Cameron 1

Zach Cameron

Dr. Nelson

Irish Literature

12 April 2019

“The Boarding House” Role Work - Character Cracker

Throughout the short story, “The Boarding House,” many characters are introduced, but a

few central characters are of much significance. The first central character is Mrs. Mooney who

was married to a drunk. She was a determined and self-sufficient woman who “went to the

priests and got a separation from wim with care of the children” (Joyce 49). She is a responsible

and independent woman who will take matters into her own hands. Being the one who “set up a

boarding house” and was controlling the residents, she was well respected (Joyce 50). This is

significant because it was her who was the one who “intervened” because “she dealt with moral

problems as a cleaver deals with meat” (Joyce 51). She is the type of person who will handle the

situation herself and intervene when she sees fit. She values “her daughter’s honour” (Joyce 53).

The next central character in the story is Mrs. Mooney’s daughter, Polly. Polly was “a

slim girl of nineteen” who “flirted with the young men” at the boarding house (Joyce 51). She

didn’t understand that “the young men were only passing the time away: none of them meant

business” (Joyce 51). She appears to represent a central theme of women who are infatuated by

young men, but the young men are only reciprocating with sexual desires. These men in Dublin

are using women’s infatuation of them to fulfill their desires rather than find a loving wife.

Although she has had this kind of experience with some men, she then has a loving relationship

with Mr. Doran. When he was talking with her mother, she “waited on patiently, almost
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cheerfully, without alarm, her memories gradually giving place to hopes and visions of the

future” (Joyce 56). She only dreamed of finding a man that could she have forever.

This man that Polly loved was Mr, Doran, the third central character in the story. He was

“thirty-four or thirty-five” and “was a serious young man” who “had been employed for thirteen

years in a great catholic wine merchant’s office” (Joyce 52-53). This sheds light into his

personality as a charismatic man who is blessed to be existing. He shows his affection to the

young woman as “he comforted her” as she was crying to him (Joyce 54). Although it could be

easy for him to “fly away to another country where he would never hear again of his trouble...a

force pushed him downstairs step by step” (Joyce 55). He appears to break the theme of the

common men in Dublin who are sleeping with women for pleasure but not sticking with them.

He decides to go and talk with her mom like a moral young man would.