Comparing Alcoholism in Grace and Dubliners

Alcoholism in Grace and Dubliners

What does it mean to be in a state of drunkenness? A person who is inebriated views his surroundings in a surreal fashion; reality exists on the periphery. The drunk is by default interacting with the world on an inferior level as opposed to those who are sober. Alcoholism is also a chronic debilitating disease. It resonates outward from the individual to all those that he has contact within his life. Joyce utilizes the character of the drunk in many of the stories in Dubliners, hardly a story skips a mention of drink. Among despair, isolation and dependence, alcoholism is a theme that runs through all the stories. Alcoholism is the focus in "Grace" where Joyce takes the symbolic alcoholic and shows us what Joyce believes is a part of the problem plaguing Dublin.

When we first meet Tom Kernan, we are not even told his name. Kernan is an anonymous being-a drunk that is not differentiated from any other drunk. In his alcohol-induced state he is barely human. "He lay curled up at the foot of the stairs down which he had fallen...his clothes were smeared with the filth and ooze of the floor on which he had lain...a thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth" (Joyce 150). Kernan has quite literally fallen but also has fallen morally and spiritually. The crowd that surrounds him fairs better only in comparison to him. Instead of seeking immediate help, they all query as to what is his name. Who he is, is obvious, he is a drunk. Yet there is an unwillingness to address this by the crowd. The reason why he is lying on the floor is present but not acknowledged.

Is this evasion part of the essence that makes up the people of Dublin? Surely it is for repeatedly the reader is shown or referenced alcohol but direct acknowledgment does not come. "'That's ugly'" (Joyce 153) we are told by Mr. Powers who has just been shown Kernan's bitten tongue. What exactly though is ugly? Solely the bitten tongue or the defeated man or the inhabitants of Dublin? Perhaps it is all of them.

Kernan's physical maladies are demonstrative of his mental affliction. At first he has fallen, then his anonymousness persists because he cannot speak. He cannot speak at first because of the level of intoxication but also as we learn because of his bitten tongue.