"The Sisters" is a short story by James Joyce, the first of a series of short stories called Dubliners. Originally published in the Irish Homestead on 13 August 1904, "The Sisters" was Joyce's first published work of fiction. Joyce later revised the story and had it, along with the rest of the series, published in book form in 1914.
″The Sisters″ gives a portrait of the relationship between a nameless boy and the infirm priest Father Flynn. The priest who has been relieved of his priestly duties has acted as a mentor for the boy in the clerical duties of a Catholic priest. The story starts with the boy contemplating Father Flynn's illness and impending death. He is fascinated with interpreting signs and symbols, and their meaning. Later, while the boy eats his dinner, his aunt, uncle, and old Cotter have a conversation in which the boy is informed that the priest has died. The conversation focuses on the priest and his relationship with the boy. That night the boy is haunted by images of the priest. The next day the boy goes to look at the announcement that the priest has died, and then wanders about, further puzzling about his dream and about his relationship with the priest. That night the boy and his aunt go tothe house of mourning. They view the corpse with Nannie, and then they sit with the sisters Eliza and Nannie. They are offered food and drink, and then Eliza and the aunt carry on a conversation that reveals that Father Flynn had apparently suffered a mental breakdown after accidentally breaking a chalice. The dialogue then trails off.
Evolution of the story
In summer of 1904, George Russell of the editorial department of the weekly paperThe Irish Homestead wrote Joyce a letter in regards to a section of the journal called "Our Weekly Story":
Dear Joyce, Look at the story in this paper The Irish Homestead. Could you write anything simple, rural?, livemaking?, pathos?, which could be inserted so as not to shock the readers. If you could furnish a short story about 1800 words suitable for insertion the editor will pay £1. It is easily earned money if you can write fluently and don't mind playing to the common understanding and liking for once in a way. You can sign it any name you like as a pseudonym. Yours sincerely
Geo. W. Russell
Joyce took the offer, and ″The Sisters″ was published on 13 August 1904 using the pseudonym Stephen Dædalus, a name given to one of Joyce's semi-autobiographical literary characters in his later novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. ″The Sisters″ was the start of a series called Dubliners that he hoped the Homestead would continue to publish. In fact, Joyce would write two more stories for the Homestead, ″Eveline″ and ″After the Race,″ before complaints stopped the paper from publishing any more of his stories. Joyce, nevertheless, continued to add more stories to the collection. But, he had great difficulty getting Dubliners published, and it wasn't until 1914 that the first edition of the book came out. During that decade, ″The Sisters″ went through a number of revisions. The two published versions have essentially the same plot. The diction, however, was transformed from a romantic style to a wholly modernist text. The Homestead version spelled much out for the reader. In the 1914 version, on the other hand, Joyce dropped the non-essential commentary leaving the facts to speak for themselves, a style Joyce called "scrupulous meanness." Readers are left to interpret and feel the bare facts for themselves. The style demands a greater engagement by the reader who must now provide more interpretation of the facts. Other changes were made to characterisation and relationships. In particular, Joyce severely strengthened the relationship between the priest and the boy making it stand out as a memorable feature of the story.
Reception
"The Sisters" has been a subject of scholarly debate, mostly in regards to the priest's illness. One analysis of Father Flynn's illness throughout the second version of the story shows that Joyce deliberately implied that Father Flynn had central nervous system syphilis. Joyce was interested and qualified enough in medicine to be able to describe a syphilitic and had definite reasons for doing so. The syphilitic nature of Father Flynn's illness is apparent in the author's use of paralysis, which was often used synonymously with paresis when Joyce began his revisions in 1905. The priest having suffered from a sexually transmitted infection would help account for the adult society's negative opinion and disdain for him.
