James Joyce Blog Summer 2018

Blog 3: A Little Cloud One of my personal favorite stories in Dubliners was “A Little Cloud,” as I feel it sums up the feeling of wanting more than the mundanity one has attained in their life. As well as the relatable feeling of jealousy one may feel when hearing that someone is following the dream that one couldn’t feasibly pursue. I think this story is also one of the great examples of the paralysis that exists in Dublin.  “-if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin” this quote sums up many feelings on the paralysis or lack of inertia that exists in Dublin as if staying in Dublin ultimately leads to perpetuating a life of cyclical stagnation (Joyce, 29). As Little Chandler walks to meet Gallaher, he mulls over the choices that led him to stay in Dublin and what caused Gallaher to live the exciting life he had always wanted. Little Chandler subsequently begins contemplating his soul, as he wonders if his soul is one of a poet that has never b...

Blog 2: The Boarding House In  Dubliners,  I felt that "The Boarding House" was a story I could relate to. Polly is about the same age as me and still lives with her mother, and there is a constant push and pull for freedom, independence, and respect in the household. Her mother, Mrs. Mooney, is a very stern and controlling woman, and because of those tendencies, it bleeds into Polly's life by proxy. I feel as though, Mrs. Mooney was only trying to do what she thought was best for her daughter by asking Mr. Doran to marry her. And though we never find out what officially happens between Mr. Doran and Polly, by using context clues, it is assumed he was going to ask for her hand as repentance to Mrs. Mooney. It was all from a place of love, hard love, of course, to show her daughter that there are consequences for her actions; I can sympathize with Mrs. Mooney's reaction. The magic that lies in "The Boarding House" is the strong imagery and the focus on ...

Blog 1: An Encounter In Dubliners , I found "An Encounter" to be chilling and intriguing. The story brings up nostalgia of being a kid, but a hair-raising aura is mixed effortlessly as two young boys come in contact with an old man with compromised views on children and women. The narrator and his friends seem to have fun together in the beginning of the story as they play pretend games and chase each other around the garden. In this introduction, Joyce builds up a sense of childlike wonder only to starkly contrast it later with their encounter with the old man. As the old man speaks of whipping little boys and wanting to touch girls' pretty hair, it shows just how one's morals can become corrupted over time. When the old man is presented after the audience gets used to a naive point of view, it causes the elder’s actions to be even more alarming. Joyce makes sure to let the audience know that this encounter was only a warning of what is to come in a...

Blog 3: "The Boarding House" Joyce’s short story “The Boarding House” says a lot about Dublin society during this time period. Not only does it shed like on a typical boarding house of the time but it also emphasizes the acceptable social norms in Dublin. The main female character, Polly, is a young woman who runs the boarding house with her mother, Ms. Mooney. She develops a relationship with a man who lives in the boarding house, Mr. Doran. Obviously, this relationship could possibly be damaging to both Polly and Mr. Dornan’s reputations because they are not married. However, they have some sort of romantic affair anyway, with Mr. Doran most likely not considering marriage as the end result and with Polly hoping that it will be. This shows the strict rules that were present during this time period in Dublin and the different views of marriage between men and women. Flings could damage someone’s reputation, and Mr. Dornan’s reputation was essential to hi...

Blog 2: "The Dead" James Joyce’s final short story in Dubliners is “The Dead.” “The Dead” shows many different characters of different social standings. Gabriel, the main character of the story, comes from a higher class along with his wife and his aunts. Throughout “The Dead,” Gabriel hides behind his social class and uses it to maintain a certain sense of comfort during the dinner party at his aunts’ home. The story is also set during the Winter, and a time when it is snowing which is uncharacteristic for Dublin. This correlates with the unusual circumstances that surround the story when Gabriel, a man usually so comfortable with the monotony and familiarity of his life, questions everything. The dinner party is clearly something that Gabriel’s aunts look forward to every year, and it is shown that during these dinner parties the aunts are able to show their higher social class. Lily, a servant in Gabriel’s aunt’s household, is clearly from a lower c...

Blog 1: "Araby" The short story “Araby” is a narrative about a young man’s yearning for the love of a neighbor. The young man is infatuated with the young girl who lives next door even though they have never spoken. He waits for her every day and walks behind her so that he can see her, and plans his route so that he may pass her. The main character in this story is clearly in the working class of Dublin, and he describes the houses in his neighborhood as: “conscious of decent lives within them, gazing at one another with brown imperturbable faces” (Joyce 23). By using the color brown to describe the houses and calling the lives “decent” this creates a feeling of dullness. The story is written in first person, one of three in Dubliners to be written in this style, and this makes the story feel more personal to the reader rather than detached. The main character, the young man, describes many views of Dublin and its scenery, recalling memories from when he use...