James Joyce (author) believed people had epiphanies.

A Painful Case is the name of the story and also the name of the article in the story about the death of Emily. However, in the title, the painful case could mean Duffy’s life.

We don’t know what Emily thinks or goes through.

He’s only called Mr. James Duffy, James Duffy, and Duffy. This shows he’s not personable.

He doesn’t like people. He lives outside of the city.

His walls were free from pictures, you could infer that he had no family or friends. The “free” part means he views them as a burden. Free from the burden of relationships.

His furniture shows that he’s hard. Iron things.

His face looks old, his face shows his age. He looked like an average pedestrian. His mouth was unfriendly and he didn’t smile. His eyes weren’t hard, they were softer. His eyes said he was hopeful to connect to new people and was often disappointed.

He lived “outside of his body.” He’s uncomfortable with his own physicality. He lives in his own mind. This could indicate trauma.

Talks to himself in the past tense in the third person. He lacks a firm identity. He views himself as lonely since he doesn’t have anyone to talk to. He creates a narrative.

Repeated spiritual terms. It is used inappropriately throughout to show his disconnect from religion. He escorted his family to the graveyard. He does it because he has to.

Duffy welcomes the fact that Emily has a daughter because he’s not looking for romance. Having a daughter shows she’s not married or looking for a relationship.

Emily mentions her husband in an offhand way so as not to push Duffy away.

He makes an appointment with her, which is a creepy and odd word. He also says interview later in the text. He wants it to be at her home. It implies he doesn’t want anything suspicious out of their relationship. Emily’s husband is okay with it because he thinks she’s too ugly for anyone to want to sleep with, and because he’s open to the idea that Duffy is going to marry his daughter. These are both delusional.

She was there for him but there wasn’t any reciprocality. He sees it as a confessional. She became his confessor. She asked him why he didn’t write anything down and he replied “For what” carefully angry. He uses this as a defense mechanism. He doesn’t want to feel angry.

He’s an exotic plant and she’s just soil. She chooses to leave the lights off sometimes, which could indicate that she wants romance. Or, she could be intensely listening. He doesn’t say important things and just talks to hear the sound of his own voice. He thought that in her eyes he would become an angel.

He thinks that his soul won’t ever connect to someone else. He feels disconnected. She grabs his hand and presses it to her cheek and this makes her the world’s biggest whore. This causes him to break up with her. He calls this a ruined confessional.

He meets up with her for the last time at a little cake shop where they spoke for three hours. It doesn’t say what they talked about but they agreed to break off their relationship. He says that every bond is a bond to sorrow. It’s true, but he’s using it as an excuse. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t allow yourself to have good connections in your life because they’ll end.

He gets a box of his stuff back. This shows she wants nothing to do with it.

Four years pass between the time they break up and the time Emily dies. He writes that man and man can’t love each other because they can’t have sex. Men and women can’t be friends because they only want sex. He’s ridiculous. He closes himself off from society. But I think that’s a blessing to society if I’m being honest.

He doesn’t have a connection to his family. He talks about his father dying nonchalantly and views someone’s retirement as on the same level. Paralysis was in the air pre-WWI.

When she dies, Duffy thinks that she started drinking because they broke up. But the husband said that she only started drinking two years before she died - two years after she and Duffy stopped talking. But he thinks it has to do with him.

The first reaction that Duffy has is that he’s repulsed by her because she ascended into alcoholism. He says he doesn’t like vices and thinks they’re the wrecks of civilization. This would be an example of social Darwinism.

He’s never felt lonely until he read about her death. He understood how lonely she must have been. He realized he would also be lonely until he died. He doesn’t go out and engage with people because he’s emotionally paralyzed.