning Duffy’s responsibility. Finally, the story refuses to say if Duffy has had a profound realization of his lost opportunity with Mrs. Sinico or if he will simply revert back to his contented alienation. In raising these moral questions but deliberately leaving them unanswered, Joyce forces his readership to question conventional morality and grapple with their assumptions surrounding it.
Duffy and Mrs. Sinico’s unusually intimate friendship defies moral standards of the time. Duffy first meets Mrs. Sinico at a concert. Polite society required that strangers be introduced through a mutual acquaintance. When Mrs. Sinico breaks with this convention, Duffy is “surprised that she seemed so little awkward,” characterizing her behavior as unusual. When they meet again, Duffy “seize[s] the moments when her daughter’s attention [i]s diverted to become intimate.” Duffy’s hiding his attention suggests that he knows he is crossing a line. By contrast, Mrs. Sinico seems unfazed. In referring to her husband, Captain Sinico, Mrs. Sinico does not seem to be “warning” Mr. Duffy that her husband will be jealous. They continue to meet in private at “her little cottage outside Dublin,” showing that they are avoiding scrutiny but also getting away from the city’s social norms. Mrs. Sinico often neglects turning on the lamp as their evenings wear on, heightening their intimate connection: “The dark discreet room, their isolation, the music that still vibrated in their ears united them.”
Four years after breaking off his friendship with Mrs. Sinico, Duffy by chance reads a newspaper article about her death in a train accident. The details of her death given in the article leave it unclear if she committed suicide or not. Some evidence suggests accidental death: she was hit by a slow train while crossing the lines, and the medical examiner found that her injuries were not sufficient to cause death, which probably came from shock. Moreover, it is revealed that Mrs. Sinico had taken to drinking, so it is probable that in her drunkenness, she stumbled or did not see the train coming. Other evidence hints at suicide, however. Mrs. Sinico could have avoided a slowly moving train. The doctor’s finding the death due to “sudden failure of the heart’s action” suggests that symbolically, Mrs. Sinico had given up on life. The story has shown Mrs. Sinico distress and alienation, so a four-year progression into alcoholism and suicide seems plausible. Moreover, it is possible that she exhibits the reckless behavior sometimes shown by people suffering from depression: not actively suicidal, yet welcoming death. Mrs. Sinico’s fate is tragic, but the story refuses to specify its cause, making her fate difficult to place in a moral framework.
The newspaper article describing her death ends saying, “No blame attached to anyone.” Ironically, the rest of the story narrates Duffy’s coming to blame himself. He then experiences an epiphany regarding his alienation, but the nature of his realization is unclear. Duffy initially reacts to the news story with moral condemnation. The story of her death “revolt[s] him.” He feels justified in casting her aside: “He had no difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken.” Next, Duffy remembers his relationship with Mrs. Sinico. He questions his behavior: “He could not have carried on a comedy of deception with her; he could not have lived with her openly. He had done what seemed to him best. How was he to blame?” He begins to develop some empathy for Mrs. Sinico, imagining her loneliness. His empathy with Mrs. Sinico grows so strong that he imagines hearing her voice and feeling her touch. He takes on blame: “Why had he withheld life from her? Why had he sentenced her to death?” This self-blame causes him great distress: “He felt his moral nature falling to pieces.” Duffy thinks to himself twice that “he was outcast from life’s feast,” suggesting that he has realized his chance for love is lost. The last line of the story, “he felt that he was alone,” shows that Duffy realizes his isolation is now involuntary and permanent. On the other hand, it is possible that Duffy at the end of the story has reverted back to his contented, voluntary alienation. He sees a train and hears Mrs. Sinico’s name in the sounds of its engine. However, then “he began to doubt the reality of what memory told him.” He loses his imaginative connection to Mrs. Sinico: “He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor her voice touch his ear.” The train moves away, and the night become “perfectly silent.” This imagery suggests that it is possible Duffy has simply erased his feelings of guilt and loss and will revert back to his black-and-white life of self-imposed alienation.
The ending of “A Painful Case” is bleak and evocative, raising many questions but providing no answers. Did Mrs. Sinico die accidentally, or did she kill herself? Did Duffy’s rejection of her prompt her slow decline? Is he responsible for her fate, or is he wallowing in guilt? Does Duffy now feel lonely, having finally understood what he threw away? Or has this passionless man experienced a few hours of emotion and now gone back to his typical disconnection? In raising moral questions but not clearly answering them, the story forces readers to engage with the plot directly, questioning their own assumptions and standards for judgment.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Questioning Conventional Morality ThemeTracker
Questioning Conventional Morality Quotes in A Painful Case
One evening he found himself sitting beside two ladies in the Rotunda. The house, thinly peopled and silent, gave distressing prophecy of failure. The lady who sat next him looked round at the deserted house once or twice and then said:
—What a pity there is such a poor house tonight! It’s so hard on people to have to sing to empty benches.
He took the remark as an invitation to talk. He was surprised that she seemed so little awkward.
Her companionship was like a warm soil about an exotic. Many times she allowed the dark to fall upon them, refraining from lighting the lamp. The dark discreet room, their isolation, the music that still vibrated in their ears united them. This union exalted him, wore away the rough edges of his character, emotionalised his mental life. Sometimes he caught himself listening to the sound of his own voice. He thought that in her eyes he would ascend to an angelical stature.
He wrote seldom in the sheaf of papers which lay in his desk. One of his sentences, written two months after his last interview with Mrs. Sinico, read: Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.
Just God, what an end! Evidently she had been unfit to live, without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits, one of the wrecks on which civilisation has been reared. But that she could have sunk so low! Was it possible he had deceived himself so utterly about her? He remembered her outburst of that night and interpreted it in a harsher sense than he had ever done. He had no difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken.
It was after nine o’clock when he left the shop. The night was cold and gloomy. He entered the Park by the first gate and walked along under the gaunt trees. He walked through the bleak alleys where they had walked four years before. She seemed to be near him in the darkness. At moments he seemed to feel her voice touch his ear, her hand touch his. He stood still to listen. Why had he withheld life from her? Why had he sentenced her to death? He felt his moral nature falling to pieces.
He turned back the way he had come, the rhythm of the engine pounding in his ears. He began to doubt the reality of what memory told him. He halted under a tree and allowed the rhythm to die away. He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.
