James Joyce and Franz Kafka are both highly revered writers from the twentieth century; written decades ago – Dubliners by James Joyce in 1914 and Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka in 1915 – their stories have been able to pass the test of time. Although having cultural differences – Dubliners being about life in Ireland and Metamorphosis being about life in Germany – both authors were still able to clearly depict the negativity of life: the family struggles, the lack of individualism, and the alienation to the outside word.
James Joyce’s Dubliners is a collection of short stories that narrates the negativity of life, but the story that is the most successful in its narration is “Eveline”. All through “Eveline”, Eveline’s alienation to the outside world is present. She never converses with anyone outside of her family or business negotiations: “few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps…” (Joyce 36). The story begins with Eveline resting near the window and listening to people pass by, instead of interacting with them. By choosing to begin the story this way, James Joyce symbolizes Eveline’s alienation to the outside world; he eliminates Eveline’s opportunity to interact with the people on the other side of the window, by confining her in her room. This act of confinement that alienates Eveline from the outside world becomes the one of the main focus of the story; rather than being confined in her room, Eveline is confined in her life. She is alienated from the outside world because of the events in her life. She goes to work every day “to keep the house together and to see that the two young children … got their meals regularly” (Joyce 380) – that is her main focus. She...
... middle of paper ...
...vidualism is first presented when her job is efforts she endures, to provide for her family, is described: “she had hard work to keep the house together… it was hard work – a hard life…” (Joyce 38). As she struggles to provide for her family, Eveline loses her identity; she works at a job that is not to her liking, and she doesn’t bother to find a job that is preferable to her. Her first thought is that of her family and not of herself, so she loses herself to a life of hardship. Further in “Eveline”, Eveline’s lack of individualism is more pronounced. Eveline had a chance to a better life with her boyfriend, Frank, in Buenos Ayres; she declines this opportunity because even though it would have bettered her life, she believed that it would not have benefitted her family. Once again, Eveline loses her identity by placing her family’s need before her own.
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Ed. Stanley Corngold. Trans. Stanley Corngold. New York: Bantam, 2004. Print.
In assessing Du Pont’s capital structure after the Conoco merger that significantly increased the company’s debt to equity ratio, an analyst must look at all benefits and drawbacks of a high debt ratio. The main reason why Du Pont ended up with a high debt to equity ratio after acquiring Conoco was due to the timing and price at which they bought Conoco. Du Pont ended up buying the firm at its peak, just before coal and oil prices started to fall and at a time when economic recession hurt the chemical industry of Du Pont. The additional response from analysts and Du Pont stockholders also forced Du Pont to think twice about their new expansion. The thought of bringing the debt ratio back to 25% was brought on by the fact that the company saw that high levels of capital spending were vital to the success of the firm and that high debt levels may put them at higher risk for defaulting.
“Dubliners” by James Joyce was first published in 1914. It is a collection of short stories, which takes place in the same general area and time frame, moving from one individual’s story to the next. Boysen in “The Necropolis of Love: James Joyce’s Dubliners” discuses the way the citizens of Dublin are caught in this never ending misery because of the lack of love- mainly instituted by the “criminalization of sensual love” from the church- and the economic stress, and struggle to survive. Zack Brown goes through the individual short stories, pointing out their references to paralysis, as well as a few other themes in “Joyce’s Prophylactic Paralysis: Exposure in “Dubliners.”” “James Joyce’s usage of Diction in Representation of Irish Society in Dubliners” by Daronkolaee discuses the background knowledge of the culture and particular details of the city that enhance the understanding of the reader and enforce the ideas presented by Boysen and broken down by Brown. These analytical articles help support the idea that Joyce uses
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th Compact Ed. New York: Longman, 2013. 268-98. Print.
Stephens, J. “Franz Kafka’s personal life reflected in the Metamorphosis” The Kafka Project. 1999-2002. 13 November 2002. .
"Eveline" is the story of a young teenager facing a dilemma where she has to choose between living with her father or escaping with Frank, a sailor which she has been courting for some time. The story is one of fifteen stories written by James Joyce in a collection called "Dubliners". These stories follow a certain pattern that Joyce uses to express his ideas: "Joyce's focus in Dubliners is almost exclusively on the middle-class Catholics known to himself and his family"(the Gale Group). Joyce's early life, family background, and his catholic background appear in the way he writes these stories. "Where Joyce usually relates his stories to events in his life, there are some stories which are actually events that took place in his life" (Joyce, Stanislaus). James Joyce in his letter to Grant Richard writes:
In Dubliners, James Joyce tells short stories of individuals struggling with life, in the city of Dublin. “It is a long road that has no turning” (Irish Proverb). Many individuals fight the battle and continue on the road. However, some give up and get left behind. Those who continue to fight the battle, often deal with constant struggle and suffering. A reoccurring theme, in which Joyce places strong emphasis on, is the constant struggle of fulfilling responsibilities. These responsibilities include; work, family and social expectations. Joyce writes about these themes because characters often feel trapped and yearn to escape from these responsibilities. In “The Little Cloud”, “Counterparts”, and “The Dead” characters are often trapped in unhappy living situations, often leading to a desire of escape from reality and daily responsibilities.
Works Cited: Benstock, Bernard. Critical Essays on James Joyce. G.K. Hall & Co. Boston, Massachusetts: 1985. Joyce, James. Dubliners.
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. 1st ed. Translated by Stanley Appelbaum. New York: Dover Publications, 1996.
A collection of short stories published in 1907, Dubliners, by James Joyce, revolves around the everyday lives of ordinary citizens in Dublin, Ireland (Freidrich 166). According to Joyce himself, his intention was to "write a chapter of the moral history of [his] country and [he] chose Dublin for the scene because the city seemed to [b]e the centre of paralysis" (Friedrich 166). True to his goal, each of the fifteen stories are tales of disappointment, darkness, captivity, frustration, and flaw. The book is divided into four sections: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life (Levin 159). The structure of the book shows that gradually, citizens become trapped in Dublin society (Stone 140). The stories portray Joyce's feeling that Dublin is the epitome of paralysis and all of the citizens are victims (Levin 159). Although each story from Dubliners is a unique and separate depiction, they all have similarities with each other. In addition, because the first three stories -- The Sisters, An Encounter, and Araby parallel each other in many ways, they can be seen as a set in and of themselves. The purpose of this essay is to explore one particular similarity in order to prove that the childhood stories can be seen as specific section of Dubliners. By examining the characters of Father Flynn in The Sisters, Father Butler in An Encounter, and Mangan's sister in Araby, I will demonstrate that the idea of being held captive by religion is felt by the protagonist of each story. In this paper, I argue that because religion played such a significant role in the lives of the middle class, it was something that many citizens felt was suffocating and from which it was impossible to get away. Each of the three childhood stories uses religion to keep the protagonist captive. In The Sisters, Father Flynn plays an important role in making the narrator feel like a prisoner. Mr. Cotter's comment that "… a young lad [should] run about and play with young lads of his own age…" suggests that the narrator has spent a great deal of time with the priest. Even in death, the boy can not free himself from the presence of Father Flynn (Stone 169) as is illustrated in the following passage: "But the grey face still followed me. It murmured; and I understood that it desired to confess something.
James Joyce began his writing career in 1914 with a series of realistic stories published in a collection called The Dubliners. These short literary pieces are a glimpse into the ‘paralysis’ that those who lived in the turn of the century Ireland and its capital experienced at various points in life (Greenblatt, 2277). Two of the selections, “Araby” and “The Dead” are examples of Joyce’s ability to tell a story with precise details while remaining a detached third person narrator. “Araby” is centered on the main character experiencing an epiphany while “The Dead” is Joyce’s experiment with trying to remain objective. One might assume Joyce had trouble with objectivity when it concerned the setting of Ireland because Dublin would prove to be his only topic. According the editors of the Norton Anthology of Literature, “No writer has ever been more soaked in Dublin, its atmosphere, its history, its topography. He devised ways of expanding his account of the Irish capital, however, so that they became microcosms of human history, geography, and experience.” (Greenblatt, 2277) In both “Araby” and “The Dead” the climax reveals an epiphany of sorts that the main characters experience and each realize his actual position in life and its ultimate permanency.
Trapped in a world where mental anguish imprisons her, Eveline is another of James Joyce's paralyzed souls. Her life is full of ups and downs. Every day she struggles with burdens that she should not have to bear and when the opportunity comes for her to get away from this retched life, she denies herself the chance. The reasons why I feel Eveline did not leave for Buenos Aires with Frank is because she was obligated to her family, she was afraid of the unknown and she did not know how to receive love.
In James Joyce’s Dubliners, the theme of escape tends to be a trend when characters are faced with critical decisions. Joyce’s novel presents a bleak and dark view of Ireland; his intentions by writing this novel are to illustrate people’s reasons to flee Ireland. In the stories “Eveline, “Counterparts”, and the “Dead”, characters are faced with autonomous decisions that shape their lives. This forlorn world casts a gloomy shadow over the characters of these stories. These stories are connected by their similar portrayal of Ireland. They clearly represent Joyce’s views on people’s discontent with Ireland.
James Joyce is widely considered to be one of the best authors of the 20th century. One of James Joyce’s most celebrated short stories is “Eveline.” This short story explores the theme of order and hazard and takes a critical look at life in Dublin, Ireland in the early 20th century. Furthermore, the themes that underlie “Eveline” were not only relevant for the time the story was wrote in, but are just as relevant today.
Joyce’s ability to play with language perfectly demonstrates the prevailing sense of paralysis. His narrative style includes scrupulous meaning where the reader is encouraged to engage with the text and look beyond the individual consciousness. Joyce’s use of writerly text and free indirect discourse heightens our understanding of paralysis. The stories ‘Eveline’, ‘A Little Cloud’ and ‘Clay’ best articulate the theme of paralysis. Paralysis unfolds itself throughout the text. It displays the physical and emotional moral decay that defined a generation. Paralysis defines the ‘Dublin that Joyce left and helps to explain why he left it’ (Gibson 2006: 68).