Dubliners: A Collection of Short Stories

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Dubliners is a collection of short stories that encircles around men, women, and children focusing on every aspects of their lives within the Irish capital of Dublin. These series of short stories were considered to be a masterpiece that was published by James Joyce in 1914, one of the most influential writters during the twentieth century. Joyce's unique style of writing is clearly displayed throughout the stories. This book consist of fifteen depressing and unhappy tales that form a sequence of desire for escape, diminishing faith, and missed opportunities among the characters. These themes are the cores of Dubliners that apply one way or another. The arrangements of each and every story appears to resemble the cycle of human life, commencing from childhood all the way to adulthood and beyond. Despite the differences, there were numerous amount of common and recurring themes found between the stories. Escape has played a crucial role in Dubliners, acting as one of the central themes presented within the stories "An Encounter", "Araby", "Eveline", and "The Dead". The protagonist of each story had made attempts to escape their tedious lives in Dublin and change was demanded, however they were all unsuccessful until arriving at the sense of realization. Having gone through traumatic experiences, only to discover that everything that they thought was possible were nothing more than a mere dream.
"An Encounter" proposes that one's desire for escape and adventure won't stop the daily routines because its unaviodable. New experiences that people expect could sometimes be disturbing. The story commences with kids playing Wild West for the sole purpose of disrupting school activities. An unnamed boy, playing as the narrator craves for e...

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...trates that peoples expections exceed far greater than what reality can acutally provide, then get the sense of dissapointment. After falling for Mangan's sister, he no longer is that innocent boy. The boy begins to lose focus on everything including school and only has one thing in his mind, which is the girl of his dream. He emits an immense attention towards her very existence that occupied as a way of escaping his discouraging life in the city of Dublin. Mangan's sister asks him a question for the first time as he stood there completely dazed, it had appeared to be a miracle something so unexpected. This moment was so astounding and breath taking that the narrator forgets to respond. Not knowing how to express all of his feelings towards her, he then decides to do some in the form of a gift. The boy's uncle was an obstacle that obstruct his path to the bazaar.

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