The romantic language, details, and imagery of the passage create a joyful and physical tone. Drawing from the religious, chivalric, and emotional realms, Joyce balances words and details, the implications of …show more content…
The boy carries no chalice, but instead “some of the parcels” from his aunt’s weekly shopping trip. Even the allusion to the Holy Grail is double-edged since, in addition to its religious and chivalric associations, it also carries with it reminder that the grail disappeared because its protector lusted for a young woman, just as the narrator lusts for Mangan’s sister, Furthermore, the foes he is not challenged by dark knights and dragons, but instead is “jostled by drunken men and bargaining women.” Whether the “bargaining women” are merely the haggling shoppers or, on a more sordid level, prostitutes propositioning the “drunken men,” his vision of the chaste lady fair is countered by the commercial pursuits of the “bargaining women.” For this reason, the boy’s illusions of courtly love seem