Tirades of Abuse: Marryat's Jacob Faithful and Joyce's 'Counterparts'

Abstract

There is some evidence that Joyce read (and remembered) Frederick Marryat’s novels. Nash from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man declares him ‘the greatest writer’, while Buck Mulligan likens Stephen Dedalus to Marryat’s ‘Japhet’ in Ulysses. ‘Counterparts’, the ninth story of Dubliners, features Farrington hurriedly finishing his paperwork, copying out letters long overdue. Distracted by a parched throat and thoughts of the local, he does not hear his boss approach.