The mood of “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” is unsettling and bleak. This comes across in the opening lines of the story:
Old Jack raked the cinders together with a piece of cardboard and spread them judiciously over the whitening dome of coals. When the dome was thinly covered his face lapsed into darkness but, as he set himself to fan the fire again, his crouching shadow ascended the opposite wall and his face slowly re-emerged into light. It was an old man’s face, very bony and hairy. The moist blue eyes blinked at the fire and the moist mouth fell open at times, munching once or twice mechanically when it closed.
This passage introduces readers to Old Jack—the caretaker of the Irish Nationalist Party’s headquarters (or Committee Room)—while simultaneously establishing the mood of the story. Joyce’s attention to the light (or lack thereof) from the fire and Old Jack’s shadow immediately establishes the unsettling mood—language like “his face lapsed into darkness,” “his crouching shadow ascended the opposite wall,” and “his face slowly re-emerged into light” has a haunting, almost ghost story-type energy. This is compounded by the eerie descriptions of Old Jack’s “very bony and hairy” face, “moist blue eyes,” and “moist mouth” that “fell open at times, munching once or twice mechanically.”
Though the story shifts away from this type of rich descriptive language—and toward pages of banter between the various men who enter the Committee Room—the unsettling mood continues. The fire in the room is never full—a symbol for the waning vigor of the Nationalist Party—so the men talk to each other in semi-darkness, and, despite the fact that they are all Party members, none of the characters actually trust each other. Their bickering and gossip is also full of bitterness and cynicism, contributing to the bleak mood (and unfavorable portrait of the Natalist Party’s future).
