'Don't you think there is a certain resemblance between the mystery of the Mass and what I am trying to do? I mean that I am trying ... to give people some kind of intellectual pleasure or spiritual enjoyment by converting the bread of everyday life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own...for their mental, moral, and spiritual uplift.' (1)

In fact, Joyce's efforts to illuminate some of the inscrutable mysteries of life by isolating apparently commonplace incidents or objects and investing them with transcendent importance characterize all of the stories in Dubliners.

In `The Sisters', as well as in `The Dead', the principal subject is death, a matter of concern to the young and the old. Death both frightens and fascinates us because of the mystery which surrounds...