Dubliners Lesson Plan

Compare the young men in "After the Race," "Two Gallants," and "The Boarding House." Do you notice any similarities and differences?

There are some recurring features among the young men in these three stories. Particularly in "After the Race" and "Two Gallants," being a young man in a social situation is marked by self-consciousness and a pre-occupation with keeping up a constructed social persona. Particularly for Lenehan, there is also a desire to pass this persona off as effortless. This social self also generally involves proclamation and speech-making. The fabric of a social group, even in "The Boarding House," where the mass of young men are largely placed in the...