After Kernan drunkenly falls down the stairs at the pub and bites off a chunk of his tongue, his wife receives him at home and takes care of him. In the following passage, she reflects on her husband’s accident, using a metaphor in the process:
After a quarter of a century of married life, she had very few illusions left […]. She was tempted to see a curious appropriateness in [Kernan’s] accident and, but that she did not wish to seem bloody-minded, she would have told the gentlemen that Mr Kernan’s tongue would not suffer by being shortened.
The metaphorical language that Mrs. Kernan uses here—in which she thinks to herself that her husband’s tongue “would not suffer by being shortened”—is her way of saying that she believes it would be fine with her if her husband spoke less. In this metaphor, having a shorter tongue becomes equivalent to a loss of assertiveness. Perhaps, the metaphor suggests, Mrs. Kernan would be better able to control her husband if he could no longer speak.
This moment is significant in that it establishes Mrs. Kernan’s frustration with her husband and her lack of agency as the woman in their relationship (and in their society). Not only must she continue to care for her husband—who comes home drunk and injured at any time of the day—but she worries about seeming “bloody-minded” for expressing her desire to reign him in. In the story, Mrs. Kernan comes across as trapped in a relationship she doesn’t want without the ability to leave.
Once the men make it to the Catholic retreat, they listen attentively to Father Purdon’s sermon. The priest’s speech centers on metaphorically comparing himself to an accountant, as seen in the following passage:
He told his hearers that he was there that evening for no terrifying, no extravagant purpose; but as a man of the world speaking to his fellow-men. He came to speak to business men and he would speak to them in a businesslike way. If he might use the metaphor, he said, he was their spiritual accountant; and he wished each and every one of his hearers to open his books, the books of his spiritual life, and see if they tallied accurately with conscience.
In this speech, Father Purdon compares himself to “a spiritual accountant” in order to make his teachings relatable to “the business men” in the audience. His metaphor rests on the idea that, like an accountant, he will be going through each congregant’s “books” in order to “tally accurately” what he finds inside. Instead of expenses, he will be looking at their actions and judging them as immoral or not.
This metaphor is significant in that it waters down the relationship between spiritual advisor and advisee to a transactional business-like one. In having the priest use this metaphor, Joyce is highlighting the spiritual bankruptcy of the Catholic Church—rather than encouraging spirituality centered on faith and love, Father Purdon is teaching the attendees of the retreat that their relationship to religion and morality should be purely practical.
When Kernan’s friends—Cunningham, Power, and M’Coy—attempt to convince him to attend a Catholic retreat with them in order to become sober, they don’t directly state that this is their intention. Instead, they describe the reason they want to attend the retreat using a metaphor, as seen in the following passage:
—Yes, that’s it, said Mr Cunningham, Jack and I and M’Coy here—we’re all going to wash the pot.
He uttered the metaphor with a certain homely energy and, encouraged by his own voice, proceeded:
—You see, we may as well all admit we’re a nice collection of scoundrels, one and all. I say, one and all, he added with gruff charity and turning to Mr Power. Own up now!
—I own up,” said Mr Power.
—And I own up, said Mr M’Coy.
—So we’re going to wash the pot together, said Mr Cunningham.
The metaphor that Cunningham uses—“wash the pot”—signifies confessing one’s sins. The same way that one washes a pot to clean it, one confesses one’s sins (in the Catholic tradition) to cleanse one’s soul. Cunningham intentionally uses this Irish slang in order to make the idea of the retreat more palatable to Kernan and to avoid mentioning his drinking problem directly (thereby making it more likely he will attend).
It is notable that all three of Kernan’s friends stage this discreet intervention together, “own up” to having committed their own sins together and ultimately go to the retreat together. This is Joyce’s way of showing how important community is for men like Kernan who are struggling—it is only because he has kind and supportive friends that he has a hope of changing his harmful behaviors.
