‘’The Dubliners’’ – James Joyce

I. Introduction: General facts, major themes, main ideasII. Araby & Eveline: main themes, ideas, plot.III. Comparing and contrasting these two storiesIV. Conclusion

Keywords:

Epiphany Adolescence Obssession Escape Paralysis Fantasy

Aim:

My aim is to prove that there are both common things and differences between Joyce’s short stories. I’ve chosen to talk only about two of them because I perceive them as being the most representative works , showing us the condition of the Irish people during the early years of the 20th century. I’ll concentrate upon the characters’ profile and their epiphanies, because that’s another important idea which can be seen in Joyce’s stories. Also it’s important to compare and to contrast these two stories I’ve chosen . By doing that, we will get accostumed to Joyce’s style of writing.

I. Introduction

The Dubliners is considered to be the most accessible book of James Joyce. Comparing to the later works of fiction ( Ulysses or A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man ) . The title directly suggests the setting of this book: the action takes place in Dublin. It’s a similarity between all the fifteen stories that compose The Dubliners. We shouldn’t wonder why Joyce had chosen Dublin: it is actually the town in which Joyce grew up and received his education. The stories were written in a period in which Irish nationalism took over, so Joyce emphasizes the idea of stuggle with the complicated life in Dublin.

It’s important to focus on the main themes of the book, because it caused some controversies, because some of them were really shocking for that period. The unattractive human behavior is one of the most controversial theme which can be seen in the stories: drunkenness, pederasty, child abuse, prostitution or suicide. What caused controversies as well was the fact that Joyce used the real names of streets, parks or public places in Dublin. As The Dubliners is supposed to be a fiction work, Joyce should have changed the names of these settings. Believing that the Irish society and culture had been frozen in space , Joyce explained why he entitled his book The Dubliners: "I call the series Dubliners to betray the soul of that . . . paralysis which many consider a city.". He kept on blaming England and the Roman Catholic church for the situation of Ireland. Partially, he was right. Comparing to England, Ireland was a poor and not developed country – actually, Ireland was paralysed. This fictive image and the theme of paralysis can be seen throughout the stories: it can be considered to be one of the main ideas.

Corruption is also one of the main themes and it’s linked to the theme of paralysis. Also, these two themes altogether are connected to another major and important theme: death. The paralysis precedes death and the corruption is considered to be a kind of spiritual and moral death. In Dubliners, Joyce paints a grim picture of his hometown and its inhabitants, including these three major themes.

Ulysses, itself began as an aborted Dubliners story. Before that, however, he would tell the tale of an Irish man who vows to escape the paralysis, corruption, and death, a character based on Joyce himself whom he called Stephen Dedalus. Dedalus would be the main character of Joyce's thematically similar next book and his first novel: A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man.

So, it’s visible that The Dubliners is a quite influential book not only for the readers but for Joyce himself. His view of the Irish society is quite unique in the literature. It’s considered to be a kaleidoscopic vision of the 20th century’s Dublin, a vision full of realistic elements. Coming together in the end, all these fifteen stories create a portrait of a nation.

II. Araby

These two stories are representative for Joyce’s mentality regarding the Irish lif e and also the problems which all his characters had to face. The first one tells the story of a young man who develops a crush – later being seen as an obsession – for a girl. This can’t be cathegorised as an usual theme, there are certainly many authors who wrote about love obsessions. What makes Araby a different kind of story is the large amount of other themes, different one from each other.

So, all this story may appear to be simple. The boy, which is also the narrator, falls in love with Mangan's sister, a girl who lives across the North Richmond street. "I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: O love! O love! many times." . One evening she asks him if he plans to go to a bazaar called Araby, as she was unable to go. 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. As he couldn’t fulfill the girl’s wish, the boy gets frustrated. Frustration is a state of mind that describes the adolescence .The narrator itself is an teenager who discoveres how the feeling of love looks like. In order to please the girl, he leaves his house in the night, wandering through the city in search of the bazaar. So, we can see some romantic elements, despite Joyce’s realism. The young man finally reaches the bazaar, but it’s too late. As a consequence, there appears the feeling of desilusion.

Some critics have suggested that the girl represents Ireland itself and the boy’s little journey is actually a quest for the country. Also, the bazaar can represent the combined power of England and the Catholic Church ( two factors which Joyce had found guilty for Ireland’s paralysis ). The girl is actually just a fantasy for the boy – just like the perfect, idealized homeland for the author. As a result, we can see another theme: the failed idealization.

Araby is also a circular story: the character is going on a journey and, in the end, he comes back from where he belongs. Also, the narrator lives with his aunt and uncle, although his uncle appears to be a portrait of Joyce's father, and may be seen as a prototype for Simon Dedalus of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. Once again, we can see how The Dubliners, generally speaking, have influenced the entire work of Joyce and his masterpieces.

The experience of epiphany – or awakening – is also important. In the end, the narrator recognizes his obsessions and he’s ashamed of his own feelings.

Eveline

It’s the fourth short story, following the previous Araby, and it’s considered to be one of the most powerful part of the entire Dubliners book. It tells the story of a nineteen year old girl, Eveline Hill, who works in a Dublin shop.

At the beginning of the story, Eveline sits at the window in her room and looks out in the street, while recalling her childhood. Her childhood wasn’t a happy one: she had to endure her father’s abusive behavior caused by drunkeness. Eveline thinks about her father's disapproval of Frank, her future husband , and of her promise "to keep the home together as long as she could" before her mother grew deranged and died. Frank proposed her and they both planned to leave Ireland and to embrace a better life in Buenos Aires. Later, gripped by fear of the unknown and probably guilt as well, Eveline finds herself unable to board the ferry to England, where she and Frank were scheduled to meet a ship bound for South America. Fear seemed to be much powerful than love, so he leaves without her. That makes the whole story to appear as a tragedy. Again, we encounter the idea of paralysis.

Eveline seems to be paralysed by fear and guilt. Her main fear is her own death ("he would drown her"), a fear which led her to a state of confusion. She starts confusing her beloved future husband with her alcoholic and abusive father. She also has to make a difficult choice, between two men with a significant importance to her: her father and her lover. Eveline deals with a war of heart and mind: the wish to escape from her sad life in Dublin vs the wish to stay with her only family member who remained alive. Again we can see the theme of death: Eveline had lost her mother, her brother and also her best childhood friend. She fears not to lose his father but must of all she fears for her own life.

However, we still deal with the most important theme of Joyce’s writings: the condition of Ireland and Irish people. Eveline simply wanted to escape from her poor condition and to leave far away with Frank, whom she considered to be her savior.

Just like most of Joyce’s characters, she’s experiencing an epiphany. While she was getting ready to leave with Frank, she heard a street organ, and when she remembered the street organ that played on the night before her mother’s death, Eveline resolved not to repeat her mother’s life of “commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness,” but she does exactly that. On the dock with Frank, away from home, Eveline seeks guidance in the routine habit of prayer. Her action is the first sign that she in fact hasn’t made a decision, but instead remains fixed in a circle of indecision. In the end, she abandoned Frank. We can not decide if Eveline should be considered a strong or a weak character, but definitely it’s a representative character for a certain cathegory: the Irish woman in the 20th century.

III.Comparing and contrasting

Both stories which I’ve presented before have some significant similarities. First of all, the aspect of a tragedy and the main characters who fight against delusions and their own thoughts. The idea of delusion appears in Araby. The young man is in a search for perfection: Mangan’s sister represents that perfection which is impossible to reach. However, the boy keeps on dreaming until he realizes that he’s leaving just an illusion. Eveline’s attitude is however more mature, but still romanticized. She can be compared to a princess which is forsaken in her tower and waits for the prince to rescue her. The romantic element is not hard to be seen: a sailor coming from foreign lands and trying to save a poor girl. Despite her love for Frank, Eveline fears of the unknown and also of the future. In an epiphany, she realizes that she hasn’t got the necessary courage to leave: a bell changed upon her heart.  She felt him seize her hand....all the seas of the world tumbled about her heart.  He was drawing her into them; he would drown her.  She gripped with both hands at the iron railing....Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.

The epiphany in Araby appears in the moment when the boy finds himself alone in front of the closed bazaar. He realizes that Mangan’s sister was just an illusion, and the trip to the bazaar was made in vain: Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.

In both stories, the epiphany is caused by a tragic romance and by the characters’ illusions. But, unlike the boy of Araby who understands that he is to blame for his self-deception, Eveline views her sailor as the threat to her romantic idea, rather than her own lack of courage.

Both characters seem to have unhappy lives but they’re trying to make them better: that’s why the illusion of the perfect love appears. Mangan’s sister from Araby, and Frank the sailor in Eveline represent a false hope for change; both are believed to represent change and hope because the characters wished for changes. They didn’t realize that these people were a false image of hope before they reached the epiphany. \As both of them experienced an awakening, Joyce described them in non-human expressions. The boy in Araby is described as a creature driven and derided by vanity, and the girl in Eveline as a helpless animal.

Also, there’s a strong sense of religion in both stories. The priest is mentioned as a character but doesn’t exist as an actual person: in Araby, the priest is dead and in Eveline the priest is mentioned as a friend of father . Both characters were grown in working class Catholic families. Another similarity is the portrait of the typical father ( in Araby the uncle plays the role of the father): abusive, alcoholic, not supportive and not capable of affection. That’s why Evelin is willing to escape, so as the young boy from Araby .

We shouldn’t forget about the spiritual paralysis which occurs in the end. Actually this paralysis is linked to the Irish condition of which Joyce discussed about. Behind these tragic stories with similar endings, there’s an entire discussion about the political and economical situation of Ireland. But, coming back to literature, it’s important to observe that Joyce is using the same kind of language techniques ( the use of exclamation marks, for example, in order to emphasize the discourse of the characters ). Also, both stories are circular, as I’ve already mentioned.

A main difference is the perspective: in Araby we can see the perception of a teenager looking for the ideal love. Eveline is not a teenager anymore and she has to deal with an important decision. The wish to abandon Frank and to stay with her father can reflect her maturity and her concerns regarding her family, but still she remains a dreamer.

These two stories and characters have more similarities than differences if we focus on the themes or the ideas of paralysis, collapse, ideal love and unhappy lives. Joyce proves once again that he’s a complex author and can enter a character’s mind in order to create a powerful story.

Conclusion:

The Dubliners contains a large variety of stories , all of which having in common important things. The multiple perspectives presented throughout the collection serve to contrast the characters in Dublin at this time. James Joyce draws inspiration from his own life, which makes his artworks much more personal than the others. I consider that it’s important for an author to add some biographical suggestions to his writings, because if someone gets to know the author better will find then easy to understand his creation. That’s the reason why The Dubliners is considered to be much more accessible than other creations of Joyce which are labeled as masterpieces.

Araby and Eveline are two representative stories because we can see and understand the idea of epiphany which Joyce included as a personal brand. Also, after reading these two stories and not only , it would be easier to cope with the reading of Ulysses or A Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man. So, every Joyce reader has to start, first of all, with The Dubliners.

References:

Bloom, Harold. James Joyce's Dubliners. New York: Chelsea House, 1988

Coulthard, A.R. "Joyce's Araby." Explicator 52.2 (1994): 97. Academic Search Premier Frawley, Oona. A New & Complex Sensation: Essays on Joyce's Dubliners. Dublin:

Lilliput, 2004

Thacker, Andrew, ed. Dubliners: James Joyce. New Casebook Series. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006

Wells, Walter, '"John Updike's "A & P": A Return to Araby"', Studies in Short Fiction, Vol.30.