[In the following essay, Malenich speculates on the influences of British colonialism on the Irish societal temperament as exemplified by the brutality of the character Farrington in Joyce's “Counterparts.”]

Although its geographic location and its seemingly European or Western culture often can conceal what should be obvious, Ireland must undoubtedly be viewed as a post-colonial nation due to the “subaltern” position its culture occupied throughout the centuries of British hegemony; hence, a post-colonial approach quite often needs to be called upon to illuminate this nation's literature. Frantz Fanon notes that typically within such colonial power structures, “the settler paints the native as a sort of quintessence of evil … the native is declared insensible to ethics; he represents not only the absence of values, but also the negation of values” (33-34). This type of stereotypical view has traditionally been prominent in Britain where, says Edward Said, an “amazingly persistent cultural attitude existed toward Ireland as a place whose inhabitants were a barbarian and degenerate race” (Culture and Imperialism 220). British poet Edmund Spenser's 1596 call for the complete extermination of the “Irish barbarians” is one of the most vivid examples of this predominant view. In Orientalism (1978), Said maintains that Imperial endeavors, like Britain's, were often justified through the belief in what he calls “Orientalist” stereotypes that negatively portrayed the colonial subjects—labeling them as a primitive, lazy, disreputable, or savage race conveniently put a humanitarian face on the motives of colonization (6). However, when examined with a post-colonial eye, James Joyce's “Counterparts” reveals the fallacy of Imperialism's “missionary” aims and the manner in which this experience actually helped to stimulate the very traits it supposedly planned to remedy in the conquered people. While on first glance it may seem that Joyce's Farrington is the perfect embodiment of the “barbarian” that Spenser and his countrymen described, careful consideration of the underlying colonial forces affecting Farrington and in fact all Irishmen reveals a quite different take on this man and Joyce's narrative.

Farrington is unquestionably one of the most maligned characters who inhabit the short stories that comprise Joyce's Dubliners (1914). The infamous conclusion of “Counterparts” in which Farrington viciously beats his helpless son with a walking stick after returning from a frustrating day at work and the pubs seems for some to be more than adequate reasoning for his condemnation. If not, the description of his son begging him to stop and offering to say a Hail Mary for his sinful father, seems to clinch this response; however, Farrington's defenders like R. Bruce Kibodeaux argue that “it is extremely important to remember that Farrington is sinned against as well as sinning: that he is a product as well as a perpetrator of the paralysis of Dublin” (89). Such supporters point out that, like other Dubliners, Farrington is trapped by the Irish nets of religion, language, and nationality and note that “Ireland's misgovernance by English Law is illustrated by the story of Farrington's mistreatment … so that Farrington's inarticulate rage against innocent bystanders is comprehensible, if not exonerated, on political grounds” (Owens 130). In a 1906 letter to his brother Stanislaus, Joyce himself remarks, “I am no friend of tyranny, as you know, but if many husbands are brutal the atmosphere in which they live (vide ‘Counterparts’) is brutal” (Selected Letters 130). It is clear that religion and society trap Farrington in an unhappy marriage where “he loathed returning to his home … [since] his wife was a little sharp-faced woman who bullied her husband when he was sober” (97); however, the humiliating and impotent experience of colonial oppression that we see in “Counterparts” is what predominately serves to enrage this man and brings about his ignominy. In the hours leading up to his brutal attack, Farrington suffers multiple defeats all of which are notably at the hands of the British or those loyal to Britain, magnifying his impuissant standing. Although he burns with anger at these failures, the power structure of his own lot in life and that of colonial Ireland precludes any release upon the oppressors who actually are the cause of this rage; therefore, this frustration becomes displaced upon the only person Farrington can master in this colonial society—his helpless son. While it may seem that the insignificant details of Farrington's struggle in the confines of Dublin society have little correlation to Ireland's colonial condition, Fredric Jameson contends that “the story of a private individual is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society … particularly when their forms developed out of predominantly western machines of representation” (69). Ultimately, the multiple disgraces these various embodiments of British rule inflict upon Farrington represent the continual cultural and political defeats colonization administered to the Irish State. It also becomes clear that the stereotype of the drunken Irish brute seemingly supported in this narrative finds its underlying roots in the ordeal of colonial subjugation.

Farrington's first defeat in “Counterparts” comes at the hands of his boss Mr. Alleyne, who has a “piercing North of Ireland accent” (86). Though he is Irish, Alleyne's northern accent means that in “all probability he would be in favor of Protestantism and English rule” (Gifford 72) and therefore an agent of the oppressor. Alleyne berates Farrington for taking extended lunches at the pub and for “shirking work” (87). We see that as a result of Alleyne's first eruption, Farrington's “body ached to do something, to rush out and revel in violence. All the indignities of his life enraged him. …” (90). Clearly, Joyce's use of the ellipsis here indicates that these unnamed indignities go beyond merely those described in the narrative and surely include the plight of his home-life and that of his subjugated nation. Much of Joyce's technique in Dubliners involves leaving such things unsaid. After this rebuke, “a spasm of rage gripped his throat for a few moments and then passed, leaving after it a sharp sensation of thirst. The man recognised the sensation and felt that he must have a good night's drinking” (87); but, this urge could not wait and even after ducking out of the office to quench this desire, Farrington still longed “to bring his fist down on something violently … his emotional nature was set for a spell of riot” (90); however, this uprising against colonial oppression only finds realization in the form of a clever retort to Alleyne's next tirade of abuse for Farrington's failure to finish his copy of a contract. It is important to note, nonetheless, that as it is reported this encounter evokes a response not from Farrington, but from “his tongue [which] had found a felicitous moment … almost before he was aware of it” (91) and this remark is later regretted for the trouble that it will cause him. This involuntary and regretted act stands as the only parry Farrington thrusts against his persecutors; it only prompts an additional outburst of condemnation from Alleyne to which Farrington “felt savage and thirsty and revengeful” (92) and reminds him of his own powerless status. Further, each time we see Farrington humiliated by Alleyne, the result is rage and then a noted thirst; alcohol is adopted as a means to cope with these defeats; but it repeatedly fails to sooth Farrington's fury, and this only provides him with yet another failure in his life. Thus it appears that this oppression is the cause of both his intemperate and later brutish actions. Since he cannot enact the revenge he desires upon Alleyne, his fury is repressed causing it to compound until he later comes across a more permissible target in a slightly intoxicated state.

Farrington's next defeats come in the pub at the hands of the British acrobat and artiste Weathers. The financially strapped Farrington, who had pawned his watch to fund that evening's drinking, reluctantly stands two rounds of Weathers's expensive, imported “whiskey and Apollinaris” (94) and later “Farrington was just standing another round when Weathers came back. Much to Farrington's relief he drank a glass of bitter this time” (95). The allegory here between Weathers's pilfering of drinks and his nation's thievery of Irish resources—such as the destruction of nearly all Ireland's forests for lumber—is obvious. Just like his nation, Weathers bleeds the Irishman dry. For this hospitality, Weathers offers to “introduce them to some nice girls. O'Halloran said that he and Leonard would go but that Farrington wouldn't because he was a married man” (94). This chaffing irks Farrington further and immediately leads to his next defeat, which is of the romantic nature.

Across the pub, Farrington admires a striking woman who responds by answering his gaze. As she passes, she brushes against him, saying “O, Pardon! in a London accent” (95); however, to Farrington's utter disappointment this Londoner does not look back at him as she exits. This failure prompts another fit of rage in Farrington, resulting from this rebuffing combined with all his day's frustrations. Farrington becomes so angry that he loses track of the conversation and comes to find his companions calling on him to “uphold the national honour” (95) in a match of strength against the Brit Weathers—a clear microcosm of the colonial struggle between these men's combatant lands. The first match ends quickly with Farrington's loss after thirty seconds. Farrington's call for fair play spurs a second match in which he is bested again, this time “after a long struggle” (96). As a result of “having been defeated twice by a mere boy,” his “face flushed darker still with anger and humiliation,” and we observe “the violent expression of Farrington's face” (96). As he waits for the tram that will take him home to his son, Farrington's rage burns furiously. After repeatedly being disgraced and losing his reputation as an arm wrestler: “He was full of smoldering anger and revengefulness. He felt humiliated and discontented. … His heart swelled with fury and, when he thought of the woman in the big hat who had brushed against him and said Pardon! his fury nearly choked him” (97). These continued defeats have produced an overwhelming frenzy in him that, because of his position in a colonial society, can find no outlet. Not only do these failures once more infuriate Farrington, but “he began to feel thirsty again” (97). Here again, frustration produces a desire for drink. Cóilín Owens further notes that on Farrington's trip home, he passes the “Beggarsbush Barracks, one of the several similar British military establishments in Dublin” (138). This stalwart monument to his and Ireland's dominated state is yet another reminder of the constant servitude he and his people have experienced; this is noteworthy because it is the final image he encounters before arriving home and ruthlessly beating his son.

Centuries of British hegemony have clearly left an indelible mark on Farrington and indeed all Irishmen. Throughout “Counterparts,” Joyce shows Farrington as a man beaten and degraded in every facet of his world—work, home, pub, and nation—by the British Empire and his own powerless position. Because of the Anglo-Protestant power structure of colonial Dublin, his ensuing anger and revengeful urges can only be repressed. As we repeatedly see with Farrington, a desire for drink is an immediate response to the defeats he encounters and this forced repression; yet when alcohol fails to ease his frustration, the effects of constant colonial subjugation, his own impotent standing, and his embarrassing failures compound and inevitably bring this man to his breaking point. Since his usual victim—his wife who “was bullied by him [only] when he was drunk” (97)—is at the chapel, his son Tom becomes the only available and permissible outlet for the release of his rage. Being mastered all day and all life by others, such attacks on the weak afford Farrington the only opportunity to compensate for his humiliating experiences and assume the role of the master. Ultimately what we see with this attack is the psychological beating Farrington suffers being displaced onto his son in the form of physical abuse. With Farrington, Joyce is showing that Irish brutality and intemperance find their roots deeply entrenched within the colonial experience. These traits are in fact the effects of, not the justification for, colonization. It is ironic that British control appears to be the cancer that actually produced the very “Orientalist” stereotypes from which it claimed to offer relief. After centuries of domination, these misdirected and abusive responses remain as the scar of colonialism that is passed on through the generations. Kibodeaux accurately remarks that “what we see there is not mere transition, but transmission: father passing on to son the nets and paralysis of Dublin. We watch as a link in that terrible chain is dramatically, violently forged, and now we hear at the same time echoes in links stretching out from the past into the future” (91). While these factors cannot and should not exonerate Farrington, they certainly do illuminate the causes of his disturbing actions and illustrate Britain's culpable role in bringing their elitist and stereotypical view of the Irish into existence. “Counterparts” clearly serves as Joyce's statement on the prominent part British colonialism played in propagating the paralysis of Dublin that Dubliners so impressively displays.

Works Cited

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove, 1963.

Gifford, Don. Joyce Annotated. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.

Jameson, Fredric. “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism.” Social Text 15 (1986): 65-88.

Joyce, James. Dubliners. New York: Penguin, 1967.

———. Selected Letters of James Joyce. Ed. Richard Ellmann. New York: Viking, 1975.

Kibodeaux, R. Bruce. “‘Counterparts’—Dubliners Without End.” James Joyce Quarterly 14 (1976): 87-92.

Owens, Cóilín. “‘A Man with Two Establishments to Keep Up’: Joyce's Farrington.” Irish Renaissance Annual IV. Ed. Zack Bowen. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1983. 128-56.

Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf, 1993.

———. Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1978.