James Joyce and physical abuse in school

In one classroom scene, Father Arnall

excuses Stephen Dedalus from writing because his glasses have

been smashed. But Father Dolan insists that Stephen is pretending

that the glasses are broken in order to avoid writing and so inflicts

corporal punishment with the pandybat. Joyce describes it thus:

Stephen’s heart leapt up in fear: - Any boys want flogging here, Father Arnall? cried the

prefect of studies. Any lazy idle loafers that want flogging

in this class?(ibid, p.53)

For poor performance in Latin, Stephen’s classmate, Fleming, gets

six ‘loud quick smacks’ of the pandybat on both hands. Next, Father

Dolan singles out Stephen ‘lazy little loafer!’.

A hot burning stinging tingling blow like the loud crack of

a broken stick made his trembling hand crumple together

like a leaf in the fire: and at the sound and the pain scalding

tears were driven into his eyes. His whole body was shaking

with fright, his arm was shaking and his crumpled burning

livid hand shook like a loose leaf in the air. (ibid, p.53)

Young Dedalus rails against the punishment as ‘unjust and cruel

and unfair’ at regular intervals. We glimpse the hierarchical nature

of relationships among teachers as Stephen realises that Father

Arnall is not going to stand up to Father Dolan, even though he had

excused him. 

Extract from - Telling Tales – Cruelty and abuse in schooling in Ireland  Dr Gerry Jeffers