Dubliners
How does Joyces present the paralysis of Dublin in a Little Cloud? In your response you should analyze the language Joyces uses to reveal the paralysis ; how the revelations (epiphanies) are shown.
A Little Cloud is a story of a married character called Little Chandler who lives in Dublin and who meets one of his old friend Gallaher who lives in Paris and came to Dublin for his job. Little Chandler has a very common life, a child and a pretty women, who pleases him. But when he meets Gallaher, who had succeeded in everything, he gets a bit jealous of his superb life and so questions himself about how good his life is. This story contrasts Little Chandler’s dissatisfaction with Gallaher’s audacious writing career abroad. This story is one of the few stories which really shows clearly how James Joyces wanted us to see Dublin.
Little Chandler talk to Gallaher primarily about Gallaher’s life. He compares himself, his life, what he has done, to Gallaher and so blames himself thinking he has a too mundane and boring life. Not once in the story does Little Chandler write, but he spends plenty of time imagining fame and indulging in poetic sentiments. He has a whole collection of poetry books but has not the courage to read them to his wife, for example, instead of reciting lines to himself. He constantly thinks about his possible career as poet but he hasn’t the will to apply his thoughts. Little Chandler uses his country to dream of success, but at the same time blames it for limiting that success. The poetry is something he always wanted to do but he doesn’t. This is a technic used by the author to reflect the incapacity of changing his life, which he doesn’t like; he finds excuses not to change his life such as the fact that his wife is pretty and so he has no need to desire better, or even the fact that he is called “Little” Chandler shows that he might be little in size but also in mind. When they meet together in the bar, Gallaher begins a big monologue and doesn’t really let Chandler talk showing how Chandler can’t stop things nor interrupt. Little Chandler believes that to succeed in life, one must leave Dublin like Gallaher did. He comfort himself saying it is not his fault if his life isn’t as exotic as Gallaher’s, it is because of Dublin.
