The Sisters
Narrator—Boy, 8–9 years old.
Father Flynn (dead)—Boy’s mentor.
Narrator’s Aunt and Uncle
Nannie and Eliza—Priest’s elderly sisters.
Old Cotter—Family friend.

An Encounter
Narrator—Boy, 8–9 years old.
Mahoney—School friend of the Narrator.
Leo Dillon—School friend of the Narrator.
Joe Dillon—Leo’s brother.
Older Man in Field—Quite likely a sexual pervert.

Araby
Narrator—Boy, 9–12 years old.
Mangan’s sister—Sister of narrator’s friend with whom the boy is in love.
Narrator’s Aunt and Uncle

Eveline
Eveline Hill—Young woman, 18–20 years old.
Eveline’s Alcoholic Father
Eveline’s Mother—Who died and Eveline loved.
Frank—Eveline’s betrothed.

After the Race
Jimmy Doyle—Wealthy 20–21 year-old Irishman.
Charles Segouin—Owner of a French race car, his friend.
Andre Riviere—Friend of Segouin.
Villona—Hungarian friend of Segouin.
Routh—English friend of Segouin.
Farley—American friend of Riviere.

Two Gallants
Corley—A womanizer about 25 years old.
Lenehan—His buddy, approximately the same age.
Servant Girl (“Slavey”)—Whom Corley is dating.

The Boarding House
Mrs. Mooney—Owner of the boarding house.
Polly Mooney—Her 19-year-old daughter.
Bob Doran—Boarder with whom Polly has become romantically involved.

A Little Cloud
Little Chandler—Thirty-ish clerk and amateur poet.
Ignatius Gallaher—Little Chandler’s school friend, now a journalist living in London.
Little’s Wife (Annie) and Baby Son

Counterparts
Farrington—Forty-ish clerk and alcoholic.
Mr. Alleyne—Farrington’s boss.
Weathers—An English entertainer whom Farrington meets in a pub.
Several of Farrington’s Drinking Companions

Clay
Maria—Middle-aged worker in an Irish charitable laundry.
Joe Donnelly—Her nephew.
Joe’s Family

A Painful Case
James Duffy—Middle-aged unmarried man and scholar.
Emily Sinico—Middle-aged married woman who becomes attached to Duffy intellectually and personally.

Ivy Day in the Committee Room
Old Jack—Caretaker of headquarters.
O’Connor—Young political canvasser.
Hynes—Canvasser whom others suspect of working for the rival side.
Henchy—A canvasser.
Crofton—A canvasser.
Lyons—A canvasser.
Richard Tierney (not present)—Politician running for office in the Royal Exchange Ward and for whom the canvassers are working.
Father Keon—Defrocked priest and friend of Tierney.
Charles Stewart Parnell—(dead) Irish Revolutionary in whose honor ivy is worn on the lapel to commemorate anniversary of his death.

A Mother
Mrs. Kearney—Overbearing mother and socially ambitious member of Dublin middle class.
Mr. Kearney—Her quiet, ineffectual husband.
Kathleen Kearney—Her teenage daughter.
Mr. Holohan—Assistant secretary to the Eire Abu Society.
Mr. Fitzpatrick—Secretary to the Eire Abu Society.

Grace
Tom Kernan—A tea merchant and alcoholic.
Messrs. Power, Cunningham, M’Coy and Fogarty—Tom Kernan’s friends.
Mrs. Kernan—His wife.
Father Purdon—Priest running the “businessman’s retreat” at the local church.

The Dead
Gabriel Conroy—Teacher and amateur writer.
Gretta Conroy—His wife.
Julia and Kate Morkan—Gabriel’s aging aunts, piano and voice teachers in Dublin.
Mary Jane—Gabriel’s cousin, an unmarried piano teacher who lives with the aunts.
Molly Ivors—Gabriel’s colleague and passionate Irish nationalist various party guests of the Morkans.
Michael Furey—(dead) Adolescent love of Gretta Conroy.

“I,”

“I,” the first-person narrator of the first three stories, often thought of as one character. In “The Sisters” and “Araby,” he reveals that he lives with an uncle and aunt. In “An Encounter,” he does not mention his home life, but there too he is bright, admired by his teachers, and disdainful of common people, an attitude he learns to reject.

James Flynn

James Flynn, a deceased priest in “The Sisters,” and a former teacher of the narrator. Unable to forgive himself for breaking a chalice containing sacred wine, he was found laughing to himself in a confessional. Relieved of his priestly duties, his sisters cared for him until his death from a third stroke.

Mahoney

Mahoney, the boy who ditches school with the protagonist of “An Encounter.” Slightly wild, he chases a cat while a perverted old man tries to seduce his friend, but he then runs back as if to aid him.

The Old Josser

The Old Josser, a sadistic pederast garbed in priestlike black who approaches the truant boys in “An Encounter,” hoping to seduce the protagonist emotionally.

Mangan’s sister

Mangan’s sister, the attractive girl on whom the narrator of “Araby” has a crush. Followed to school by the boy every morning, she finally speaks to him, offering a friendly date, but she is not understood.

Eveline

Eveline, the protagonist of the story that bears her name. She promised her dying mother that she would keep the family together and failed. Her favorite brother Ernest dead, she lives with her threatening father and works at the Stores, hoping for escape. Her new beau, Frank, offers to spirit her away to Buenos Aires but may not be trustworthy.

Little Chandler

Little Chandler, a clerk in “A Little Cloud.” With a wife and child to support, Chandler dreams of escape. Bright and sensitive, he is too timid to trust his own perceptions. He loves Byron, but his favorite poem is one Byron wrote before his poetic powers matured. He aspires to write poetry but never does. He admires a reporter whose character is flawed.

Farrington

Farrington, a physically powerful man trapped in “Counterparts” in a world of modern commerce that has no use for his strength. His dehumanizing job in a law office amounts to work as a duplicating machine. His human need for individuality and dignity proves a flaw in him from the perspective of his puny boss, Mr. Alleyne. He regards himself as neglected by his pious wife. His bravado at pubs does not relieve his anguish, so he beats his son.

Maria

Maria, the well-intentioned woman of “Clay.” She was a nanny for many years and regrets the rift between two of her former charges. Witch-or nutcracker-like, her nose and chin almost touch when she laughs. Lonely and proper, she pretends to like living at the Dublin by Lamplight Laundry, among former prostitutes.

James Duffy

James Duffy, a hermit bank clerk of Chapelizod in “A Painful Case.” Disapproving of the world and himself, he “lives at a distance” even from himself. Mozart is his one “dissipation.” the walls of his apartment are bare; its color scheme is black and white, with a dash of red. His books are arranged by weight in his bookcase, and he regards his father’s death as equivalent to his boss’s retirement.

Gabriel Conroy

Gabriel Conroy, an educator and literary critic in “The Dead.” Gabriel attempts to liberate himself from Ireland but fails. His dead mother chose the presumptuous names Gabriel and Constantine for him and his brother. Her conviction that his wife, Gretta, is beneath him still troubles him. He bristles when he is playfully mocked by Gretta for buying continental galoshes as protection against Irish winters. When Lily, his aunts’ servant, speaks generally about untrustworthy men, he perceives that she is attacking him. His colleague, Molly Ivors, incurs his wrath for chiding him gently about his neglect of Ireland. Gabriel, who poses as independent, depends on approval from others and ultimately sees himself as second in Gretta’s affection to Michael Furey, a long dead beau of her schoolgirl days.

Gretta Conroy

Gretta Conroy, Gabriel’s warm, witty wife, the mother of two. Naïve when she moved from rural Connacht, where young Michael Furey risked his life in a storm to see her, she was regarded by Gabriel’s mother as “country cute.” Intelligent in her responses to Gabriel’s attempts to control her, she appreciates his generosity. When a song stirs her memory, she thinks of Michael with affection.

Molly Ivors

Molly Ivors, a professor, political activist, and lover of Irish culture. A match for Gabriel intellectually, she would perhaps have seemed to his mother to be an acceptable mate for him.

Although Dubliners lacks recurring characters, Joyce envisioned the collection as a cohesive work aimed at revealing the city's debilitating moral paralysis. He approached his study of Dublin's condition with a specific plan, which he outlined to publisher Grant Richards. Each phase of life, from childhood to adulthood and public life, would be depicted through four groups of stories in the collection.

The first group, which Joyce referred to as "stories of my childhood," includes "The Sisters," "An Encounter," and "Araby." The second group, focusing on adolescence, consists of "The Boarding House," "After the Race," and "Eveline." The third group, depicting mature life, features "Clay," "Counterparts," and "A Painful Case." The final group, addressing public life in Dublin, comprises "Ivy Day in the Committee Room," "A Mother," and "Grace."

Three stories were not originally part of this plan, but their placement in the collection suggests categorizing "Two Gallants" among the stories of adolescence and "A Little Cloud" among the stories of mature life. "The Dead," while thematically connected to the other stories, stands apart in its structure and tone, making it difficult to fit into the pre-existing scheme devised before its completion.

The initial three stories in the volume, centered on childhood, illustrate a sequence of initiations where naive youths come to realize the bleakness and decay of their surroundings. The first story, "The Sisters," is especially somber, focusing on the death of Father Flynn, an elderly Catholic priest to whom the young narrator was deeply devoted. Despite the priest's old age and near incapacity, the boy was clearly very fond of him. Father Flynn had taught the boy about the rituals and mysteries of the Catholic Church, showing him various vestments for different ceremonies, quizzing him on canon law, and emphasizing the importance of the Eucharist and confession rites.

Enchanted by the power and responsibility he believed Father Flynn held, the narrator barely noticed the frail man behind the vestments. However, with the priest's death, the boy gains further insight as he listens to the conversation between his aunt and the priest's sisters. The dialogue reveals a gradual but incomplete disclosure of a dark secret about the priest, as polite phrases give way to more suggestive comments. Father Flynn was a disillusioned man who once broke a chalice he had taught the boy to consider sacred, an event that seemed to have affected his mind. Before the story ends inconclusively (the final ellipses highlighting its lack of closure), the boy hears about an incident where Father Flynn disappeared and was found sitting alone in the dark in his confession box, wide awake and laughing softly to himself.

While the story leaves much unsaid, Eliza Flynn vaguely concludes that something was wrong with him. This revelation profoundly impacts the boy. He sees a Father Flynn he never knew before: not the revered practitioner of sacred rites, but a tormented, possibly insane man whose priestly dignity has been shattered. The laughter in the darkened confession box hints at an even grimmer secret the boy never suspected.

"An Encounter" and "Araby" similarly depict young boys losing their innocence. In "An Encounter," the child's meeting with a pedophile abruptly ends what had been a youthful adventure, a day's escape from school. The young narrator of "Araby" experiences his first love in grand romantic terms, imagining himself as a knight on a quest for his lady. However, when he reaches the bazaar to buy her a gift, its tawdriness shatters his romantic illusions.

The characters depicted in the stories of adolescence are significantly influenced by a pervasive sense of paralysis, though not entirely immobilized. These narratives often illustrate how this paralysis progresses, as the Dubliners they portray come to terms with their disheartening adult lives. In "Eveline," emotional paralysis turns literal as the protagonist, poised for escape, finds herself unable to board the ship bound for Buenos Aires with her fiancé. Instead, she chooses to return to a bleak existence, serving as daughter and servant to an abusive father she fears. Her fiancé, Frank, an experienced Irish sailor, symbolizes the romantic possibilities that dreams of Araby held for the young boy in an earlier story. However, Eveline is unable to grasp the freedom he represents. "The Boarding House" presents another tale of entrapment, where Bob Doran is coerced into a likely unhappy marriage by his landlady, Mrs. Mooney, and her quietly conspiring daughter, Polly. Similarly, "After the Race" and "Two Gallants" feature characters (Jimmy and Lenehan) who are troubled by the realization that their lives will never align with their aspirations.

The stories of mature life focus on characters grappling with their life's failures. One of the most poignant examples is "Clay," where the main character, Maria, copes by failing to acknowledge her reality, a pitiable strategy mirrored in the story's style, reminiscent of a children's tale ("Maria was a very, very small person indeed but she had a very long nose and a very long chin."). The cheerful tone starkly contrasts with the story's somber content: Maria is an aging, lonely woman, estranged from her quarreling brothers and working in a dismal Dublin laundry. Despite the narrator's attempts to paint her life as cheerful, it is far from what Maria desires. Her eyes shine with disappointed shyness when Lizzie Fleming jests that Maria will choose the ring (symbolizing marriage) in the divination game on All Hallows' Eve. When Maria sings "I dreamt that I dwelt," she notably omits the second verse, which starts, "I dreamt that suitors besought my hand." The story's unusually bright tone and children's-story style suggest Maria's own effort to envision herself in an idyllic girlhood, awaiting a romantic transition into a joyful adulthood. The harsh realities of her life are masked by a fragile fantasy, making her eyes sparkle with disappointed shyness rather than joy. She knows, but does not fully admit, that she will not choose the ring. Her true fate is indicated by the token she actually selects, which is left unspoken in the story: clay, symbolizing death.

Despite their fragility, Maria's sustaining beliefs remain unbroken by the end of that story. In "A Painful Case," we observe the devastating impact on Mrs. Sinico when her love for the selfish and emotionally stunted Mr. Duffy is rejected. Her suicide four years later, which Mr. Duffy acknowledges as a result of their breakup, destroys his self-illusions of being a great or even good man. The egotist who once believed he would be seen as angelic in Mrs. Sinico's eyes finally realizes, too late, that he is an outcast from life's feast. The other stories in this group, "A Little Cloud" and "Counterparts," depict men who are trapped and frustrated, ultimately venting their frustrations on their own sons. This is done brutally in Farrington's case in the latter story, suggesting a continuation of the debilitating legacy to the next generation.

The final group of stories, which addresses public life, broadens the scope to a community afflicted by general paralysis, examining political life ("Ivy Day in the Committee Room"), cultural life ("A Mother"), and religious life ("Grace"). The corrupt politicians who gather on October 6, the anniversary of Parnell's death ("Ivy Day"), are the lamentable successors of the nationalist leader. Hynes's clichéd poem, "The Death of Parnell," references a sinister group of modern hypocrites who brought down their leader, but Joyce makes it clear that one need not look beyond this committee room to find such hypocrites in the story's present. "A Mother" offers an unflattering portrayal of Dublin's cultural life, juxtaposing Mrs. Kearney's middle-class pretensions with the mediocre concert series she involves her daughter in. The Irish Revival also appears as a sham here, more of a superficial trend than a genuine cultural rebirth, with wealthy families hiring Irish teachers so their daughters can exchange Irish picture postcards. "Grace" depicts a city whose spiritual life is hopelessly tainted by parochial and material concerns, culminating in Father Burdon's self-description during the retreat as a "spiritual accountant." Mr. Kernan's journey towards redemption notably lacks spiritual substance.

The concluding story in the collection, "The Dead," once again delves into Dublin's dismal moral condition. However, Joyce presents a much more generous and empathetic portrayal of the Dubliner at the heart of this lengthy short story. Similar to Mr. Duffy in "A Painful Case," Gabriel Conroy is jolted into an awareness of his own existence as an unhappy outcast from life. Yet, Gabriel is a far more intricate character than Duffy. His pretensions are counterbalanced by his kind heart and genuine (though insufficient) love for his wife, Gretta.

Throughout the evening of the party, we observe not only Gabriel's sense of intellectual superiority but also his clumsiness and self-doubt. Despite these, he strives to ensure the success of the Misses Morkans' annual event. While Duffy's self-realization might seem merely pitiable, Gabriel's is more likely to be perceived as tragic.