Stairs and Pulpit Symbol Analysis

The stairs that Mr. Kernan literally falls down at the beginning of the story symbolize a more figurative fall from grace, while the raised pulpit that he watches Father Purdon preach from at the end of the story represents the potential for redemption. “Grace” begins with Kernan lying unconscious and bleeding, having drunkenly fallen down the stairs in a Dublin pub. The bottom of the steps symbolizes what is often called “rock bottom” in addiction or other personal issues: the fall represents the worst of Kernan’s binge-drinking problem, but also the potential for hope. He can literally fall no further, just as his reputation and professional standing have figuratively fallen. 

Following Kernan hitting “rock bottom,” as symbolized by the bottom of the stairs, three of his close friends—Jack Power, Martin Cunningham, Mr. M’Coy—enact a plan to take him to a Catholic retreat in order to redeem him through religion. After a long discussion, they eventually convince Kernan to go. Once they arrive at the Church, they listen to a sermon given by Father Purdon, the priest of the church. Purdon gives his speech from an elevated pulpit where he looks out over the congregation, and this position is a symbolic contrast to the bottom of the stairs where Kernan begins the story. The pulpit thus represents the promise of redemption and salvation, by which one can eventually reach heaven in the Christian belief system. The story complicates this symbolic meaning by making the sermon that Father Purdon delivers from the pulpit trite and shallow, rather than spiritual and meaningful, but if Father Purdon himself implies that the Irish Catholic Church might not offer the proper means to attain redemption, that doesn’t diminish the pulpit’s significance as a symbol of the possibility of such redemption.