A shameful consciousness of his own person assailed him. He saw himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy for his aunts, a nervous, well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians and idealising his own clownish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a glimpse of in the mirror. Instinctively he turned his back more to the light lest she might see the shame that burned upon his forehead."

Not all of Joyce's sexual revelations are as dark as "Araby" and "The Dead," however. In the Boarding House," the sexual revelation of the main protagonist is treated in a far more comic fashion -- sexuality becomes the crude vehicle of upward mobility for Mrs. Mooney, the owner of a boarding house. Mrs. Mooney's daughter Polly has been having an affair with one of the borders, Mr. Doran, and Mrs. Mooney manipulates Mr. Doran into proposing to the girl, even though...
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