Unlike most of the other stories in Dubliners, "After the Race" is not highly regarded by most critics, who believe that Joyce was describing here a social class (the very wealthy) about which he knew very little.
Still, it is consistent with the other stories in the collection with regard to both theme and symbolism. Jimmy illustrates the theme of paralysis by not progressing in any real way. Jimmy's parents have used the money earned by his father in the butcher trade to send him to a series of highly regarded schools, and yet Jimmy seems to have learned very little as a result of his lavish education. Sure, he has made friends (like Charles Segouin, the owner of the racing car and a proprietor-to-be of an automobile dealership in Paris), but those friends are not necessarily loyal to Jimmy. From the opening scene, in which Jimmy cannot hear the driver and his cousin in the front seat over the Hungarian Villona's humming and the noise of the car itself, the reader has a sense of Jimmy's half-baked membership in the group. In fact, the team probably tolerates Jimmy strictly because of the money (his father's) that he has promised to invest in Segouin's company.
