|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
"James Joyce constructed a collection of short stories intended to present the city of Dublin during the early twentieth century in a straightforward manner. The theme of paralysis permeates the work to show the city as well as the whole of Ireland as oppressed by religious, economic, cultural, and political circumstances. ... Joyce himself admitted to the “special odor of corruption which, I hope, floats over my stories” (Grey). ... However much he identified with the characters he created, Joyce retained a candor that allowed him to keep “a style of scrupulous meanness” (Brandabur 8) throughout. ...
Letters, II,109
"…was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose
Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis". ... In "Two Gallants", one of the short stories in Dubliners, Joyce exposes the shortcomings of the oppressed Irish Catholic way of living, and redirects some of the blame onto his countrymen for their unwillingness to work for positive change, for a better Ireland. Joyce establishes the characters in this story, Lenehan and Corley, as completely unforgivable characters, their passivity is to be interpreted as wrong.
The paralysis that shows up in the other stories, more explicitly religious and political (as in the essentially actionless discussions in "Ivy Day in the Committee Room"), can be interpreted as Joyce´s didactic statement. Joyce speaks against the Irish inaction, he says that the people of Ireland refuse to make any effort towards positive change for themselves. In Dubliners, he attempts to begin the process of a move away from static "paralysis" towards a sense of collective agency for positive change. ... Joyce actually says of Dubliners´:-
"… Call the series Dubliners to portray the soul of that hemiplegia or paralysis, which many consider a city. ... In the first instance the paralysis is physical, but he deals with many other types of paralysis. Examples of physical paralysis are The Sisters´, the priest dies of paralysis. At the beginning of Eveline´ Joyce writes:
"She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue… she was tired."
This is also physical paralysis; Eveline is sitting at the window, she is not moving, she just watches because she is tired.
Approximate Word count = 1735
Approximate Pages = 6.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|