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Grace by James Joyce
A tale of booze and misguided religion
Grace, the penultimate story in James Joyce’s Dubliners, is often viewed as a parody of Dante’s Divine Comedy while others argue it is an allegory for religious salvation. The story is built on two preoccupations that are present throughout the collection of stories to a lesser or greater extent: religion, in particular the Catholic Church and drinking, specifically alcoholism.
As a parody of the Divine Comedy the story is similarly structured as a three-part narrative. The Divine Comedy has a journey into hell in the Inferno, an experience of purgatory (Purgatorio) and, finally, an ascent in heaven or Paradiso.
Joyce’s tale begins with the main protagonist, Kernan, a failing salesman, falling down some stairs while in a drunken state and injuring himself. He has allegorically fallen from grace, and like the fallen angel, Lucifer, the light-bearer, he has fallen into Hell. Kernan’s scene of recovery, in a domestic setting, parallels Dante’s purgatory. His friends come to visit him while he recuperates in bed. His speech is impaired by injuring his tongue during the fall. The conversation centres on religious matters and tales of previous popes that are full of contradictions and falsehoods. Kernan is a Protestant who converted to Catholicism when he was married yet he appears to remain sceptical of some of its…
