Abstract This paper analyzes and reviews the portrayal of the two main female characters in this short story taken from Joyce's famous collection of short stories, "Dubliners". The paper explains how Joyce has painted the female characters in this story, and in all the short stories in "Dubliners", as predators out to trap any man into marriage. The paper then compares this portrayal to Joyce's portrayal of the male characters in "The Gallant" and shows how Joyce's message is that, while men are only after one thing with women, namely sex, women also only want one thing, marriage or the man's money, and this is a more base and elemental need.
From the Paper "Mrs. Mooney does not think of her girl gaining her own advancement through hard work. Polly seems to have no will or desires of her own, beyond fulfilling her mother's desires for her to get married?Polly never objects to either male offers, but neither does she resist her mother's constant overseeing and controlling guardianship. Every emotion of Polly's is either calculated or dominated by her mother or both, as Polly ?had been made awkward by her [Polly] not wishing to receive the news in too cavalier a fashion or to seem to have connived, and Polly had been made awkward not merely because allusions of that kind always made her awkward, but also because she did not wish it to be thought that in her wise innocence she had divined the intention behind her mother's tolerance.? (2) The oxymoron "wise innocence" shows how much of Polly's appearance of innocence or desire is "put on" with the transparent (to the reader) intention of snaring men."
