Likewise, the two sisters who sacrifice so much for the man will their sacrifice as well, given their evidently ardent faith, however misguided. The setting of an Ireland where the Catholic faith remains such a respected institution gives further force to the power of the man, even though Joyce's powerfully symbolic language and writing style ultimately deflates the image of the man in death. Death, Joyce ultimately suggests, comes to use all, even a man who strove to have such a close relationship to God, and even a man whose life had such impact upon the young boy's conciousness and the conciousness of the sisters. But the drunkneness of Flynn, however, is a moral failing, rather than a largely unwilled affliction. Drunkeness, although it might be common to the community, mileu and setting of the short story, is not something that comes to us all like death, and the housekeeper...
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