A Literary Analysis of Dubliners
James Joyce created a collection of short stories in Dubliners describing the time and place he grew up in. At the time it was written, Joyce intends to portray to the people of Dublin the problems with the Irish lifestyles. Many of these stories share a reoccurring theme of a character’s desire to escape his or her responsibilities in regards to his relationship with his, job, money situation, and social status; this theme is most prevalent in After the Race, Counterparts, and The Dead.
In After the Race, the main character, Jimmy Doyle, attempts to escape his responsibilities as a student. Jimmy’s father pays for Jimmy to be educated in England, Dublin, and later at Cambridge in order for Jimmy to be able to support himself financially. Jimmy, however, “did not study very earnestly and took to bad courses for awhile” (36). This shows that Jimmy did not only shirk his responsibility to his father, but also chose not to plan for his own future. Joyce portrays Jimmy as a character that cannot make good decisions about his future and about his role as a student. Throughout the story Jimmy does not concentrate on education. He seems caught up in the excitement and entertainment of the race and fun he is having with his friends. Joyce says that, “notoriety [and] possession of money,” (37) cause excitement. Jimmy uses this enjoyment in order to forget and escape his responsibilities as a student. Jimmy does not use foresight throughout the story.
Much like Jimmy’s job as a student in After the Race, Farrington in Counterparts escapes his responsibilities at his job as well. Farrington is always in trouble with his boss and he seems to never ge...
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... make poor decisions. Freddy Malins shows up at the party drunk, causing problems for the host. Gabriel has problems socializing with Miss Ivory, because she does not agree with his opinions. As a result, she leaves the party early. When people socialize, they usually do not want to discuss work but use socialization as an escape from it. The songs at the party have some significance because of the feelings and thoughts they provoke in different people. The song “The Lass of Aughrim” causes Gretta to smile and stimulates Gabriel’s desire for his wife. The next song, however, back at the hotel, reminds Gretta of a previous lover. Where the first song brings them together, the second song pulls them apart. The first song, for Gabriel, is an escape from his problems to his wife, while the second song causes the wife to want to escape her marriage with Gabriel.
According to Edgar Allan Poe’s “Single Effect Theory”, “the short story writer should deliberately subordinate everything in the storycharacters, incidents, style, and toneto [the] brining out of a single, preconceived effect” (qtd. in Reuben). In other words, all elements within a short story have to come together to create tone. One such story is the “The Dead”, an exceptional conclusion to James Joyce Dubliners (1914) that is a collection of short stories that consist of natural depictions of middle class Irish men and women in the early twentieth century. The primary focus of “The Dead” concerns not only dead people, but more specifically a dead generation and the living who behave as if they were dead already. Through artistic unity, Joyce creates a portrait of ordinary people who are more concerned with fulfilling duties rather than enjoying a Christmas party. In depicting this dead society, Joyce adheres to Poe’s “Single Effect Theory” by creating vivid imagery of people who are fettered by tedious routines and the past.
The theme of being trapped extends to many levels throughout James Joyce’s collection of short stories, Dubliners. The reader can often feel surrounded by an inescapable force that is making them read this seemingly plot-less book. Escaping this book becomes no more easier when asked to do a literary analysis. Never fear though, Dubliners transforms itself into a decently workable piece of art. In examining the Humanities Base Theme of individual and society and the Literary Base Themes of escape, journey, and entrapment in Dubliners there are quite a few examples of these themes that coincide with the readers’ feelings. Throughout Dubliners, characters feel trapped and make an attempt to escape society.
"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:
The novella "The Dead" by James Joyce tells the tale of early twentieth century upper class society in the Irish city of Dublin. The story tells of the characters' entrapment, and the tragic lives they lead, hiding behind the conventions of their society. Joyce uses the symbolism to draw a parallel between the natural way in which the snow covers the land and the way in which the characters use their culture unnatural to cover reality. This story comes together, not only to tell of the individual tragedy of these peoples lives, but to tell the tragic story of all of Ireland, as it's true problems become obscured in so many ways.
The book Dubliners was published in 1914, by James Joyce. He wanted to give the audience a vivid and solid background of the inescapable cycle the Irish Society was going through. In the stories Counterparts, Encounter and the Dead we can see the theme of laciness, entertainment, work, and frustrated goals that lead to alcoholism. In "Counterparts" Joyce introduces us the story of a man named Farrington, which works at a clerking office, copying legal documents and correspondence by hand. Farrington lives an awful and frustrating life were alcoholism seems to help him escape the sad reality that he is living. Then in an "Encounter" we can see the reality of two kids, Mahoney and Leo. They represent what a kid life is. It is a live were responsibility is not a primary value and their inexperience leads them to crazy choices in search of adventures. Finally, we have "the Death" one of the most complex stories in the book Dubliners. In "The Dead" we see all the characteristics of the stories come together at the party in Missis Morkan house. The principal character in this story is Gabriel and Gretta. Through him we can get a small picture of Dublin's society. It is the story of a man that feels powerless when his wife thinks of an old love. In this story we see many of the themes discuses through the readings, especially autonomy and sense of duty. As reading these different stories we will have to analyze them in depth. In Dubliners we can see that "alcohol" is a frequent tool used to run away reality. But all the characters in this stories can seem to escape an undesirable destiny.
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...
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.
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.
Several of James Joyce's stories in Dubliners can read as lamentations on a frustrating inability of man to represent meaning by external means, including written word. When characters in "Araby," "Counterparts," and "A Painful Case" attempt to represent or signify themselves, other characters, or abstract spiritual entities with or through words, they not only fail, but end up emotionally ruined. Moreover, the inconclusive endings of the three stories correspond with the fates of their characters. The short texts of Dubliners imply that representing the "real" is frustrating, if not impossible.
Restrictive routines and repetitive, mundane everyday life depicts the characters of Joyce Dubliners, despite their longing for emancipation and to escape to a better life, they are instead perishing in their own predicaments, trapped in the frustration of routine, paralysed from acting decisively, or consciously, as they have not being enlightened by any epiphanic re...
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.
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.
The need for the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus’ artistic expression is emphasized in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Joyce juxtaposes Stephen Daedalus’ creativity with a commitment to his catholic religion while on his odyssey to find his identity. Which calling will he answer to—artist or priest? The text follows the protagonist through both his positive and negative experiences with priests and his early revelations of artistic talents. Stephen is surrounded by financial, political, and religious tensions in his family and reveals to Stephen how paralyzing these influences can be on one’s life. Joyce conveys the artistic manifestation that seems inherent in Stephen throughout his journey, whereas, portrays Stephen in a constant battle to accept the priesthood while often in doubt about the importance of religion. Joyce delivers a narrative of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man that believes that art is higher than religion. This idea embodies the description in Stephen’s love for art versus his apprehension for theology points to a plot that hints that art is better than religion.
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.
A. Joyce had a very stereotypical life. Joyce had eleven siblings, nine of which survived, and all hated John Joyce, Joyce’s father. Joyce’s family was not perfect; for example, “his father was an alcoholic who drove the family into poverty, his mother was a martyr for her husband and children” (Gleed 5). John Joyce was not a bad father, he was just subordinate and made some bad decisions. John Joyce’s unsatisfactory financial planning and decision making began to damage his family; John Joyce grew more and more violent and abusive, “But it seems that he never hurt his son James, who … ‘got along easily’ with his father” (Gleed 1). Although Joyce was very impacted by his father’s violence as shown in his writing, he had a personal connection with him that none of his siblings had. John Joyce’s actions became a bit deplorable to family and friend’s. This provided inspiration for some of the conflicts present in