Dubliners - James Joyce

Dubliners - James Joyce

1. 'The Dead'

   • Nolan
     • Illustrates some of the relations between femininity and nationhood in Joyce early fiction
     • 'She seemed to him so frail that he longed to defend her... and then to be alone with her'
       • Fond protectiveness: compliments public role of educated, manly civility
       • BUT by end of night: neither guardian/true lover
         • Makes Gabriel contemplate her and thus his repudiated culture
       • Culture he values comes across false
         • Similar: They would think that he was airing his superior education. He would fail with them just as he had failed with the girl in the pantry
     • Gretta
       • 'A feminine representative of a vanquished culture' = image of Ireland itself
     • Ivors = bossy, sexless. Lily = vunerable (hinted at as pregnant). Says indicates M's agressive virginity
       • Avoids tripartite image (mother/virgin/whore) but the splitting serves to contain/manage sexual and political threats Gabriel associates women

2. 'Eveline'

   • 'She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue...She was tired. Few people passed.
     • A sense of realism like 19thC - but style is different
       • Monosllyabic
       • Metaphorically flat
       • Common diction
       • Passive verbs, past tense

3. Narrative

   • Most remarkableness = unremarkableness
   • Cambridge comp. 'The rhythm of deliberation' is what forwards narrative
     • It's very sparseness evokes a suggestiveness of the unsaid, evident in 'The Sisters'.
     • Mimics speech and thought patterns of characters themselves. 'Eveline' = Says things sound posh/ out of place.
       • 'she felt elated as she sat in an unaccustomed part of the theatre with him'

4. Historical

   • Lukacs: 'Narrate or Describe?'
     • Joyce narrates. Has a knowledge of the context of peoples lives. He has lived the lifestyle of the poor.
   • Fairhall: 'A catalyst for investigating and interrogating history'

5. Political

   • 'Ivy day In the Committee Room'
     • commemorates the struggle of the Irish for independence from the British
       • But, tendency to compromise and self-defeating actions and attitudes
       • The working-man, said My Hynes, gets all the kicks and no halfpence. But it’s labour produces everything.
         • All productivity comes from W.c yet they are pushed aside
         • Socialists are undercut by Mr Henchy
           • '...Half of them are in the pay of the Castle' = collaborating with English occupation
     • You can read from the story the Irish politics of the moment
       • Undercutting of actually every position shows his own uncertainties of where he stands in Ire.
   • In all stories, we get to end and expect epiphany/revelation but stops short
     • The energy of the moment has disappeared
       • Pok! The cork flew out of Mr Hynes’ bottle, but Mr Hynes remained sitting.... He did not seem to have heard the invitation.
         • Anti-climatic tone, even the exclamative seems flat.
     • Artist: belonging to relatively autonomous sphere is able to escape ideology of his class
       • BUT truth of existence in Ireland = an inability to make anything happen

6. 'The Sisters'

   • 1st: sets out main themes and motifs
   • Norris: text is recognized as "un-whole". Reader threatened by risk of engaging in an "unwholesome interpretative experience"
     • Psychoanalytically: repression
     • Politically: Censorship
     • 'When children see things like that... it has an effect... + there was something wrong with him... (last line)
       • Fragmented, ellipsis
   • 'Paralysis'
     • Sense of stasis, unable to move or escape.