The early twentieth- century opened with a sense of emancipation for some and apprehension for others. The freedom from the previous moral values and restraints of the Victorian era together with the impact of Industrialisation transformed urban life, and improved working and living conditions for many people. The development of railways and the construction of new housing encouraged people to migrate to the developing cities to enjoy a better standard of living.
In considering, the central importance of emancipation to the texts we are studying. In disagreement with this statement, I have chosen to discuss ‘Eveline,’ ‘Dubliners’ (Joyce, 1914.) In agreement, the selected texts are Langston Hughes ‘The Trumpet player,’ and ‘Pushcart man,’ and ‘To Brooklyn Bridge’ (1933) Heart Crane.
The first decade of the twentieth century saw the intimate city of Dublin in a period of stagnation. Legislation had merged Ireland with Great Briton, resulting in the loss of Dublin’s parliament. Consequently, the city was a mixture of extremism and conservatism. Dublin did display a limited degree of modernity, but at a slower rate than other European cities, mainly due to Dublin retaining links with its rural surroundings. As a small city, Dublin preserved its intimacy and neighbourly feel, with people knowing your business, and sharing common interests, both socially and politically.
Restrictive routines and repetitive, mundane everyday life depicts the characters of Joyce Dubliners, despite their longing for emancipation and to escape to a better life, they are instead perishing in their own predicaments, trapped in the frustration of routine, paralysed from acting decisively, or consciously, as they have not being enlightened by any epiphanic re...
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... will replicate the same wasted life of her mother, and despite this concrete chance of emancipation, she feels powerless, paralysed, and unable to take this step forward. Eveline, is weak, and vulnerable, and unable to defy her father because of his dominant patriarchal authority. Eveline is destined to become an old-maid, forced to look after her abusive, aging, father, like so many other women in Dublin at the time. Through Eveline, Joyce is portraying that Dubliners, especially women in the early twentieth century would not go very far, will not be transformed, or emancipated, despite their dreams, paralysis succeeds, and people are trapped. Eveline is unable to fulfil her dream of escape, and rendered a ‘passive and helpless animal,’ doomed to a life of domesticity, as she watches her lover board the ship amongst hundreds of other people. (Joyce 2000.p.26)
“Dubliners” by James Joyce was first published in 1914. It is a collection of short stories, which takes place in the same general area and time frame, moving from one individual’s story to the next. Boysen in “The Necropolis of Love: James Joyce’s Dubliners” discuses the way the citizens of Dublin are caught in this never ending misery because of the lack of love- mainly instituted by the “criminalization of sensual love” from the church- and the economic stress, and struggle to survive. Zack Brown goes through the individual short stories, pointing out their references to paralysis, as well as a few other themes in “Joyce’s Prophylactic Paralysis: Exposure in “Dubliners.”” “James Joyce’s usage of Diction in Representation of Irish Society in Dubliners” by Daronkolaee discuses the background knowledge of the culture and particular details of the city that enhance the understanding of the reader and enforce the ideas presented by Boysen and broken down by Brown. These analytical articles help support the idea that Joyce uses
Blight, D. (2007). A slave no more: Two men who escaped to freedom: Including their own narratives of emancipation (1st ed., Vol. 1, pp. 1-313). Orlando, Florida: Harcourt.
The theme of being trapped extends to many levels throughout James Joyce’s collection of short stories, Dubliners. The reader can often feel surrounded by an inescapable force that is making them read this seemingly plot-less book. Escaping this book becomes no more easier when asked to do a literary analysis. Never fear though, Dubliners transforms itself into a decently workable piece of art. In examining the Humanities Base Theme of individual and society and the Literary Base Themes of escape, journey, and entrapment in Dubliners there are quite a few examples of these themes that coincide with the readers’ feelings. Throughout Dubliners, characters feel trapped and make an attempt to escape society.
"Eveline" is the story of a young teenager facing a dilemma where she has to choose between living with her father or escaping with Frank, a sailor which she has been courting for some time. The story is one of fifteen stories written by James Joyce in a collection called "Dubliners". These stories follow a certain pattern that Joyce uses to express his ideas: "Joyce's focus in Dubliners is almost exclusively on the middle-class Catholics known to himself and his family"(the Gale Group). Joyce's early life, family background, and his catholic background appear in the way he writes these stories. "Where Joyce usually relates his stories to events in his life, there are some stories which are actually events that took place in his life" (Joyce, Stanislaus). James Joyce in his letter to Grant Richard writes:
Twentieth Century Interpretations of Dubliners. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: 1968. Torchiana, Donald T. Backgrounds for Joyce’s Dubliners. Allen & Unwin, Inc. Winchester, Massachusetts: 1986.
In James Joyce’s Dubliners, the theme of escape tends to be a trend when characters are faced with critical decisions. Joyce’s novel presents a bleak and dark view of Ireland; his intentions by writing this novel are to illustrate people’s reasons to flee Ireland. In the stories “Eveline, “Counterparts”, and the “Dead”, characters are faced with autonomous decisions that shape their lives. This forlorn world casts a gloomy shadow over the characters of these stories. These stories are connected by their similar portrayal of Ireland. They clearly represent Joyce’s views on people’s discontent with Ireland.
A collection of short stories published in 1907, Dubliners, by James Joyce, revolves around the everyday lives of ordinary citizens in Dublin, Ireland (Freidrich 166). According to Joyce himself, his intention was to "write a chapter of the moral history of [his] country and [he] chose Dublin for the scene because the city seemed to [b]e the centre of paralysis" (Friedrich 166). True to his goal, each of the fifteen stories are tales of disappointment, darkness, captivity, frustration, and flaw. The book is divided into four sections: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life (Levin 159). The structure of the book shows that gradually, citizens become trapped in Dublin society (Stone 140). The stories portray Joyce's feeling that Dublin is the epitome of paralysis and all of the citizens are victims (Levin 159). Although each story from Dubliners is a unique and separate depiction, they all have similarities with each other. In addition, because the first three stories -- The Sisters, An Encounter, and Araby parallel each other in many ways, they can be seen as a set in and of themselves. The purpose of this essay is to explore one particular similarity in order to prove that the childhood stories can be seen as specific section of Dubliners. By examining the characters of Father Flynn in The Sisters, Father Butler in An Encounter, and Mangan's sister in Araby, I will demonstrate that the idea of being held captive by religion is felt by the protagonist of each story. In this paper, I argue that because religion played such a significant role in the lives of the middle class, it was something that many citizens felt was suffocating and from which it was impossible to get away. Each of the three childhood stories uses religion to keep the protagonist captive. In The Sisters, Father Flynn plays an important role in making the narrator feel like a prisoner. Mr. Cotter's comment that "… a young lad [should] run about and play with young lads of his own age…" suggests that the narrator has spent a great deal of time with the priest. Even in death, the boy can not free himself from the presence of Father Flynn (Stone 169) as is illustrated in the following passage: "But the grey face still followed me. It murmured; and I understood that it desired to confess something.
...ed, and is just as relevant today. People still struggle to break from their lives that are defined by routine, and therefore miss opportunities that come their way. Furthermore, alcoholism, which is looked at critically by Joyce, is still a large social problem today. Ultimately, Joyce is challenging the reader not to settle for the ordinary life.
In Dubliners, James Joyce tells short stories of individuals struggling with life, in the city of Dublin. “It is a long road that has no turning” (Irish Proverb). Many individuals fight the battle and continue on the road. However, some give up and get left behind. Those who continue to fight the battle, often deal with constant struggle and suffering. A reoccurring theme, in which Joyce places strong emphasis on, is the constant struggle of fulfilling responsibilities. These responsibilities include; work, family and social expectations. Joyce writes about these themes because characters often feel trapped and yearn to escape from these responsibilities. In “The Little Cloud”, “Counterparts”, and “The Dead” characters are often trapped in unhappy living situations, often leading to a desire of escape from reality and daily responsibilities.
Thomas, Steve. "Dubliners by James Joyce." ebooks@Adelaide. The University of Adelaide, 23 Aug 2010. Web. 20 Jan 2011
Another one of these stories was “Eveline”. Many women of this time period were faced with the reality of choosing the future instead of holding on to the past in order to make a life. Eveline was mistreated by the men in her family but is not able to fully let go of the family relationship that she still found with them. This goes to show that women were underestimated for their compassion role in society. She wants to run away with the man she has been seeing for a long time. His name is Frank. She sees him as a way to escape and maybe have chance at a happier life but backs out of this decision when she hears an organ play in the streets that brought back memories of her mother’s death. Eveline shows the side of humans that desire routine and a need to feel safe in repeated routine. Paralysis is seen through the way she is frozen in her life because of routine and cannot let it go. Joyce blames the Catholic Church for the way women lived and people in general, lived their lives in fear of anything
James Joyce, an Irish novelist, wrote fifteen short stories that depict Irish middle class life in Dublin, Ireland during the early years of the twentieth century. He entitled the compilation of these short stories Dubliners. The protagonist in each of these stories shares a desire for change. This common interest motivates the protagonist and helps them to move forward in their lives. Additionally, the protagonist has an epiphany, or moment of realization or transformation.
“Escape! She must escape!” but why she did not (Meyer 515). James Joyce title character in “Eveline” had all the reason in the world to escape her odd life and explore a new life. She fears making the change in her life by moving to Buenos Aires with her boyfriend Frank. Eveline becomes the main provider for her dysfunctional family after her mother’s death and has to make the biggest decision of her life, to stay or runaway. The guilt that Eveline will feel forced her to stay in her trap awful life. James illustrates in the short story “Eveline”, that his character didn’t leave her gloomy life because of two reasons, Eveline promised her mother to care for the family and she doesn’t know or love Frank enough to leave.
In the short story “Eveline “ by James Joyce, Eveline, the protagonist is given the opportunity to escape from her hard unendurable life at home and live a life of true happiness at Buenos Ayres with Frank, her lover. Throughout the story, Eveline is faced with a few good memories of her past from her childhood and her mother, but she also faces the horrible flashbacks of her mother’s illness and her father’s violence. In the end, she does not leave with Frank, Eveline’s indecisiveness and the burden of her family’s duties makes her stay.
"She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her." (Joyce 32) Although Eveline knew that her life could be beautiful with Frank, she just can not build up the courage to get on that ship to leave with Frank. The chains that bind Eveline such as her family, her fears of the unknown and her lack of response to love are extremely corroded, but no matter how much they are consumed, there was indeed no easy way for her to break away from this bondage.