As a youthful adventure story, the mood of “An Encounter” shifts quite a bit depending on where the “hero” is in his journey. At the start of Mahony and the narrator’s big day of skipping school, for example, the mood is optimistic, as seen in the following passage:
We pleased ourselves with the spectacle of Dublin’s commerce – the barges signalled from far away by their curls of woolly smoke […] Mahony said it would be right skit to run away to sea on one of those big ships and even I, looking at the high masts, saw, or imagined, the geography which had been scantily dosed to me at school gradually taking substance under my eyes. School and home seemed to recede from us and their influences upon us seemed to wane.
The language here contributes to an overwhelmingly hopeful mood, as seen in positive phrases like, “We pleased ourselves with the spectacle of Dublin’s commerce” and “School and home seemed to recede from us and their influences upon us seemed to wane.” Here at the start of the journey to the Pigeon House, the narrator is completely unburdened, noticing the “curls of woolly smoke” and imagining “the geography” he would be able to see if he sailed away on one of the docked ships.
The mood changes significantly as the two boys find themselves unable to achieve their goal of making it to the Pigeon House and end up stuck in an uncomfortable situation with a pedophilic old man instead. At this point in the story the mood becomes anxious and heavy. While the narrator and Mahony are able to escape, the story doesn’t necessarily end on a joyful note. Rather than facing exciting adventure and becoming a hero, the narrator faces an uncomfortable situation and runs away, calling out to Mahony for help. The story ends on a bleak note, as readers know that the narrator has not broken free from his mundane Dublin life, but must return to it, unlikely to try to break free or adventure out into the world again.
