In the unnamed boy at the center of "The Sisters," James Joyce found a prototype to which he would return in at least two other stories, if not three. Thus, the boys featured in "An Encounter" and "Araby" share fundamental characteristics of personality with the protagonist of "The Sisters," including the aforementioned sensitivity, intelligence, alienation, and questing nature. In Gabriel Conroy (the protagonist of "The Dead") Joyce introduces what seems to be a variation on this prototype: the unnamed boy grown up, married, and with children of his own.
Joyce also illustrates the major themes of Dubliners by contrast, showing their opposites in the unnamed heroes of the book's first three stories. Paralysis is countered by movement, as all three boys take little journeys — the first boy to the priest's house, the second to the Pigeon House, and the third to Araby. Joyce underlines the corruption of his adult characters by means of the purity of youth: When their stories commence, the three boys are untouched by death, sex, and the pain of love, respectively. Finally, though surrounded by the dead and dying, the three unnamed boys have by no means given up on life. On the contrary, as children, they are just beginning to experience the world and its wonders, and tend naively to welcome all that comes their way. In "The Sisters," "An Encounter," and "Araby," James Joyce offers the reader a first glimpse into the demoralizing world of Dublin and Dubliners. At the same time, he offers hope, in the form of his three unnamed protagonists. His own hope, perhaps, was that the reader would remember these boys during later, darker Dubliners encounters.
