Dubliners Research Paper

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The book Dubliners is a collection of short stories written by James Joyce in the early 1900’s. This collection of works focus on a few common themes that James Joyce felt were common during this time period in Dublin. Using strong imagery, word choice, and symbols allowed Joyce to add lots of hidden meaning into his stories that portray the issues he believes were common in society at that time. Dubliners final story “The Dead” acts to serve as a story that recaps all the themes throughout the book. Some of the major themes we see dominantly through out the short stories are; isolation, suffering and disappointment. “The Dead” acts as a capstone to the other fifteen stories in the book by showing change in the main character Gabriel.
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The floors inside his house are yellow and brown representing decay, everything is in room is black, white, simple, and serves a purpose. We see this man suffer greatly when he finds a woman that loves him yet he quickly turns her down when she makes and advance on him. Three years later he reads the paper to learn that she has died and became an alcoholic. While standing in phoenix park "He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone." (A Painful Case. 96) We see that he is suffering because of his one time chance to find love. In “The Dead” Gabriel sees that his wife suffer greatly when she hears the song about Borgia, a solemn song recalling a battle between the Protestants and Catholics. She suffers from hearing this song because she recalls her 17 year old lover “—He is dead, she said at length. He died when he was only seventeen. Isn’t it a terrible thing to die so young as that?” (The Dead) While she is suffering the helps spark Gabriel's desire to change her suffering, he realizes his relationship with her has been dull, and that this boy had died for her. At this point he decides to make their marriage

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