James Joyce's Dubliners

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Dubliners

In the story Dubliners by James Joyce, he writes about a few different themes, some of these being autonomy, responsibility, light, and dark. The most important of the themes though must be the individual character in the story against the community and the way they see it. I have chosen to take a closer look at “Araby,” “Eveline,” and “The Dead” because the great display of these themes I feel is fascinating. Many things affect the way the individual characters see the community, for example their family, friends, fellow citizens, or even new places. In Dubliners, the way the characters see the community affects them and other people around them.

In the story “Araby,” the boy has a negative view of the community. Many aspects of his life affect the way he sees the things around him. For example, because of his uncle, he is unable to reach the bazaar in time. This makes him angry and frustrated. Although the boy reminds his uncle about the bazaar, his uncle forgets and comes home very late and the boy says to himself, “I asked him to give me the money to go to the bazaar. He had forgotten (25).” He teases the boy and tells him not to go, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” meaning working too hard with no fun makes you a boring person. Because all the boy’s desires are focused on his goal of getting the gift at the bazaar, he becomes frustrated. The boys’ uncle is one of the people the boy is around all the time; this frustration causes him to become very jittery and get irritated with the world around him. By things like the clock ticking it gradually drove him to just have to totally change his train of thought and just dwell on the girl and the boy thinks, “...

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...ion of the community for a few reasons. Gabriel’s wife Gretta affected Gabriel tremendously throughout the story. For example when Gretta told Gabriel about her former lover Michael Furrey, Gabriel thought in his head, “A dull anger began to gather again at the back of his mind and the dull fires of his lust began to glow angrily in his veins” (pg 220). The frustration that grew out of him finding out that Gretta never really truly loved him and Michael Furrey, Gabriel was getting emotional, “Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes” and “His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself which these dead had one time reared and lived in was dissolving and dwindling” (pg 224-225). Gabriel’s view of the community by the end of the story just by Gretta was tremendously changed. Gabriel saw the world winding down into a dark world.

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