Forever Alone

     The ways in which Mr. Duffy from "A Painful Case" and the boy from "Araby" are affected by potential love have their share of similarities, and I believe that it would not be far-fetched to assume that the two are the same character.
     In "Araby", the boy is evidently overcome by his infatuation with Mangan's sister in a manner that implies that he had never experienced love before. He loses control of his feelings, and he begins to worship the girl in "strange prayers and praises which [he] did not understand."(20). Mangan's sister becomes the epitome of purity and beauty in the boy's eyes, and this drives him to travel late at night to a place he has never visited in order to find a gift to please her. Clearly, he has unrealistically high expectations for the bazaar and the potential gifts he could find there, but these expectations are inevitably left unmet, and once the bazaar closes he sees himself as "a creature driven and derided by vanity"(24), for he realizes the foolishness of his actions and feels mocked or "derided" by Dublin, the city that crushed his dream.
     If this boy did grow up to be Mr. Duffy, it would make sense that he purposely chooses to reside in the secluded town of Chapelizod "because he wished to live as far as possible from the city...and because he found all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern, and pretentious."(87). Also, as if to avoid being overwhelmed with emotion like the boy was with Mangan's sister, Mr. Duffy does not decorate his home with colors or photographs, and he follows the same exact routine every single day with "neither companions nor friends, church nor creed"(88); his life is "an adventureless tale"(88), yet he seems to accept it until he meets Mrs. Sinico. She seems to awaken feelings in Mr. Duffy that he had locked away long ago, for even though she appears to take the initiative, he starts arranging meetings with her himself. Gradually, he falls in love, and his emotions evidently grow stronger, perhaps too strong like those of the boy: "He thought that in her eyes he would ascend to an angelical stature."(90). However, unlike the boy who had never felt love, Mr. Duffy soon recognizes his feelings and rejects them as if he already knows the consequences. As a result, he returns to his monotone life, believing both of them would be happier separated.
     Through the death of Mrs. Sinico, however, Joyce obviously wants to show that Mr. Duffy's choice was a mistake, but if he and the boy are one in the same, where did their fault lie? The boy took a foolish risk and was disappointed, but wouldn't Mr. Duffy's pursuing Mrs. Sinico, a married woman, be just as foolish if not more? Was there truly any hope for their love in the first place?