James Joyce

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opposition between Catholics and protestant. Dublin was a very poor area and it was a town that didn't have a great change and there were no great opportunities. Joyce also observed that in some areas there was an isolation because of the fact that people belonged to old values, but in the city the isolation comes from the immobility because of modern alienation. Dublin is a place where true feeling and compassion for others do not exist, where cruelty and selfishness dominate. The same Joyce admitted that he had chosen Dublin because it seemed to him as the center of paralysis. Structure - The stories follow a theme sequence and they can be divided in four sections, each one representing a phase of life: childhood (the sisters, an encounter, araby) adolescence (Eveline, after the race, two gallants, the boarding house) maturity (a little cloud, counterparts, clay, a painful case) public life (Ivy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother, Grace, The Dead) The last story, The Dead, is one of the most important and summarizes themes and motifs of the other 14 ones. It is a story that we find in another novel by Virginia Woolf. There is a middle aged woman who in the past had chosen a convenient marriage even if she was in love with another man. Now she got the news that he had died and she starts remembering all the moments with him, so everything that she had lost. Characters - The characters of Dubliners belong to the lower middle class. Everyone in this city seems to be stuck in an endless despair and even though they try to escape, they fail because of their moral weakness. Realism and symbolism - The description in each story is really realistic and extremely concise. The use of realism is mixed with symbolism since external details generally have a deeper meaning. There can also be found religious symbolism but in particular color symbolism: brown, gray and yellow frequently suggest the atmosphere of despair and paralysis The use of epiphany - According to James Joyce, the "epiphany" is a sudden revelation in which any subject of common life, or a person or an episode becomes "revealing" the true meaning of life to those who perceive their symbolic value. It is a special moment, in which a character suddenly experiences a spiritual awakening, during which negligible details, thoughts, gestures, objects, feelings emerge and join together to lead to a new inner awareness. These are often buried memories or details for a long time in memory that suddenly come to the surface to initiate a thought process that is often long and painful. The language - The language of Dubliners appears simple, objective and neutral. It is always adapted to the characters according to their age, social class and role. The interior monologue - It is a narrative technique that exhibits the thoughts passing through the minds of the protagonists. There are two basic kinds of interior monologue: indirect, at the beginning there is the narrator but then he seems to disappear and give space to the character. Indirect interior mond reflects the character's thoughts, but it still maintains a distance because it's still narrated, there is still control and logical and grammatical organization. direct, the narrator seems not to exist and the character's inner self is given directly. Joyce used two differents kinds of direct monologue: → Two levels of narration, characterized by a mix of third-person narration, linked to an external time and an interior narration linked to the concept of "inner time". → Mind level of narration, the character's thoughts flow freely, non interrupted by external events (in the extreme interior monologue the narration takes place inside the mind of the main character while he is dreaming). Stream of consciousness - is a technique of writing that tries to capture the natural flow of a character's extended thought process, often by incorporating sensory impressions, incomplete ideas, unusual syntax, and rough grammar. EVELINE (first short story of the section "adolescence") Summary Eveline Hill sits at a window in her home and looks out onto the street while recalling her childhood, when she played with other children in a field now developed with new homes. Her thoughts turn to her sometimes abusive father with whom she lives, and to the prospect of freeing herself from her hard life juggling jobs as a shop worker and a nanny to support herself and her father. Eveline faces a difficult dilemma: remain at home like a dutiful daughter, or leave Dublin with her lover, Frank, who is a sailor. He wants her to marry him and live with him in Buenos Aires, and she has already agreed to leave with him in secret. As Eveline recalls, Frank's courtship of her was pleasant until her father began to voice his disapproval and bicker with Frank. After that, the two lovers met clandestinely. As Eveline reviews her decision to embark on a new life, she holds in her lap two letters, one to her father and one to her brother Harry. She begins to favor the sunnier memories of her old family life, when her mother was alive and her brother was living at home, and notes that she did promise her mother to dedicate herself to maintaining the home. She reasons that her life at home, cleaning and cooking, is hard but perhaps not the worst option-her father is not always mean, after all. The sound of a street organ then reminds her of her mother's death, and her thoughts change course. She remembers her mother's uneventful, sad life, and passionately embraces her decision to escape the same fate by leaving with Frank. At the docks in Dublin, Eveline waits in a crowd to board the ship with Frank. She appears detached and worried, overwhelmed by the images around her, and prays to God for direction. Her previous declaration of intent seems to have never happened. When the boat whistle blows and Frank pulls on her hand to lead her with him, Eveline resists. She clutches the barrier as Frank is swept into the throng moving toward the ship. He continually shouts "Come!" but Eveline remains fixed to the land, motionless and emotionless. Analysis Eveline is one of the most famous short stories from Dubliners by James Joyce. The story illustrates the pitfalls of holding onto the past when facing the future. Here is the first portrait of a female in Dubliners, and it reflects the conflicting pull many women in early twentieth-century Dublin felt between a domestic life rooted in the past and the possibility of a new married life abroad. The story is told by a third-person narrator, Joyce is following her tales and her interior process. The story opens in media res, the character of the girl is not introduced in a traditional way since we are not given information about her physical appearance, family and school. The reader is obliged to infer the pieces of information from the development of her thoughts. Eveline appears tired, linked to stillness and paralysis, since she does not move and her only life is in her mind. There is a way of escaping and she doesn't take that road as she prefers to stay in her comfort zone (theme of paralysis). We can notice all the elements of the 20 century, the timetable of past, present and future: Eveline's present is linked to stillness and dust. Her past is connected with the death of her mother Her future has connections with love, action, the sea and escape. The description is really realistic, but these details are not as in Robinson Crusoe, every detail has an interior meaning. The use of realism is mixed with symbolism since external details generally have a deeper meaning. There is in particular color symbolism: brown, gray and yellow frequently suggest the atmosphere of despair and paralysis. "Dusty cretonne" means that there is immobility. Also with the objects there is an attachment, she is familiar with them, even if she tries to clean them, the dust comes back, this means that she can't change. One moment, Eveline feels happy to leave her hard life, yet at the next moment she worries about fulfilling promises to her dead mother. She grasps the letters she's written to her father and brother, revealing her inability to let go of those family relationships, despite her father's cruelty and her brother's absence. She clings to the older and more pleasant memories and imagines what other people want her to do or will do for her. Then there is the figure of Frank. She sees Frank as a rescuer, saving her from her domestic situation. Eveline suspends herself between the call of home and the past and the call of new experiences and the future, unable to make a decision. She hears a street organ, and when she remembers the street organ that played on the night before her mother's death, Eveline resolves not to repeat her mother's life of "commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness," but she does exactly that. 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. Though Eveline fears that Frank will drown her in their new life, her reliance on everyday rituals is what causes Eveline to freeze and not follow Frank onto the ship. She feels surrounded, isolated and confused. There is a contrast between the crowd which is moving and her immobility. The paralysis is beginning, she is starting to detached from reality. Eveline's paralysis leaves her as an "helpless animal," prived human will and emotion. On the ship she only sees a black mass, (epiphany technique, when a character sees an element of reality that reveals what he is truly feeling in his interior). According to James Joyce, the "epiphany" is a sudden revelation in which any subject of common life, or a person or an episode becomes "revealing" the true meaning of life to those who perceive their symbolic value. It is a special moment, in which a character suddenly experiences a spiritual awakening, during which negligible details, thoughts, gestures, objects, feelings emerge and join together to lead to a new inner awareness. These are often buried memories or details for a long time in memory that suddenly come to the surface to initiate a thought process that is often long and painful. There is the technique of interior monologue, it is a way in which at a certain point the narrator stands back and expresses only the thoughts of the characters. There is a frame where there is only the character who thinks. At the beginning there is the narrator but then he seems to disappear and give space to the character. Indirect interior monologue reflects the character's thoughts, but it still maintains a distance because it's still narrated, there is still control and logical and grammatical organization. The story does not suggest that Eveline placidly returns home and continues her life, but shows her transformation into an automaton that lacks expression. Eveline, the story suggests, will hover in mindless repetition, on her own, in Dublin. On the docks with Frank, the possibility of living a fully realized life left her.