Two Gallants

A 30-year-old man living in Dublin, Lenehan has the air of a man who has seen better times. Though relatively young and the son of what was (at least at one time) a well-to-do family, his hair is thin and graying, his belly is thickening, and his face is “ravaged.” Lenehan is vaguely associated with earning a living through gambling on horse racing. His friend, Corley, dominates Lenehan’s personality at the story’s beginning. Lenehan laughs at Corley’s jokes, permits Corley to push him off the sidewalk with his thoughtless way of walking, and generally reacts appreciatively to Corley’s crude and unappealing persona. The narrator of the story explicitly explains that Lenehan is good at ingratiating himself with those around him; he’s deft at edging his way into a group and getting included in the next round of beers, for instance, without getting branded a mooch. After Corley goes off with his lover, though, Lenehan becomes an entirely different person. He has an air of “gentility” that recalls the melancholic nobility of the harpist the two men encountered on their walk. He laments his financial and personal instability, recognizes the shallowness of his social life, and wishes he were settled and fulfilled, instead of verging on 31 and still wandering Dublin’s streets on the verge of financial disaster and without a wife or family. Lenehan’s introspective moments indicate that though he plays Corley’s manipulative game, he wishes it were otherwise. He wishes that his life were more meaningful, rather than aimless and hollow. That he cannot see any way to achieve those goals more broadly implies the general failure of Ireland—Ireland’s culture, society, and economy seem to make Lenehan’s dreams hopelessly beyond his reach.