Introduction
The Dubliner collection is an assortment of narratives by James Joyce, which he compiled at the tender age of only twenty-three years. The collection is composed of literary, influential and revolutionary stories covering different aspects of politics, and even social matters.
The Dubliners is characterized by different themes. These issues revolve around terrorizing moments experienced by characters. The themes connected to death or mortality as referred in the text, includes suffering, isolation, and disappointments. These topics take on physical, mental, political and even spiritual anguish. The authors explain that the affected individuals are to some extent responsible for what happens to them, creating the painful experiences and intense atmosphere within the narratives. Additionally, the death theme is also supported by love themes. In some acts of the collection, death is portrayed as a result of unreciprocated love, as in the case of James Duffy. Additionally, love is also depicted as compromised by death as in the case of Eveline. In her story, her love for Frank, who is her boyfriend, is compromised by the haunting promise she made to her mother.
A surface look at the Dubliners collection would ensure their linear continuity remains hidden to the reader. However, Dubliners is carefully aligned with certain motifs and themes which qualify their categorization as series concerning Dublin life. The Dubliners collection also demonstrated deeper meanings which cannot be uncovered by quick readings. Motifs like death, odor, old weeds and ash pits have been used to symbolize the unity of the Dubliners collection. Moreover, the intersection of life and death is another theme that acts to unify the work. In Dubliners, the more remarkable stories are those which revolve around individuals who are touched by death (James). As noted by Joyce, “finality and certaintybegins the circle of death for Dubliners, a circle clear enough from the last lines of the final story,’ The Dead.’
The Meeting Point of Life and Death in Dubliners Collection and Its Significance
The collection commences with the story ‘The Sisters,’ which touches on death and the processes involved in the remembrance of the fallen people, a story which James quotes, “signifies the progression between childhood to maturity,” and ends with the story, ‘The Dead,’ which speaks about the calm covering both the living and the dead.
The theme of life and death intersection is revealed in every aspect of story progression. The first story, ‘The Sisters,' treats readers with a contrast of an innocent and youthful life experiencing the quality of death. ‘A Painful Case' uncovers the connection between death and sizzling love in adult life. In this story, James Duffy is forced to reckon with a worthless life brought forth as a consequence of his failure to reciprocate the passionate love of a partner. In the "Ivy Day in the Committee Room,' the impact of death is assessed within public life spheres. Finally, ‘The Dead,’ where Michael Furey represents death, love and passion intersections, moreover, Gabriel Conroy, the main protagonist, is then forced to assess his own life’s emptiness. Therefore, the Dubliners collection unify in death, since the living appears more vibrant to the dead who on the other hand illuminate the living’s unproductiveness.
These narratives in the collection stress the connection between death and life and the encounters between the dead and the living. For instance, the collection seeks to demonstrate the effect death can have on the living; for instance, James Duffy sits back and reassesses his life after the death of his ex-lover, Mrs. Sinico. Another instance occurs when Charles Purnell’s ghost appears and influences a political talk.
Paralysis, in the Dubliners collection, represents characters that have desires, encounters obstacles and subsequently give in and later on discontinue all the actions whatsoever. The paralysis moments are characterized by the character's inability to better their livelihoods and do away with redundant routines which compromise their desires. These inactive phases station the Dubliners in experience cycles. In ‘Araby,’ the young boy stands still at the center of the bazaar, very sure that he won’t ever be capable of escaping and attaining love. Eveline becomes paralyzed during her dilemma. These instances also evoke the motif in life since they demonstrate the characters in numbness and inactivity. At the beginning of the narration, the motif is introduced through Father Flynn, a priest whose physical paralysis suspends him between a state in between life and death. The characters in the Dublin collection accept and even recognize the sorry state as part of their daily life (James).
Death seems to come after death within the collection. Death takes the lives of characters like Father Flynn, Mrs. Sinico, Eveline’s mother, Mrs. Mooney’s mother, Charles Purnell and Michael Furey. These individuals are physically dead; however, their deaths bring about moral, emotional and even physical deaths to other characters like Eveline and James Duffy. Therefore, the Dubliners collection is littered with corpses.
Death is used in the collection to symbolize escape. Looking into “The Sisters,’ story, we see the paralyzed priests takes his escape in death as Joyce quotes, “there was no hope for him this time,”. The theme is used to act as an entry into ‘The Sister.’ An unnamed boy, the main character in this particular story, is the speaker. The boy shared a strange relationship with Father Flynn and showed a concern regarding Father Flynn's actions. Through death, the boy escapes the priest's desire to make him a father, regardless of his desires. Therefore, the priest's death brings the much-desired relief to the young narrator who fails to show pain. His death, however, hangs on in the living and causes emotional paralysis in his presence, chattering on a dark and worthless existence. The priests death is termed ‘beautiful' to refer further to the author's passionate sentiments regarding death, a feeling Joyce further describes as, “a sensation of
Freedom as if [he] had been freed from something by his death”. Additionally, in the story “A Painful Case,’ Mrs. Sinico also escapes the painful rejection by James Duffy through death. Duffy, through the death of Mrs. Sinico also escapes the embarrassing loneliness, self-destruction, and desperation he feels Mrs. Sinico accords him. Therefore, the readers are exposed to exquisite torture and death in this story, as with the other collections.
Secondly, the motif is used to show how adult life is interrupted by death and how death can uncover a paralyzed living. In the story ‘A Painful Case’ we look into Mrs. Sinico’s death which succeeds in interrupting the busy adult life of James Duffy, the protagonist. The destruction of James Duffy's adult life comes by as a result of his failure to reciprocate the love offered by Mrs. Sinico. Duffy fails to comprehend this passionate interruption and subsequently gives Mrs. Sinico a cold shoulder. On the other hand, Mrs. Sinico fails to handle the harsh situation she is encountering and commits suicide, when Duffy learns about this through a newspaper publication, he is immediately haunted. Later on, after Mrs. Sinico’s death, James Duffy comes to realize exactly how empty and worthless is life is, hence revealing the extent of paralysis in his life before Mrs. Sinico’s death.
The motif is used to show the fatal failures of the living with every generation that comes and go. Similar intersections underestimate the interest of the author regarding the occurrence and repetitions of stages of life, and his interest in figures considered as the living dead. The living dead in the collections wander through life with little emotions and anticipations, unless they are responding to delays. As with the case of James Duffy and the Priest, both of the actors become paralyzed due to their faults in life. James Duffy refuses to reciprocate the deep love offered by Mrs. Sinico, which leads to paralysis of his life which makes him loose hope and exist in an unproductive wasteland. Therefore, paralysis comes as a result of physical and emotional death and not the other way round (James).
The death motif is also used depict death's haunting nature. First, the haunting nature of death is first demonstrated by Duffy's important acknowledgment of his past lover's demise. James Duffy then calls for spirits, the particular act which the rejected Mrs. Sinico indulged in, demonstrating to the readers the haunting nature of death. Moreover, Duffy even starts imagining Mr. Sinico’s hands touching his and this makes him realize how painfully desperate she was and acknowledges that he would be just as lonely until his demise. Later on, the haunting becomes more evident as he starts to hear his voice, it they become, even more, clearer to him that it is more worthless ignoring Mrs. Sinico in death than in life. In ‘The Sisters’ the silence usually associated with the priest's haunting the mourners. His sisters refuse to take anything since they are mourning their brother while the boy refuses to eat crackers for fear of waking up Father Flynn.
In the story ‘Eveline,’ the little girl who was once happy, suddenly has to take over family roles after the death of her mother. Life becomes unbearable for Evelyne who has no option but to either elope with her lover or persevere and serve the family. Her mother's memories linger in her mind and remind her of the promise she gave to her mother to take care of the family. Eveline is left in a big dilemma regarding whether to break her promise to her now the dead mother or escape with Frank. Eveline is paralyzed at departure and can no longer make any physical move. The haunting nature of death also symbolized the power of reference on the living. Her life and happiness, therefore, rely on the dictations of her mother.
The dead are also used by the author to stir up inactivity. Joyce employs the character of Charles Parnell to disrupt political proceeding by supporters who have failed to carry on his heritage. Most of these canvassers are mean and like James Duffy only thinks about themselves. Additionally, these individuals are incompatible and have some irreconcilable differences which distance them from one another. Moreover, in regards to silence and communion themes which are closely linked to death, and used in the story, ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room,’ the author attempts to somehow change their application. This is demonstrated when silence is overlooked in Parnell’s haunting, as opposed to the silent Mrs. Sinico and the Priest’s haunting. Charles Purnell’s haunting is characterized by popping of corks. Purnell’s ghost is also awakening when his Joe, his devoted follower, reads a poem for the deceased. Regardless of this, the characters engage in intimacy with their obliviousness rather than the deceased. The consequences subsequently remain the same since every theme lights up the failures in the living. Maybe the author’s most important enhancements regarding the progression of the stories enables the readers to notice the paralysis, silence and death in the characters.
Conclusion
The theme of death is a very dominant motif in the whole of Dubliners collection. According to some moral philosophies, death as a concept commands an important responsibility especially at the disposal of misconception. Death has the power to draw an individual's concentration from himself to other people, thereby enabling the individual to open his eyes to reality. However, in the Dubliners collection, death mostly causes spiritual, political, moral and even physical paralysis as in the case of the Priest, Eveline, Purnell and James Duffy. The opening and the closing of the Dubliner collection demonstrate an attempt by Joyce to portray a paralyzed society. To avoid portraying a society which is painfully paralyzed, the author introduces a character by the name Gabriel Conray. The collection is characterized by a gloomy atmosphere which is successfully overwhelmed by the awakening of Gabriel Conray from his delusion. Nevertheless, the final narration reduces the overall negativity of the collection. Finally, it is evident that the author has utilized the death motif as one of the major themes in the collection. The theme of death is a natural consequence of the structures in life phases, especially to the author. The theme of paralysis and stasis encounter a spin with the preoccupation of death. The theme gives an impression of slowly crawling time which demonstrates a slow crawl towards death. Finally, the theme has successfully represented the people, the Ireland’s spirit, slaves of responsibilities and all kinds of paralysis.
Works Cited
James, Joyce. "Dubliners." Sparknotes. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dubliners/themes.html
