Narrator of "Araby"
This titular narrator is a young lad in love with the older sister of his best friend. Not much happens in this story in traditional narrative terms; it is an example of the Joycean literary theory of the epiphany as the driving narrative mechanism. This character hopes to buy the girl a present, but is punched in the face by fate in a moment of awareness in which he learns a valuable lesson about vanity.
James Duffy
In comparison to “A Painful Case,” "Araby" is a thrill ride adventure of action. Duffy is a painful case because he is the kind of disenchanted person so detached from society he refers to himself in the third person and his epiphany is realizing the futility of his miserable life. But hey, at least’s a Dubliner, right? So he’s got that going for him.
Greta and Gabriel Conroy
A married couple at the center of “The Dead.” The central event of that story is a party and it is only afterwards that the aloof Gabriel gets sexually excited enough to make love to his wife. Big mistake: this urge results in a painful hotel-room confession by Greta recalling her love for a man named Michael during her youth. She claims that it was his passion for her which killed him.
Maria
Maria is referred to as the “veritable little peacemaker” in the story ”Clay.” She is also a spinster who has never known love and is famous for gifting plants to visitors. Her pathos arrives courtesy of thinking that everyone thinks well of her.
Tom Kernan
Irony personified in the story titled “Grace.” Poor old Tom is a drunken Irishman—that’s not the ironic part, of course—who falls down a flight of stairs while consuming in an Irish pub. That is also not the ironic part, of course. What is ironic about poor Tom’s tale is how the fall injures him. It is his tongue which suffers the brunt of the injury thus jeopardizing his job as a taster of tea.
