The tone of “An Encounter” is simultaneously proper and childlike. Through the tone, Joyce communicates that the narrator is an educated and intelligent child, but a child nonetheless. The following passage—which comes when the strange old man starts talking to the narrator and his friend Mahony—captures this contradictory tone:
– Every boy, [the strange old man] said, has a little sweetheart.
His attitude on this point struck me as strangely liberal in a man of his age. In my heart I thought that what he said about boys and sweethearts was reasonable. But I disliked the words in his mouth and I wondered why he shivered once or twice as if he feared something or felt a sudden chill.
Here the narrator reflects on the old man’s inappropriate mention of “sweethearts” with a rational and mature tone, thinking, "His attitude on this point struck me as strangely liberal” and “what he said about boys and sweethearts was reasonable.” Despite this self-possessed tone at the start of the passage, readers can sense an underlying anxious and naïve tone in the second sentence when he describes how he “disliked the words in [the man’s] mouth” and “wondered why he shivered once or twice.”
Though the narrator is performing a sort of maturity for both the man and the readers, his inability to understand or adequately respond to the man’s inappropriate behavior demonstrates his childish nature. While he wants to be the hero in his own adventure story, he is still a kid with limited tools and skills.
