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Joe Dillon is the older brother of one of the narrator’s school friends, Leo Dillon. Joe collects boys’ magazines for their stories about the Wild West. Every night after school, he leads a group of younger boys in war games based on cowboys-and-Indians battles. Donning a mock Native American costume, Joe plays rough with the younger boys and always wins, celebrating all his victories with a war dance that the narrator finds particularly fearsome. Joe’s preference to play as a Native American and not a cowboy in the Wild West games suggests his, and the Irish people’s, allegiance to “colonized” people rather than “colonizers”—especially since colonial American expansion had ramped up throughout the 19th century, the time just before “An Encounter” takes place. His victories even seem to rewrite history so that the colonized people come out on top. Joe becomes a kind of symbol of masculinity, individuality, and adventure to the narrator. When Joe is called to the priesthood, the narrator is shocked—the order and routine of the Catholic Church is so unlike how the narrator saw Joe at play. Joe’s leadership and contradictory qualities infuse the story with its early spirit of adventure and set the narrator on his path to explore the unexpected contradictions in the people and places around him.
Joe Dillon Quotes in An Encounter
The An Encounter quotes below are all either spoken by Joe Dillon or refer to Joe Dillon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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An Encounter Quotes
It was Joe Dillon who introduced the Wild West to us… Every evening after school we met in his back garden and arranged Indian battles. He and his fat young brother Leo, the idler, held the loft of the stable while we tried to carry it by storm; or we fought a pitched battle on the grass. But, however well we fought, we never won siege or battle and all our bouts ended with Joe Dillon’s war dance of victory.
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His parents went to eight-o’clock mass every morning in Gardiner Street and the peaceful odour of Mrs Dillon was prevalent in the hall of the house.
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Joe Dillon Character Timeline in An Encounter
The timeline below shows where the character Joe Dillon appears in An Encounter. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
An Encounter
Joe Dillon introduces the narrator and his friends to the Wild West by lending them his...
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Every morning, Joe’s parents go to mass on Gardiner Street, and when the narrator goes to the Dillons’...
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With Joe gone, the narrator and his friends carry on the Wild West games. While some of...
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