The characters who inhabit Joyce's world in "Dubliners" often have, as Harvard literature professor Fischer put it in a lecture, a "limited way" of thinking and understand themselves and the world around them. Such “determinism,” however, does not operate on a large cultural scale, but operates in smaller, more local, more internal, and more idiosyncratic ways. That is, the forces that govern Joyce's characters are not necessarily cultural or socioeconomic in nature, but rather, as Prof. Fischer stated, are "tiny" and work on a more intimate level. In any case, due to such "forces", these stories often tend to be about something that, as Prof. Fischer said, does not happen, about the "romance of desire and self-disappointment". Joyce's short story "A Painful Case" is a perfect example of a story about something that doesn't happen and, more specifically, about the "romance of desire". It is through this desire, however, and the various "erotic" forms that such desire takes, that Joyce's characters are able to transcend the "forces" that govern their lives. In “A Painful Case” the erotic takes three separate forms: mental, physical, and what I call “auditory.” Although all three play a role in the story, it is only through "aural" eroticism that Joyce's protagonist, Mr. Duffy, comes to experience a moment of "self-transcendence." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay While “auditory” eroticism may serve, ultimately, as a conduit for Duffy's self-transformation, it is initially “mental” eroticism that brings Mr. Duffy and Mrs. Sinico together. Joyce writes, "Gradually he (Duffy) intertwined his thoughts with hers. He lent her books, gave her ideas, shared his intellectual life with her. She listened to everything" (110). Joyce uses the word "entangled" to frame the "mental" eroticism he describes. “Entangled” immediately connotes an erotic physical entanglement of bodies, but Joyce applies it to “thoughts” instead. Thoughts, rather than bodies, are "intertwined" and their mutual exchange of "ideas" is described as "intercourse." We are told that "in exchange" for "theories" we are "given" "facts" (111). Joyce, using phrases such as "intercourse", "in exchange" and "given", constructs an "erotic" structure into which he inserts "ideas", "facts" and theories", thus reinforcing the idea that the transmission of such " facts" and "theories" must necessarily take on a decidedly erotic dimension. Just two paragraphs later, once Duffy and Mrs. Since get to know each other more closely, Joyce, almost verbatim, repeats this phrase, writing: "By and by, as their thoughts intertwined, they spoke of less remote subjects." (111). Note that while previously it was Duffy who "intertwined his thoughts" with those of Mrs. Sinico, in the second case a shift of the subject occurs, so that now it is "their thoughts" that intertwine. In the first case Duffy plays the typical male role of the aggressor; it is he who initiates the "plot". In the second, however, the "entanglement" is mutual, as suggested by the passive verb tense. This shift takes on meaning only if we consider the "physical" forms that eroticism takes in "A Painful Case". The first and only instance of actual physical contact occurs when Mrs. Sinico loses control of her emotions and "passionately grasps his hand and presses it to her cheek" (112). In this case it is Mrs. Sinico who acts as the aggressor; she is the one who initiates physical intimacy with Duffy. The roles have been reversed; where Duffy played the role of the aggressor by "entanglement" of his mind with hers, it is she who plays the aggressor by entwining his hand with hers. But although Duffy and Mrs. Sinicoshare "facts" and "ideas" with each other in a "mental" "erotic" fashion, they are never, through such sharing, "united." And when "physical" eroticism is attempted, the two are actually separated. So it is not It is through neither physical nor mental 'eroticism', but, as we will see, through 'aural' eroticism that the two ultimately come together isolation, the music still vibrating in their ears united them" (111). As in the case of the description of "mental eroticism" (i.e. the "intertwining of thoughts"), Joyce expresses "auditory eroticism" also in physically erotic terms. It is through sound, in this case "music", the music that we are told "vibrates", that the two come together, "united". the way the music is described, “vibrant,” and the use of the phrase “united,” all suggest some sort of romantic, physically erotic union. Similarly, Joyce later describes how Duffy "seemed to feel his voice touching his ear..." (118). By describing a voice as "touching" an "ear," Joyce once again suggests a physical act of eroticism. Unlike, however, "touching their hands", which Joyce says Duffy also imagines, the idea of ​​a "voice touching an ear" suggests not only an external "touch", but as a voice enters the body and in the soul, it also connotes images of penetration. A voice, unlike hands, penetrates; committing the most erotic act of all. However, it is only at the end of the story that we are able to understand not only how "sound" and "voice" function in an "aural erotically" manner, but how such eroticism is responsible for Duffy's self-transcendence, albeit impermanent. In a passage that Professor Fischer would call a Joycean "moment" or "unity", he writes: "He turned his gaze to the glittering gray river, winding towards Dublin. Across the river he saw a freight train winding out of the station of Kingsbridge. , like a fire-headed worm wriggling through the darkness, stubbornly and laboriously passed slowly out of sight but still heard in his ears the labored hum of the engine repeating the syllables of his name had come, the rhythm of engine thundering in his ears. He began to doubt the reality of what his memory had told him. He stopped under a tree and let the rhythm die away. He waited a few minutes, listening nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt alone. We must first consider Joyce's sexually explicit metaphor of the train as a "worm with a fiery head creeping through the darkness." There are obvious overtly phallic connotations here, and it is this explicitness that is so striking; Joyce's tone here differs greatly from other erotic moments in the story. While "intricate thoughts" or "ear-touching" voices may contain vague erotic overtones, Joyce's metaphor here is so graphic, so explicit and so overt that it can be read as "clich?". The idea of ​​a train symbolizing a penis is not new in any way. Joyce then, in another abrupt change of tone, breaks out of his "realism" and tells us that the "engine drone" repeats "the syllables of its name" (118). This is a surreal, magical moment; clearly the hum of the engine would not, in "real life", sound like his name, but Duffy hears it that way. It is in this moment, when he hears the train and then "hears" its name, that "aural eroticism" is fully realized. That is, Joyce frames the surreal moment in a thoroughly erotic, if clichéd, manner: a “worm with a head on fire.” This shot suggests that by "hearing" (magically) his name,.