Emily Sinico

Three times in Ulysses, Bloom recalls the death of "Mrs Emily Sinico," bringing back to Joyce's readers the sadness of her death at the end of "A Painful Case." The Dubliners story memorably casts her as an aging, lonely woman seeking intimacy outside of a loveless marriage. When the man she falls in love with rejects her sexual overture, and she dies, she becomes for him a searing reminder of his passionless, isolated existence. Some readers of Ulysses are convinced that this is the unnamed man who appears clad in a macintosh near Paddy Dignam's grave in Hades.

John Hunt 2019

Illustration of "A Painful Case" for the de Selby Press edition of Dubliners, from a 2014 giclée print by Stephen Crowe. Source: www.mhpbooks.com.

The crossing at the Sydney Parade train station today. Source: jj21k.com.