Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Themes In James Joyce'S Short Story “Dubliners”
Alcohol abuse early 20th century
Themes In James Joyce'S Short Story “Dubliners”
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Themes In James Joyce'S Short Story “Dubliners”
James Joyce published Dubliners to demonstrate the everyday struggles and the unattractive human behaviors that were occurring among the people in his own hometown. Paralysis, alcoholism and death are three major themes found in Dubliner’s that paint an unsettling picture of Dublin, Ireland during the early twentieth century for its readers. James Joyce portrays his characters within these stories as incapable and crippled in one-way or another. He does this by exploiting the act of drinking to prove that alcoholism leads to personal downfalls, which is a repeating theme found in many of the stories. Roughly twelve out of the fifteen stories in this book do not go without a reference to drinking or drunkenness. The characters found victim to …show more content…
James Joyce highlights the complicated role alcohol plays in “Grace” but also in the lives of the Irish lower-middle class in 1914. Mr. Tom Kernan is the main character in this story who is battling alcoholism due to his recent misfortunes. The story opens with an unknown man lying unconscious at the foot of the stairs with injuries to his head in one of the local pubs. When we are first introduced to Mr. Kernan, the readers are not aware of his name. This anonymous drunk found on the floor with blood everywhere is barely recognizable. "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). This literal fall down the stairs also refers to the social and mental fall Mr. Kernan has personally faced due to his economic situation. The people that gather around him neglect his need for immediate care and instead of rushing to care for him, their concern was more towards figuring out who he was. This sense of calmness leads us readers to believe that occurrences such as Mr. Kernan’s seem to be common as well as taken lightly among the lower middle class in Dublin. At a certain point in the story, Mr. Cunningham who is one of Kernan’s friends suggests what every reader is thinking. Mr. …show more content…
All of the stories mentioned above, “Counterparts”, “Grace” and “A Painful Case” possess a common theme of the role of alcohol in the characters lives. Similarly, in all three of these stories the characters seem to be socially forbidden to address alcohol as the problem found in common. Failing to see alcohol as an issue present in the culture of Dublin, the lack of responsibility among the people of Dublin led to alcoholism consuming their lives as well as the city of
One in every twelve adults suffer from alcoholism in the United States, and it is the most commonly used addictive substance in the world. The World Health Organization has defined alcoholism as “an addiction to the consumption of alcoholic liquor or the mental illness and compulsive behavior resulting from alcohol dependency.” Reiterated themes encompassing Jeannette Walls’ father’s addiction to alcohol are found in her novel, The Glass Castle: a memoir, which displays instances of financial instability and abuse that hurt the Walls children for the rest of their lives. The Walls’, altogether, are emotionally, physically, and mentally affected by Rex’s alcoholism, which leads to consequences on the Walls children.
It is a fact of life that Alcoholism will distort the victim’s view of reality. With authors, they put parts of their personality and symptoms of their condition into their characters sometimes, flawed distortions included, with varying degrees
“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
James Joyce wrote the book Dubliners; Joyce expresses many different types of emotions throughout the book. The emotions portray individuals in society, and light and dark. The emotions of individuals are examined throughout the stories by other members in society. The stories that express the ideas are: “The Encounter,” “Eveline”, and “The Dead.” The symbolism of individuals in society expresses many different situations that are happening in the characters lives. The symbolism of light goes along with the idea of feeling happy and enjoying life. The theme of dark shows the individuals fighting, and having a negative outlook on life.
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.
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.
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.
Search for Meaning in James Joyce's Dubliners Throughout Dubliners James Joyce deliberately effaces the traditional markers of the short story: causality, closure, etc. In doing so, "the novel continually offers up texts which mark their own complexity by highlighting the very thing which traditional realism seeks to conceal: the artifice and insufficiency inherent in a writer's attempt to represent reality.(Seidel 31)" By refusing to take a reductive approach towards the world(s) he presents on the page - to offer up "meaning" or "ending" - Joyce moves the reader into complex and unsettling epistemological and ontological realms. Meaning is no longer unitary and prescriptive, the author will not reveal (read impose) what the story "means" at its close and therefore we can't definitively "know" anything about it. Instead, meaning, like modernism, engenders its own multiplicity in Joyce's works, diffuses into something necessarily plural: meanings. An ontological crisis is inextricable from this crisis of meaning and representation.
The problem of alcohol abuse has been recognized for thousands of years, but only more recently have we begun to see alcohol addiction as a treatable disorder. According to the Classical Disease Model of `Alcoholism,' habitual use of alcohol can be identified as a disease. Webster's Dictionary defines the concept of `disease' as follows: "Any departure from health presenting marked symptoms; malady; illness; disorder." Therefore, as many occurrences of alcohol excess provoke such symptoms, it is somewhat understandable that `alcoholism' is classified as a disease. The Classical Disease Model appears to offer a hopeful option. Treatment and sobriety can allow people to lead fulfilling lives. Adjacent to the notion of alcoholism as personal failure or moral deterioration, the Classical Disease Model appears to be a more desirable concept as it provides a motive for the alcoholic to seek treatment and gain sympathy, minimizing personal guilt. As alcoholism is seen as a progressive and, to an extent, hereditary illness for which those afflicted are not accountable, victims avoid being ostracized from society (Jellinek, 1960). Labeling the problem as a `disease' allows the medical profession to take responsibility for the treatment of alcoholism, which puts the problem in a more favourable light than if it were in the hands of psychologists or social workers, thus detaching the stigma connected with the problem while it is put on a par with other diseases such as diabetes or cancer. However, critics of the Classical Disease Model believe stigma helps reduce alcohol problems and aids the alcoholic. Any effort to reduce the stigma which is faced by the alcoholic will reduce pressures to moderate consumption and could have the additional ...
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.
Thomas, Steve. "Dubliners by James Joyce." ebooks@Adelaide. The University of Adelaide, 23 Aug 2010. Web. 20 Jan 2011
Many people are familiar with the “light bulb moment”- the moment when one suddenly understands and everything becomes clearer. From a more technical and literary standpoint, that moment could be referred to as an epiphany. James Joyce, in his manuscript of Stephen Hero, defines an epiphany as “a sudden spiritual manifestation.” In addition, Joyce used epiphanies liberally throughout his writing of Dubliners. The epiphanies, which can be found in each short story, they are essential in shaping Joyce’s stories. Because epiphanies were used so often throughout Dubliners, their effects on the protagonists can be compared and contrasted between stories. One such is example is “The Dead” and “A Painful Case.” Though the epiphanies experienced
In Joyce’s stories “Eveline”, “Counterparts” and the “Dead”, the theme of escape and responsibility is represented by the characters desire to flee their lives. These stories symbolize Joyce’s interpretation of life in Ireland. With careful analysis it can be inferred that the miserable situations portrayed in these stories can be directly tied into how readers may view life in Ireland. Like the characters in Dubliners people desired a better life for themselves in and out of Ireland. The themes common to these stories show an appreciation to opportunity and success in the world. The themes of escape and responsibility present in a readers mind a looking glass for viewing life and society.
Furthermore, alcoholism, which is looked at critically by Joyce, is still a large social problem today. Ultimately, Joyce challenges the reader not to settle for the ordinary life. In conclusion, one of the great short stories of the 20th century is James Joyce’s “Eveline.” The story breaks away from traditional thinking by making the case for hazard or taking chances over order and the routine of everyday life. Like his other stories in “Dubliners” Joyce uses “Eveline” as an avenue to share his frustrations with early 20th century Dublin.