Discuss the portrayal of desire and disappointment by James Joyce in the Dubliners
Dubliners Essay - Discuss the portrayal of desire and disappointment by James Joyce in the Dubliners. Joyce said that in "Dubliners" his intention was "to write a chapter in the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because the city seemed to me the centre of paralysis; The fifteen stories which make up the collection are studies on the decay of lower middle-class urban life and the paralysis to which Joyce refers to is both intellectual and moral. The characters who appear in the stories lead uneventful and frustrated lives, which are described through carefully chosen details. In the actual stories the characters portray a sense of desire that is almost certainly followed by disappointment. In Araby we see a boy who becomes infatuated with a local girl from his neighbourhood. Joyce describes her firstly with great detail and with great beauty and emphasizes this with the use of light "her figured defined by the light". The boy becomes obsessed with her and spends all of his time watching her or waiting for her. One day she asks him to go to the bazaar and get her gift, with his infatuation with her in mind and the sense of adventure his desire took over and he accepted. The title, "Araby," also suggests escape. To the nineteenth-century European mind, the lands of North Africa and the Middle East symbolized "decadence, exotic delights, escapism, and
Read the passage from The Dead - Examine it as an ending to the collection. Look at themes, setting and narrative style.
CRITICAL COURSEWORK: 'THE DEAD' Read the passage from The Dead. Examine it as an ending to the collection. Look at themes, setting and narrative style. This extract from 'The Dead' completes not only the longest, and often seen as most important story in Dubliners, but also satisfies the primary theme of the collection: paralysis and the constant desire for escape. In concurrence with the final epiphany of Gabriel Conroy, this end passage provides a feeling of achievement and advance, previously unseen in the book. The extract includes both sentiments confirming the failure and struggle of most Dubliners, but also contains an undeniably more hopeful aspect: the resolve to move on, to escape the confines of Dublin. Contrary to the other stories, rather than escape east to Europe in pursuit of wealth and opportunity, Gabriel determines to travel west into the heart of Ireland to rediscover his own identity which he feels 'fading out into a grey impalpable world'. This signifies the state to which Dublin has been reduced and also Gabriel's perception of his own life. In accordance with the rest of the collection this passage is open to different interpretations. It can be seen as a turning point, an ending to the apparently interminable confinement essentially witnessed in every main character: in Eveline, Farrington and many others. Another point of view sees this ending as
"These stories are all about escape and how characters are unable to escape." In the light of this quotation, I am going to discuss Dubliners, with close detailed reference to two of the stories, "Eveline" and "The Boarding House."
Sachin Shah 5S2 GCSE: English and English Literature Coursework Dubliners "These stories are all about escape and how characters are unable to escape." In the light of this quotation, I am going to discuss Dubliners, with close detailed reference to two of the stories, "Eveline" and "The Boarding House." There are many similarities between these two stories, as well as contrasts. In "Eveline," her father is a drunkard and is also the head of the house, whereas in "The Boarding House," Polly's father, "was a shabby stooped little drunkard" who lives separated from his family. Polly's father has been cut-off from her life, and Eveline's mother is dead. The similarity here, is that each child has had one of their parent's cut off from a period of their life. Eveline wants to escape to Buenos Aires, to get away from her poverty in Dublin. Mr Doran wants to escape from the prospect of marriage. This brings us to one of the main points of the book, the characters inability to escape. Eveline has been given the chance to escape from her life, where "she had to work hard both in the house and at business." Poor Eveline, however, finds that she is unable to move forward. She lacks the courage and strength to make that leap that will free her of her oppressive situation. . She's sees her lover as a possible source of danger: "All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He
James Joyce's Alter Ego - In James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus, a young man growing up, has many of the same traits of the young James Joyce.
Brett Clothier 16 December 2002 Mr. Suchman En-451-4th Period James Joyce's Alter Ego In James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus, a young man growing up, has many of the same traits of the young James Joyce. For example, "On 1 September 1888, at the age of 'half-past-six', Joyce was taken by his parents to be enrolled in the finest Catholic preparatory school in Ireland, Clongowes Wood College, situated about twenty miles west of Dublin in the countryside near Clane"(Anderson, James Joyce 15). This is the same school Stephen Dedalus attends in the novel. This is one of the many ways James Joyce uses this novel to portray his life. James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man can be read autobiographically. According to David Daiches, James Joyce "...transmuted autobiography into objective action..."(Daiches). James Joyce wrote an account of his life and turned it into an interesting story, and also one of the greatest books ever written. Joyce is letting the reader know all about himself through this book. Harold Bloom notes " 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,' of course, is autobiography...Joyce is turning himself inside out, spilling forth all the jangled moods that lie deep in artistic consciousness"(Bloom 38). Joyce brings himself out in Stephen. Instead of letting the reader know all about himself through an
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
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
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
Analysis: extract from "the Dead"
Analysis: extract from "the Dead" This extract corresponds to the last three paragraphs of the short story "The Dead", taken from the fifteen-story book "the Dubliners" by James Joyce. It narrates Gabriel's (the main character of the story) feelings and thoughts as he is left alone to organise his thoughts after a revealing conversation with his wife, where he learned about her character, her past and of his own failure to see all of this in the women he had lived with for so many years. The passage starts by reminding us the cold that is covering the outside world, with the sentence "the air of the room chilled his shoulders". It is the first time that we see both the outside and the inside world starting to mingle, as they had been completely isolated one form the other through out the whole of the story. We can notice this from the moment Gabriel entered his aunt's house, as his first action was to remove the snow on his goloshes, as if trying to remove anything from outside that could "contaminate" the inside world. I find really interesting to note how Joyce can include all of this in only one short line. The second line, which is also rather short, it is used to introduce another element that will be essential for the ending, and that is Gabriel's self-consciousness, implied in the word "cautiously". The author is quickly introducing all of the elements that will be
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
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?
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? In the Dubliner's, a collection of short stories, by James Joyce the interaction of different generations is portrayed in a number of different ways. In my essay I am going to explore the language Joyce uses to convey different feelings and discuss how these relationships affect the story and in the wider picture how they could affect the rest of the book. I am going to focuses on the first two stories, The Sisters and An Encounter. This section of the book centres on childhood. Dubliner's depicts a broken morale in and around the city of Dublin. This is illustrated in The Sisters by the use of the character of Old Cotter. He is the embodiment of Dublin in the eyes of the narrator. The first opinion on Old Cotter is as a, "Tiresome old fool," he is described in a similar way again later in the book as a, "Tiresome old red-nosed imbecile!" The allusion to the red nose suggests that Old Cotter may have an alcohol problem. Joyce relates him therefore as an unsavoury character in the eyes of the narrator, who is a child. The word tiresome suggests that he is hard to put up with. A certain role reversal is being demonstrated as the child seems to be patronising Cotter in his head. He is the only