Epiphanies in the maturity section of Dubliners

Epiphanies in The Maturity Section of Dubliners As Joyce decided before writing Dubliners, he would try to depict the paralysis of Dublin in as many of the stages of life as he could. Therefore, in each of these stories, Dublin is the "center of paralysis". In "A Little Cloud", Chandler is a lonely forgotten artist. He regrets his early life as an amateur poet especially when he hears of his friend Gallaher's success. He comes back to his houses full of remorse that he couldn't continue his literary career and go abroad, have mistresses, not be imprisoned with marriage, he wants to be a free man. However, when he comes back home after a drink with his lively friend, and when he tries to write like in the early days, his wife snatches their baby son from his arms, he realizes how paralyzed he is in this city of Dublin and how this wife of his really blocks out his creative feelings as well as his liberty. This is the moment where we find the recurrent theme of paralysis in this story. Moreover, he realizes really how much he should change his life or how he should have changed his life. He doesn't really know if it's to late or not, he can't really backtrack anymore because of his failed marriage with a woman who has no sympathy for him or his artistic humor. The title is very well chosen for this story. Indeed, Chandler would be as on a little cloud when he is writing but

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Short Stories. James Joyce - Dubliners. Comparison between "The Sisters" and "Araby".

Khalid Attia English Language and Literature Mr. Parsons Short Stories James Joyce - Dubliners Comparison between "The Sisters" and "Araby" "The Sisters," the first of the stories in Dubliners, is also one of the more accomplished tales. Subtle, haunting, and beautifully controlled, "The Sisters" is also elusive, withholding from us the extent of the understanding possessed by the nameless boy narrator. Many read Dubliners as being chronologically arranged according to the ages of a life. We start with the "impressionable" young narrator of "The Sisters." The boy, who remains unnamed, is intelligent and emotionally honest. But he may not see, as the reader does, many of the implications of the story he tells. Perhaps innocently, he reports the clues and puzzles that surround Father Flynn's death. Part of the difficulty of Dubliners is the amount of information Joyce withholds. Although the story is narrated in the first person, we cannot be sure what the child protagonist makes of the story he tells us. The boy tends to narrate in a straightforward manner, honestly sharing with us his distaste for old Cotter (whom he calls a "tiresome old red-nosed imbecile"); this particular passage seems to indicate that the narrator is still a child, as opposed to a wiser

  • Word count: 1793
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Dubliners: 'The stories are variations on the theme of rebellion from the Dublin environment and entrapment within it.' Discuss how these themes (rebellion/entrapment) are explored in at least THREE of the stories in the collection.

Dubliners: 'The stories are variations on the theme of rebellion from the Dublin environment and entrapment within it.' Discuss how these themes (rebellion/entrapment) are explored in at least THREE of the stories in the collection. Throughout Dubliners the themes of rebellion from the Dublin environment and entrapment within it occur in each story. One story where the protagonists are particularly trapped is Two gallants where Corley and Lenehan are stuck in a vicious cycle involving easy money for drink and easy women for sex, their rebellion from the mundane life of Dublin. Similarly, Gallaher in A Little Cloud is an immoral character but he has escaped Dublin ans by contrast, Little Chandler is trapped with an unhappy marriage and thwarted ambition. The title of Two Gallants is highly ironic, with neither of the central characters being close to gallant, in fact they are the least respectable in the entire collection. The story is in the adolescent phase of the novel though Corley and Lenehan are in their thirties; Joyce describes Lenehan's hair as "scant and grey" showing him to be prematurely aged, exacerbating the contrast between their maturity and their age. This arrested development is an important element in their entrapment, as they are stuck at a level of maturity short of their age, their development paralysed. Moreover, their amoral behaviour is like an

  • Word count: 1016
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, James Joyce and Myth of Daedalus and Icarus

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, James Joyce The Myth of Daedalus and Icarus Daedalus, an ingenious Athenian craftsman, having murdered a potential rival, fled with his son Icarus to the island of Crete. There he was commissioned by King Minos to design a labyrinth as a place of confinement for the monster Minotaur. Daedalus contrived a labyrinth so intricate that escape from it was virtually impossible. By falling into disfavor with the king, Daedalus himself, along with his son Icarus, were eventually imprisoned there. Not to be outdone, the "famous artificier," Daedalus explained to his son Icarus that, although their escape was checked by land and by sea, the open sky was free. He devised two pairs of wings, and father and son immediately took flight from Crete. Daedalus warned his impetuous son not to fly too high lest the heat of the sun melt the glue and his wings fall off. But Icarus, filled with a sense of power in his flight, disregarded his father's commands and soon his wings, heated by the sun, fell off, and he plunged into the sea, the waters closing over him. Daedalus means "the artful craftsman." He symbolizes man's inventiveness and is credited with other inventions, such as the ax and the saw, in addition to human flight. Icarus, on the other hand, illustrates the dangers which beset human inventions. Daedalus and Icarus together indicate

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Dubliners, character analysis of Eveline.

Eveline 'Eveline' is even briefer than 'Araby' and it contains very few 'onstage' characters since most of the story takes place in Eveline's mind. The story is in two unequal parts. The first and longer part is Eveline's consideration of her life. The second part, separated from the first by a row of dots (this usage and that of a separating blank line are discussed on page ) is the first example of objective narrative in Dubliners and, besides Eveline, is populated by Frank and some soldiers. Since the scene is a wharf by a passenger ship, we may assume that Joyce's selection of soldiers (and not other passengers or the crew) is significant. Eveline looks out the window. To have a relationship with windows may be a Joycean peculiarity. The example of the opening and the closing of Dubliners has been discussed in the introduction. It is otherwise notable that the word 'window' occurs forty-two times in Dubliners, forty-five times in A Portrait, thirty-six times in Ulysses and twenty-eight times in Finnegans Wake with three of these being based on the partial word 'winda.' Under the deceptive appearance of memory by association, she recalls her life in a very orderly fashion although with many sideglances as she meditates selectively, for the benefit of us and the author, on things she sees before her. She remembers the field in which she and others once played until a

  • Word count: 913
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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The plight of the individual is most pertinently expressed through the plight of women in Dubliners. Discuss.

'The plight of the individual is most pertinently expressed through the plight of women in Dubliners'. Discuss. I believe that this statement is true. Many of the short stories in James Joyce's 'Dubliners' do seem to portray an environment which is distinctly misogynistic and where women are marginalised and forced to conform to the expectations of patriarchal Dublin. Some of the main ways in which the plight of women in 'Dubliners' is expressed are patriarchal oppression, the besmirching of feminine ideals and degradation. Historically this was the case in early 20th century Dublin that female citizens of the city were downtrodden and suppressed. For example, up until the 1870s, generally, women did not own any of their possessions. Out of wedlock their fathers had control over them and then when they married their belongings went to their husband. Also, even at the time when Joyce was writing there was still not universal suffrage in England or Ireland, indeed, it was only until after the war that the British government finally gave in to the pressure of the suffragettes. These facts give us an idea of how society, up until quite recently, was very male dominant and so it is likely that if Joyce is writing in his period then the dominance of men and therefore the suppression of women will come through in his work. However, that is not to say that the plight of men is not

  • Word count: 3063
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Like the two previous stories, "The Sisters" and "An Encounter," "Araby" is about a somewhat introverted boy fumbling toward adulthood with little in the way of guidance from family or community. The truants in "An Encounter" managed

A young boy who is similar in age and temperament to those in "The Sisters" and "An Encounter" develops a crush on Mangan's sister, a girl who lives across the street. One evening she asks him if he plans to go to a bazaar (a fair organized, probably by a church, to raise money for charity) called Araby. The girl will be away on a retreat when the bazaar is held and therefore unable to attend. The boy promises that if he goes he will bring her something from Araby. The boy requests and receives permission to attend the bazaar on Saturday night. When Saturday night comes, however, his uncle returns home late, possibly having visited a pub after work. After much anguished waiting, the boy receives money for the bazaar, but by the time he arrives at Araby, it is too late. The event is shutting down for the night, and he does not have enough money to buy something nice for Mangan's sister anyway. The boy cries in frustration. Like the two previous stories, "The Sisters" and "An Encounter," "Araby" is about a somewhat introverted boy fumbling toward adulthood with little in the way of guidance from family or community. The truants in "An Encounter" managed to play hooky from school without any major consequences; no one prevented them from journeying across town on a weekday or even asked the boys where they were going. Similarly, the young protagonist of this story leaves his

  • Word count: 1199
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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From your reading of the two stories in the 'Childhood' section of Dubliners how is the encounter between different generations portrayed and what do you think is its role?

2 From your reading of the two stories in the 'Childhood' section of Dubliners how is the encounter between different generations portrayed and what do you think is its role? The stories 'An Encounter' and 'Sisters' contain objective viewpoints about the older generation, and are told from the perspective of a young boy. There is the implication in both stories that the older generation is associated with religion which plays a paralysing role in the society of Dublin. The role of the encounter between the different age groups demonstrates the conflict of belief that occurs between young children growing up, forming their own opinions and beliefs, and their elders, who are trying to impress attitudes and traditions on them that seem unnatural to them. There is a suggestion that its role is also representative of the turmoil which Catholic Ireland found itself in during this period. The young boy, from whose perspective we see the elder generation, does not appear to hold the respect he ought to for his elders. In 'Sisters,' the child feels bored by Old Cotter due to 'his endless talk about the distillery.' The presence of Old Cotter and also that of the strange man in 'An Encounter' are seen as equally undesirable by the narrator, and both are referred to in derogatory terms: Old Cotter as a 'tiresome old fool,' and the nameless man by Mahony as a 'queer old josser'. The

  • Word count: 1139
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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Malachi’s Cove and Eveline

For my GCSE wide reading assignment I will be developing and exploring the important turning point that these two young women must make. The women are Mally Trenglos from 'Malachi's Cove', written in 1867 by Anthony Trollope and Eveline Hill from the book 'Eveline', written by James Joyce, in 1904. I will also be looking at the setting for the stories and the differences between the two stories. 'Malachi's Cove' is set in Cornwall, on the North coast. The cliffs are steep and tall with little cottages situated over the towering precipices. The scene is set between Tinagel and Bossinney, two real places. The Trenglos shack is situated on the edge of a cliff and the access to the cove is restricted and dangerous. Malachi built a stone path leading to his shack and the cove, but the track is still treacherous. Mally is used to the path but it could prove to be lethal to Barty, her neighbour, or anyone else who braves to go down there. Cliffs are situated to the north and south making access from other routes nearly impossible. Then there is the great hole that Mally knows about and never ventures near. She would call it, Poulnadioul, which is supposed to translate into the Hole of Evil. It is described as: "The great hole was now full of water, but of water which seemed to be boiling as though in a pot. And the pot was full of floating masses, large treasures of

  • Word count: 1497
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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A Safe Choice-But Her Only Choice - James Joyce's short story "Eveline"

Nicole Katalbas Delgado Eng 102 26 Sept 2007 A Safe Choice-But Her Only Choice James Joyce's short story "Eveline" sets the stage for a time between adolescence and maturity. Written in 1914, which was four years short of the women's suffrage in Ireland, the story's protagonist, Eveline, is largely influenced by the feminist issues. Since she has little control over her life, Eveline has grown accustomed to a routine life. She is paralyzed from the thought of leaping into a new path. Eveline faces two extremes: a miserable home life or a dramatic escape to an uncertain future. Both extremes she deals with involve a man controlling her life. Living in the early 1900s women did not have the opportunity to be independent. No matter which path she chooses, she would still answer to a man. She lives in a male-dominated world in which she is stripped of choice and emotion. She is helpless against the way her life is heading. Considering this, one cannot blame her for choosing to stay home because it was not much of a choice, and she has never made an independent choice of her own. If she left with Frank, her lover, then there could be the possibility of danger. "She felt him seize her hand" (Joyce 7). Joyce's choice of diction "seize" tells the audience that Eveline's guard is up because she knows how a man can be abusive. She saw this with her mother and father and wants to

  • Word count: 1231
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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