Two Themes in James Joyce's Dubliners

Escape Countered by Responsibility: A Comparative Analysis of the Two Themes in Dubliners

James Joyce’s Dubliners is a compilation of many short stories put together to convey the problems in Ireland during that time. Many of his characters are searching for some kind of escape from Dublin, and this is a reoccurring theme throughout the stories. In the story “Little Cloud,” the main character, Little Chandler, feels the need for both an escape from Dublin and also from his normal everyday life. Gabriel, the main character in Joyce’s final story of the book, “The Dead,” desires a different form of escape than Little Chandler. He desires to escape his aunts’ party, and also at times, Dublin society. Although the stories are very different, and the theme of escape is expressed diversely, the need for both Little Chandler in “Little Cloud” and Gabriel in “The Dead” to get away from certain factors in their lives is counteracted by the characters’ sense of responsibility they feel to themselves and to those around them.

In “Little Cloud,” Little Chandler compares himself with an old friend of his that has moved to London, and this triggers Chandler’s desire to escape from his simple and ordinary life in Dublin. Gallaher had moved away from “dirty” Dublin, as he called it, moved to London, and was a journalist for a newspaper. He traveled all around Europe; while Little Chandler had stayed in Dublin, worked stably at a desk job as a clerk, and was married with a son. Little Chandler is not particularly happy with his rather mundane life, and when he thought about it “he became sad…a gentle melancholy took possession of him;” however, he “felt how useless it was to struggle against fortune” (66). L...

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...country, sick of it!” (190). When Miss Ivors leaves suddenly, Gabriel offers to see her home (possibly to do anything to escape the party), and before his speech he again reflects upon and longs for the pure air in the park. Gabriel, nevertheless, stays at the party; his responsibility to his family and friends at the party keeps him from the escape that he desires.

Responsibility is often what keeps people where they are. Although both Little Chandler in “Little Cloud” and Gabriel in “The Dead” desire escape, they feel responsible to those around them that depend on their being there. Many of the stories in Joyce’s Dubliners connect the theme of escape with the theme of autonomy and responsibility, possibly to convey to the reader that the interests and well being of others and themselves can often be more important than the desire to get away.