Bored with his school routine and even the after-school war games that he plays with his friends, the narrator of “An Encounter” decides to shake up his repetitive life by skipping school for a day. He and his friends, Leo Dillon and Mahony, pool their money and plan to explore Dublin. But Leo bails on the trip and, while the narrator and Mahony start out excited, they soon find themselves outsiders looking in on others’ daily routines or mirroring them: eating when other people eat and even copying others’ facial expressions so as not to stand out. Even the most unusual thing that happens to them, their conversation with the old man who seems sexually fixated on looking at young girls and “whipping” young boys, makes the narrator think that he is just a part of the old man’s routine because the man keeps repetitively circling back to the same language. The story’s focus on repetition emphasizes that no matter how much the narrator tries to create adventure, what he hopes for is out of his reach: he is bound to fall into just another routine.
Descriptions of routine and repetition characterize the beginning of “An Encounter.” The narrator opens the story by describing Joe Dillon’s after-school war games. Even though the “Indian battles” mimic real adventure, the narrator makes clear that they are just another part of his dull routine by using language like “every night” and “never” to emphasize how rote the games are. Leo’s attempts to translate Latin in front of the class is just another instance of repetition. He isn’t requested to think for himself or to make anything new, just to repeat what someone else has already written. The narrator’s desire for escape into a “chronicle of disorder” encompasses his desire to break free from his everyday disciplined routine, leading him to plan his excursion into Dublin during school hours.
But even while the narrator and Mahony are on their adventure across Dublin, images of routine and repetition abound, gradually increasing as the story goes on. The first hint of others’ routines comes when the narrator watches a “docile” horse carrying businesspeople up a hill in a cart. The horse is sometimes an image of wildness in Wild West stories. But this horse is placid and tame, sharing its daily routine with the businesspeople although the narrator hardly registers it. Later, when Mahony and the narrator cross the river, they notice that everyone around them is eating lunch and do the same, sitting down and watching the bustling construction around the river that makes up everyone else’s routines. As they later watch a sailor entertain a crowd, the narrator finds himself growing bored since although the sight is novel to anyone who stops by and moves on, spending just a little time watching makes clear that the sailor is following a repeating routine, which soon gets dull.
Although the strange old man deviates from acceptable sexual attitudes, the narrator senses that he, too, relies on repetition and has a routine. As the man speaks about young girls’ beauty, working himself up to masturbate, the narrator thinks that it seems like the man is “repeating something which he had learned by heart,” connecting the man’s words to the Latin recitation that Leo Dillon was supposed to have learned. The narrator’s description of the man’s repetitive speech suggests that while the experience is new to the narrator, it is routine for the strange old man. Once the strange old man’s routine takes over the narrator’s attempt at adventure, the narrator realizes that he is out of his depth: he is not at all practiced in dealing with danger, but the strange old man seems perfectly comfortable directing vague threats at the boys, a realization that is both unsettling and disappointing.
The narrator plans his adventure as a way to break out of the routine and repetition that dominates his school life, and he believes that in order to find that “adventure” all he has to do is go “abroad”—in his case, go out into the world away from school. But when he does go out into the world, all he finds is more repetition and routine of varying sorts. In this way, “An Encounter” seems to suggest that there is no longer any chance of adventure for the narrator, or in Ireland.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Routine and Repetition ThemeTracker
Routine and Repetition Quotes in An Encounter
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.
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.
A spirit of unruliness diffused itself among us and, under its influence, differences of culture and constitution were waived. We banded ourselves together, some boldly, some in jest and some almost in fear: and of the number of these latter, the reluctant Indians who were afraid to seem studious or lacking in robustness, I was one. The adventures related in the literature of the Wild West were remote from my nature but, at least, they opened doors of escape.
Everyone’s heart palpitated as Leo Dillon handed up the paper and everyone assumed an innocent face. Father Butler turned over the pages, frowning.
“What is this rubbish?” he said. “The Apache Chief! Is this what you read instead of studying your Roman History? Let me not find any more of this wretched stuff in this college. The man who wrote it, I suppose, was some wretched scribbler that writes these things for a drink. I’m surprised at boys like you, educated, reading such stuff. I could understand it if you were… National School boys. Now, Dillon, I advise you strongly, get at your work or…”
This rebuke during the sober hours of school paled much of the glory of the Wild West for me and the confused puffy face of Leo Dillon awakened one of my consciences.
But when the restraining influence of the school was at a distance I began to hunger again for wild sensations, for the escape which those chronicles of disorder alone seemed to offer me. The mimic warfare of the evening became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.
The summer holidays were near at hand when I made up my mind to break out of the weariness of school-life for one day at least.
With Leo Dillon and a boy named Mahony I planned a day’s miching. Each of us saved up sixpence. We were to meet at ten in the morning on the Canal Bridge…We arranged to go along the Wharf Road until we came to the ships, then to cross in the ferryboat and walk out to see the Pigeon House. Leo Dillon was afraid we might meet Father Butler or someone out of the college; but Mahony asked, very sensibly, what would Father Butler be doing out at the Pigeon House.
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. As he proceeded I noticed that his accent was good. He began to speak to us about girls, saying what nice soft hair they had and how soft their hands were and how all girls were not so good as they seemed to be if one only knew. There was nothing he liked, he said, so much as looking at a nice young girl, at her nice white hands and her beautiful soft hair. He gave me the impression that he was repeating something which he had learned by heart or that, magnetised by some words of his own speech, his mind was slowly circling round and round in the same orbit.
After an interval the man spoke to me. He said that my friend was a very rough boy and asked did he get whipped often at school. I was going to reply indignantly that we were not National School boys to be whipped, as he called it; but I remained silent. He began to speak on the subject of chastising boys. His mind, as if magnetised again by his speech, seemed to circle slowly round and round its new centre. He said that when boys were that kind they ought to be whipped and well whipped…I was surprised at this sentiment and involuntarily glanced up at his face. As I did so I met the gaze of a pair of bottle-green eyes peering at me from under a twitching forehead. I turned my eyes away again.
I waited till his monologue paused again. Then I stood up abruptly. Lest I should betray my agitation I delayed a few moments pretending to fix my shoe properly and then, saying that I was obliged to go, I bade him good-day. I went up the slope calmly but my heart was beating quickly with fear that he would seize me by the ankles. When I reached the top of the slope I turned round and, without looking at him, called loudly across the field:
“Murphy!”
My voice had an accent of forced bravery in it and I was ashamed of my paltry stratagem. I had to call the name again before Mahony saw me and hallooed in answer. How my heart beat as he came running across the field to me! He ran as if to bring me aid. And I was penitent; for in my heart I had always despised him a little.
