Walking Symbol Analysis

Walking represents the general sense of aimlessness and unbelonging that plagues the story’s characters. Walking is commonly thought of as a way to get to a particular destination: from point A to point B. But walking, in “Two Gallants,” is not so purposeful. Over the course of the story, Corley and Lenehan meander through Dublin, and their route traces a rough circle through the city. Rather than traveling from one place to the next, the two men walk for hours and end up basically where they started: they go nowhere. Further, the story ends, significantly, as the two men walk along Ely Place—a real road in Dublin that’s actually a dead end. Walking, in the story, is therefore not a symbol of purpose or direction. Quite the contrary, it symbolizes a lack of purpose, a lack of direction, and the impossibility of having either in Ireland.

Walking is also an emblem of the two men’s lack of belonging. They seldom stop, and never stay anywhere for long. Lenehan gets food, talks to friends who seem distracted and disinterested, watches Corley from afar, feels lost when Corley goes off with his lover––but throughout all this, he continues walking. He walks because he can think of nothing else to do, has nowhere else to go. Walking has no destination in “Two Gallants,” and represents the men’s itinerate, unfulfilling lifestyle, in which the two men never truly belong or have the possibility of settling down.