JAMES JOYCE

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on the other hand his life in Trieste was really difficult and filled with economical problems. Before leaving Italy, he started to write and then to publish his collections of stories "Dubliners" where he talks about life of ordinary people in Dublin. In 1915 he came to Zurich with his family where he received a lot of anonymous donations and thanks to them he could continue writing his novel "Ulysses". In 1920 he came back to Paris where he first stared his writing career. Thanks to a bookseller he could publish his novel "Ulysses" that was a completely success to him and it was also considered as "the most important expressions of the modern age". Unluckily this period of success was filled with family's problems as his daughter Lucia's mental illness. Because of her conditions Lucia was sent to a mental hospital and then other problems like his father's death and his increasing blindness filled his last years of life. In 1940 because of the First World War France was occupied by the Germans so Joyce and his family had to come back to Zurich, where in 1941 he eventually died at the age of 59 because of health problems. POETRY: In his poetry he wanted to talk about ordinary people of Dublin and their ordinary life. Influenced by the French Symbolists, he jus wanted to report the true reality of Dublin to make readers reflect about reality. As the French Symbolists, in his style we can see how he used the impersonality of the author and in fact we cannot really understand who is the narrator in this stories because it changes continuously. RELATIONSHIP WITH RELIGION: Even if he was educated by the Jesuits, he was against the Church because he used to see the Church as something which has taken possessions of Irish minds. But because he was educated by the Jesuits, his hostility again the Church was like a conflict between a son and his parents. "DUBLINERS", JAMES JOYCE STRUCTURE: "Dubliners" is a collections of 15 stories in which Joyce talks about ordinary people in Dublin who are not happy but prisoned in their sad destiny. In each story Joyce talks about a specific character and how they experience a moment of epiphany, so a revelatory moment for the character. As a modernist novelist, he is hostile to city life which degraded his citizens, in fact he talks about Dublin as a city in which true feelings and compassion do not exist. All the 15 stories are organized into 4 aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. The last story of the collection, "The Dead", is considered to be his first masterpiece and it is also the epilogue of "Dubliners". CHARACTER: The character of "Dubliners" are ordinary lower middle class Dubliners who live an unhappy and depressed life and who are prisoned in their destiny. PARALYSIS: it's like a moment in which the character realize they can't escape their conditions and destiny so they have to accept them because they can't do anything. STYLE: He ofter uses the interior monologue and the chiasmus. In the stories of childhood he used a first-person narrator who in maybe a little boy but in the other stories he used a third-person narrator who tends to disappear in the interior monologue. Talking about the language, in "Dubliners" Joyce adapted the language to the age, the social class and the role of the character who speaks. He mixes Realism with Symbolism, in fact he used meticulous and realistic descriptions which also have a deeper meaning. "EVELINE", JAMES JOYCE (DUBLINERS) The name "Eveline" can make us think about "Eve", the first woman created by God, and "line", the descendants of Eve so all the woman. Eveline is a young woman living in Dublin with her father. Her mother is dead. Dreaming of a better life beyond the shores of Ireland, Eveline plans to elope with Frank, a sailor who is her secret lover (Eveline's father having forbade Eveline to see Frank after the two men fell out), and start a new life in Argentina. With her mother gone, Eveline is responsible for the running of the household because she promised to her mother to keep the home together as long as she could: her father is drunk and only reluctantly tips up his share of the weekly housekeeping money, and her brother Harry is busy working. Eveline herself keeps down a job working in a shop. On Saturday nights, when she asks her father for some money, he tends to unleash a tirade of verbal abuse, and is often drunk. When he eventually hands over his housekeeping money, Eveline has to go to the shops and buy the food for the Sunday dinner at the last minute. Eveline is tired of this life, but she doesn't know what to do: she asks herself if she wants to be happy and go to Argentina with Frank or if she wants to keep her promise to her mother and live like she did. She is scared that she would live as her mother who went crazy at the end of her life and died because of it, so she decides to go with Frank. But as she is just about to board the ship, Eveline suffers a failure of resolve, and cannot go through with it. She wordlessly turns round and goes home, leaving Frank to board the ship alone. "GABRIEL'S EPHYPHANY" The name "Gabriel" can make us think about the angel of fire or the archangel in the Bible and the name "Micheal" can make us think about one of the seven archangels in the Jewish tradition or about the leader of the angels army who fought against Satan in the Bible. The protagonists of this passage are Gabriel, an Irish teacher and journalist, his wife Gretta, and, in Gabriel's thoughts, his aunts and Michael Furey. Gabriel and Gretta are in a hotel room after a Christmas party given by Gabriel's aunts. They have just come back from the party where Gretta, after listening to an old song, bursts into tears. Once at the hotel, she has told Gabriel she is crying for a boy, Michael Furey, who died for her. He was in love with her and wanted to say goodbye before she left for college. He waited for her to appear through the window all night long in the rain, fell ill and died of pneumonia. Gabriel who, while walking back to the hotel, was consumed with physical passion for his wife, first feels disappointed and then his feelings turn into pity for her while he is looking at her sleeping. While Gabriel is looking at Gretta sleeping he starts thinking more. His thoughts wonder to present, past and future; he thinks of aunt Julia and how she will soon die, of the words that might console aunt Kate; then his mind wonders to Michael Furey and how his wife has locked him in her heart for so many years. He feels he has played a poor part in his wife's life and that Michael, although physically dead, is alive in her heart much more than he is. Looking at the snow falling through the window, he has the impression he is losing his identity and becoming one with the dead.