Alliteration, while more commonly used in poetry, can serve useful in prose as a means of introducing rhythmic or repetitive elements. In the following passage, Joyce aptly utilizes alliteration to achieve this effect, repeating "white" three times and alliterating "pencilled" with "pink-veined."
[Mr. Mooney] was a shabby stooped little drunkard with a white face and a white moustache and white eyebrows, pencilled above his little eyes, which were pink-veined and raw.
This alliteration effectively communicates the banality and drudgery of Mr. Mooney's current situation. In the throes of alcoholism, he cannot help but repeat harmful behaviors. Alliteration allows the reader to feel through language the effect this repeated behavior has on Mr. Mooney: his daily life has become a slog that he cannot transcend.
The imagery in this passage, combined with the alliterative elements, paints a grim picture of Mr. Mooney's life. His "little [...] pink-veined and raw" eyes conjure up the image of an undesirable slab of meat—fitting, given his position as the abusive husband of a butcher's daughter. In the end, he comes to resemble the very image of the bad meat he produces:
By fighting his wife in the presence of customers and by buying bad meat he ruined his business
