The Cycle of Life

The arm wrestle between Weathers and Farrington, one of many repeating events in "Counterparts"

     In the short story "Counterparts", Farrington is yet another character affected by paralysis introduced to Dubliners, but his paralysis takes the form of repetition in his everyday life. The first sign of this is his profession: Farrington's job is to make copies of documents. The very nature of his occupation implies that nothing new ever happens there. This is further illustrated through the repeating events throughout his day at work. Farrington's boss mocks him multiple times, he repeatedly forgets to do his work, and every time he returns to it, he simply reads the same sentence over and over again. As a matter of fact, when he finally does start working, he screws up by repeating a word, "Bernard Bernard"(72), instead of writing the name he was supposed to. As a result of the monotony of his job, Farrington also gets angry just as frequently as the other events happen.
     The repetition in Farrington's life unfortunately is not limited to his career. After he leaves the office and finds his friends, he recites the story of his earlier rebellion at work. His friends find the story so hilarious that they immediately start retelling the story to all the other people at the pub, and while he smiles from the praise, the repetition clearly irritates Farrington, for he urges his friends to "polish off that and have another"(75). Throughout the night, Farrington is forced to suffer more repeating events. The group travels to three different pubs, and at each one Farrington "[stands] a drink all round"(76) to keep the party going, a choice that he soon regrets when Weathers continuously orders expensive drinks and he ends the night nearly broke. To add insult to injury, Weathers even beats Farrington in arm wrestling twice, marking another repeating event.
     All of these moments in Farrington's day leave him so furious that the story ends with him letting out his anger on his son, ignoring his son's promises to "say a Hail Mary" for him if he stops. Thus, this story concludes on a bitter note without an epiphany for the main character. Is it too late for even God to save Dubliners at Farrington's age from the vanity of their lives in Joyce's opinion? If so, is it any better for one to be passive like Little Chandler from "A Little Cloud" than to act aggressively like Farrington?