The Boarding House

“The Boarding House” by Modernist author James Joyce is a short story published in his larger collection, Dubliners, in 1914. Most of Joyce’s works focus on the Irish working classes during the country’s conflict with Britain over assimilation into the United Kingdom. His trademark “stream of consciousness” style is a postmark of the Modernist movement in literature and the arts. However, Dubliners is a series of short stories written early in Joyce’s career, before he honed his “stream of consciousness” style. “The Boarding House” appears in the middle of the book, between the short stories “Araby” and “Counterparts.” The story interrogates social class and how women and men navigated their status, and reflects the culture of Dublin in the early 1900s as Joyce saw it. “The Boarding House” is sometimes published as a standalone short story, but the other short stories published in Dubliners alongside it add context that is important to consider.

This study guide refers to the e-book edition of Dubliners hosted on Project Gutenberg; all citations refer to paragraph number.

The story is set in Dublin and begins in omniscient third-person point of view.