Analysis of James Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’
Quite a few of the short stories in the Dubliners collection of James Joyce are more of his personal memories as well as various sentiments that he holds. The Sisters, The Araby, and Evelin, are all stories which are more of a characterization of his later works. The narrators of all the stories of Joyce tend to disband into the language out of which they actually evolve.
In these stories, rather than having speakers who relate themselves to the readers of the stories, the readers are actually seen being related to the language spoken by the narrators and the narrators themselves. In addition, there is also the presence of such a language whose abundance of meaning is never clearly defined by an authority that can be inferred from within the text itself.
There are a number of common themes that one can find these stories and death is one such theme. Death as a concept is a most commonly debated topic in many fields of study like psychology, literature, philosophy and even sociology and it is possibly one of the inevitable things of human life. Also, this concept has a considerable impact on the evolution of various global cultures as well as world literature.
James Joyce has employed this idea rather extensively in his short story collection - Dubliners. Dubliners is a collection of fifteen different short stories that have many underlying themes that are commonly found in all of them.
A few such common themes in all of the Dubliners stories is death, mundane life, ethical as well as material paralysis of a few characters, among others. Although each of the stories deals with independent set of events and has various characters, the cohesion of the aforesaid themes results in a kind of consistency in the overall work in terms of the element of style. This coherence further offers an eloquence in construing the tales.
In Dubliners, we can see that quite a few stories are related to death in some or the other way. Joyce employs the concept of death as a practical theme in this collection of stories. A few of the stories in Dubliners are predominantly seen revolving around the concept of death, while a few of them are strongly impacted because of the same.
The over-all setting of Dubliners is highly melancholic in nature. The weather is typically dim that eventually leads to a sense of cynicism and negativity not only in the characters but also in the reader as well. There is an extreme focus that Joyce imparts on the issue of death which makes it inevitable to work on that particular notion.
One story that is reviewed in this essay in relation to the theme of death is ‘The Sisters,’ which begins with the death of Father Flynn, the priest. In this story ‘death’ serves as an access point into the story. The speaker of this story is a young boy, who is also the protagonist of the story, who is not given any name by the author. One can notice an unusual relationship between Father Flynn and the protagonist and it is very apparent that the boy is extremely disturbed because of the priest’s conducts and demeanors. There is an intense sense of anxiety with which the priest’s conduct is filled with.
The death actually discloses the link between the priest and the protagonist. The intention of the priest is to make the boy also a priest like him, without giving heed to the interest and consent of the boy. In relation to this, it can be proposed that the boy was actually waiting for the priest to die and was extremely desperate and impatient towards this idea.
When Father Flynn finally dies, many of the elder members were keenly looking forward for the boy’s disappointment. But on the contrary; the boy is seen standing firm with a feeling that portrays no impact of this death upon the boy and his psyche. Moreover, the death of the priest actually offers a great relief to the boy and this is very apparent from the way the boy behaves after Father Flynn’s death.
The experience of Father Flynn’s death is the first experience of the boy with death. He actually seen to be highly chaotic about the kind of feeling he possibly should be having after the death of Father Flynn. However, what is obviously sure was that the boy was not seen to be disturbed with it at all.
The Sisters is the first story in the Dubliners collection and this actually serves as a crucial link to the remaining stories in this collection. ‘The Sisters’ is seen revolving completely around the subject of death. This denotes the fact that the same subject will often be applied in the rest of the stories as well. There are also several other themes like the paralyzed characters, the monotonic Dublin life are a few other common themes apart from death that are seen in Dubliners.
‘Eveline’ is another story where one can see a dead individual actually haunting the people living. Eveline is actually the protagonist of this story who is known to have a joyful childhood as long as her mother was alive. However, thing take a serious and dramatic turn after she loses her mother as she is required to take up the responsibility of the whole family.
Her mother’s death results in her life taking a profound change and turn as her life turns into a heavy burden for her. She is left with two choices; either to stay at home and care for the family or leave Dublin with her lover, Frank. However, the reminiscences of her mother and her death fail to leave Eveline.
Her confusion and dilemma in life is more because of the promise she had made to her mother earlier of keeping the home together as long as she possibly can. If she leaves Dublin, she would surely lead a life of high esteem and she is very sure that she would definitely not be treated in the same manner in which her mother was treated. But doing so would result in a feeling of guilt of having not kept up the promise she had made to her mother.
The influence of her mother’s death is seen to be profoundly evident and persistent in nature and this is very apparent from the manner in which Eveline behaves. While her lover is seen waiting at the dock to flee Dublin and eventually save Evelin from her melancholy and despair, Eveline is seen getting paralyzed emotionally and goes into spirituality, right at the instance of their departure from Dublin.
Regardless of Frank’s numerous efforts, Eveline fails to move and finally leaves his hands. “Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.” Eveline looks heavily paralyzed and to comprehend or construe what her inner feelings were, was an impossible task altogether as she looks impassive and her face had a blank expression that was totally incomprehensible.
The above expression can be understood as being an outcome of the shock that Eveline experiences because of her mother’s death. She is unable to come out of that shock and corroborate her aspirations in life.
Eveline’s dead mother is the most powerful allusion on the crucial decisions that Eveline takes in life as she foregoes her only opportunity for joy in life just for the sake of the promise she had made to her mother and her mother’s wish of keeping the family intact.
She has not chance of acting or rebelling against the monotonic lifecycle of a family woman who has to take care of a family. She is essentially seen to have been conquered by the monotonous life.
Her desire and aspiration for a new life is actually contrasts with her lack of audacity to desolate the mundane and monotonous lifestyle and step into a new life filled with joy. Her desire for independence and autonomy controverts with the promise she had made to her dead mother.
Eveline sacrifices her entire life for the sake of her dead mother and this translates to the fact that death is one of the most important aspects that is haunting Eveline.
Works Cited
Joyce, James. Dubliners. Urban Romantics, 2012.
Robinson, David W. "The Narration of Reading in Joyce's "The Sisters" "An Encounter," and "Araby"." Texas Studies in Literature and Language, (1987): 377-396.
