Dublin In Ulysses Dublin overwhelms the reader In

Dublin • In Ulysses, Dublin overwhelms the reader • In Dubliners, the 15 stories, though set in the same city, are not united by their geography: each story has a singular location. Dublin

Dubliners (1914) • Collection of 15 stories published in 1914 on the newspaper The Irish Homestead by Joyce with the pseudonym Stephen Dedalus. • Dubliners are described as afflicted people. • All the stories are set in Dublin “The city seemed to me the centre of paralysis”, Joyce stated. Nassau Street, Dublin, early 20 th century

Dubliners: paralysis The main theme of Dubliners paralysis Physical paralysis caused by external forces Moral paralysis linked to religion, politics and culture escape which always leads to failure. Alternative to paralysis =

Structure and style • The stories present human situations • They are arranged into 4 groups: The Sisters Eveline A Little Cloud An Encounter After the Race Counterparts Araby Two Gallants The Boarding House Childhood Adolescence Ivy Day in the Committee Room A Mother Clay Grace A Painful Case Mature life DUBLIN Paralysis / Escape The dead Public life

Dubliners: narrative technique and themes • Detailed descriptions. • Naturalism combined with symbolism double meaning of details. • Each story opens in medias res and is mostly told from the perspective of a character. • Use of free-direct speech and free-direct thought direct presentation of the character’s thoughts. • Different linguistic registers the language suits the age, the social class and the role of the characters. • Themes paralysis and escape. • Absence of a didactic and moral aim because of the impersonality of the artist. • Use of epiphany

Dubliners: epiphany • Derived from the Greek word “epiphaneia”, epiphany means “appearance” or “manifestation. In literary terms, an epiphany is that moment in the story where a character achieves realization, awareness or a feeling of knowledge after which events are seen through the prism of this new light in the story. • James Joyce said that it is the moment in which “the soul of the commonest object … seems to us radiant, and may be manifested through any chance, word or gesture. ” He means that even insignificant things in our life can suddenly inspire in us an awareness that can change our lives for good.

Dubliners: The Dead • The protagonists: Gabriel Conroy, an embodiment of Joyce himself, and Gretta, his wife. • Epiphany 1 > the song The Lass of Aughrim, reminds Gretta of a young man, Michael Furey, who died for her when he was seventeen years old. Epiphany 2 > Gabriel understands he is deader than Michael Furey in Gretta’s mind. • Symbols: the snow > Gabriel’s journey to the west. Angelica Huston in John Huston’s The Dead (1987)

The Dead : Text analysis p. 338 The passage can be divided into two parts: 1) ll. 1 – 44 : Gabriel’s riot of emotions 2) ll. 45 – 56 : an intense moment of existence The characters involved in the text are : Gretta, her husband Gabriel, Gabriel’s aunts, guests at the party, Michael Furey (Gretta’s first lover). Situation described: Gabriel watches Gretta sleeping and he starts to wander from the present to the past and to the future. The whole scene seems to lose a precise temporal connotation. In Gabriel’s thoughts we find the conflicts of death and life, taking and giving, past and present. Gretta’s recalling Michael has caused Gabriel to realise that he and the guests at the party are deader than Michael Furey. At the end of the story Gabriel becomes one with all the living and the dead. Then, despite of his dramatic extinction of personality and his awareness of lacking love, Gabriel is no longer alone. The most effective antithesis of this extract is the metaphorical pattern of life and death. Throughout the story the living are shown as spiritually dead and, though Michael is physically dead, he is alive in Gretta’s heart.

The Dead : Text analysis p. 338 Symbols The personal names are symbols: Gabriel and Michael are the two archangels, the guards of heaven. In ecclesiastical literature Gabriel is a comfort to man, "the Governor of the West", the angel of death Michael is an angel of energy and action. Michael Furey is heroic and pure and is able to live up to the expectations that his name creates. Gabriel Conroy seems to be a parody of his Archangel.

The Dead : Text analysis p. 338 • The snow may be both a symbol of death, because it covers the dead and the living without difference , a symbol of isolation and alienation and at the same time a symbol of purification. • Another important symbol is the journey. Gabriel feels that the time has come for him to to «set out of his journey westward» (ll. 47. 48). Traditionally, «going west» means «dying» . SNOW JOURNEY