The Darkness and Lightness of Choices
James Joyce has used his writing of Dubliners to clearly represent the aspects of the real life happenings in Ireland. In his writings, he uses many techniques that allow his audience to find constant themes. In stories such as “A Little Cloud” and “The Dead” these themes allow the audience to grasp Joyce’s reasoning and hard message to the Irish people. In Joyce’s Dubliners the light and darkness of the story reflects choices made by the characters.
In “A Little Cloud”, the main character, Little Chandler, chooses to have a wife, and lead a responsible, family oriented life. This is a distinct reflection of a “light” in his life. “A little lamp with a white china shade stood upon the table and its light fell over a photograph which was enclosed in a frame of crumpled horn.” (78) Joyce uses the concept of light, when images of Little Chandler’s wife are present in the story. This is another symbolic message presented by Joyce. “Why had he married the eyes in the photograph?”( 78). The idea of family is important to Chandler, but he begins to question its value upon a visit from his old friend. Like in many other stories by Joyce, light represents something important and good that go hand in hand with the choices made. In this narration, the wife represents a life of success, a success that is achieved through responsible decisions and dedication.
In a similar instance, the wife in “The Dead” also represents similar ideas. Even though Gretta had had a rocky past and demonstrates darkness, her choice to marry Gabriel is another image of light. During the process of the story, many secrets from the past are revealed about Gretta’s past. After listening to the songs of the evening Gretta’s character is portrayed as a very sad women.
There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she were a symbol of something. He asked himself what is a woman standing on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of.
In the story “Eveline”, a young woman gets the chance to escape from her hard life in Dublin, when a young man named Frank sweeps her off her feet and has plans to move to Buenos Ayres. In “Counterparts”, a man is faced with the unbearable aspects of his life, when he gets scolded by his boss, humiliated at the pub and when the pressure it too much he takes it out on his son and beats him. “The Dead” is a story about the realization that even though a couple might be together, they might not necessarily know everything about their significant other. Gabriel gets hit with a realization when he comes to find out that his wife was in love with another man at a young age, and the information is almost disheartening to Gabriel when he hears it.
James Joyce is the author of Dubliners, a compilation of Irish short stories that reflect on the feelings he associates with the city of Dublin, where he grew up in a large impoverished family. After he graduated from the University College, Dublin, Joyce went to live abroad in Paris, France. This action indicates a sense of entrapment that led to his desire to escape. The situations in his stories differ significantly, but each character within these stories experiences this sense of escape that Joyce had. In “An Encounter”, two boys make their first real move at being independent by skipping school to explore Dublin. In “Eveline”, the main character has a choice between taking care of her unstable father or leaving him to lead a new life with a man she has been seeing. In Joyce’s story, “The Dead,” a young man is thrown into deep human assessment, becomes unsure of who he is, and soon after is frightened of this newly discovered truth. The stories in Dubliners implicate this need for independence through characters in different situations and experiencing the feeling of entrapment.
James Joyce wrote the book Dubliners; Joyce expresses many different types of emotions throughout the book. The emotions portray individuals in society, and light and dark. The emotions of individuals are examined throughout the stories by other members in society. The stories that express the ideas are: “The Encounter,” “Eveline”, and “The Dead.” The symbolism of individuals in society expresses many different situations that are happening in the characters lives. The symbolism of light goes along with the idea of feeling happy and enjoying life. The theme of dark shows the individuals fighting, and having a negative outlook on life.
What do you know about Italian history? The Italian flag has three stripes: green, white, and red. The country of Italy is slightly bigger than the state of Arizona. Italy is bordered by France, Switzerland, and Austria. Italy has a republic government. Up until the 1600s, Italy was considered the central place for western culture. It was also the starting point of the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church. Italy also had numerous amounts of famous artists. In Ancient Rome, Italy was the center for all the arts, including sculpting and painting.
In the story Dubliners by James Joyce, he writes about a few different themes, some of these being autonomy, responsibility, light, and dark. The most important of the themes though must be the individual character in the story against the community and the way they see it. I have chosen to take a closer look at “Araby,” “Eveline,” and “The Dead” because the great display of these themes I feel is fascinating. Many things affect the way the individual characters see the community, for example their family, friends, fellow citizens, or even new places. In Dubliners, the way the characters see the community affects them and other people around them.
Most people just complain about the wickedness and the corruption of society, and they do not realize that they are contributing to the problem by doing nothing to stop it and just being mere bystanders. Bystanders are those individuals that do not take part in events despite being present during those times. In spite of the consequences that it entails being a bystander, this kind of behavior is usually driven by the desire to avoid problems. In order to avoid this misleading mentality, many philosophers and social activists have advocated against people being bystanders. An individual should not be a bystander because being a bystander is morally incorrect, inhuman, and harmful.
Italians are a group of people who share the same culture, country and speak the Italian as their first language. Italy is a native country to many Italians all around the world. Then, many Italians started migrating to different countries in 1876-1976. This beautiful country is in Southern Europe and include a similar boot shaped Peninsula. The borders of the Italians are France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia. Rome is the largest and the capital of Italy, and this city is known for many of its religious attractions. The majority of people live in Italy are Roman Catholics, but there are other people of religions live there too such as Hindus, Muslims, Buddhist, and Protestant Italians. Italians are described as a hard worker, self-sacrificing ready to work for a better future for themselves and their families and also educated thinkers. When the Italian migration began numerous people came to the U.S. and its neighboring country Canada. Today in Canada there are over 1.45 million Italians, including well-known artists and actors.
Search for Meaning in James Joyce's Dubliners Throughout Dubliners James Joyce deliberately effaces the traditional markers of the short story: causality, closure, etc. In doing so, "the novel continually offers up texts which mark their own complexity by highlighting the very thing which traditional realism seeks to conceal: the artifice and insufficiency inherent in a writer's attempt to represent reality.(Seidel 31)" By refusing to take a reductive approach towards the world(s) he presents on the page - to offer up "meaning" or "ending" - Joyce moves the reader into complex and unsettling epistemological and ontological realms. Meaning is no longer unitary and prescriptive, the author will not reveal (read impose) what the story "means" at its close and therefore we can't definitively "know" anything about it. Instead, meaning, like modernism, engenders its own multiplicity in Joyce's works, diffuses into something necessarily plural: meanings. An ontological crisis is inextricable from this crisis of meaning and representation.
From antiquity to modern times, Italy has played a central role in world culture. Italians have contributed some of the world's most admired sculpture, architecture, painting, literature, and music, particularly opera. Although the nation was politically unified less than 150 years ago, the Italians do not consider themselves to be a "new" people, but see themselves instead as the descendants of the Ancient Romans. Moreover, regional differences persist because of natural geographical boundaries and the disparate cultural heritage that has come down from the Greeks, Etruscans, Arabs, Normans, and Lombards. Regional differences is evident in persistent local dialects, holidays, festivals, songs, and regional cuisine. Central to all Italian life is the tradition of family as the guiding force and focus of loyalty. Many Sunday's are spent around the table with aunts, uncles and grandparents for a special dinner.
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.
We have all been in situations where we saw someone being bullied on the street and did nothing to stop it, or driven past a car stranded on the side of the road but did not intervene because we assume the drivers behind us will eventually stop to help, or when we see litter on the road and assumed someone else will pick it up. Our usual reaction when we see a problem is to respond by doing nothing. We hold ourselves back. We become BYSTANDERS. I cannot help but wonder… why don’t we help others when we witness such situations? Why do we hold our morals back and do nothing? Every single day, we remain bystanders not just to the people who need our help, but to numerous political, social and environmental problems that we should be concerned about, but instead feel helpless and powerless to face it and do something about it. This paper will discuss the few reasons why we fall victim to the bystander effect, how crowds influence our decision to help, why some people help while others don’t, as well as ways to become an active bystander.
The theme of light and darkness is apparent throughout Joyce's poetry. The dark, sombre setting of the story creates a sense of hopelessness within the narrator, an unnamed young boy. The negative connotations associated with the city of Dublin are used to illustrate the narrator's state of hopelessness. It is only through his illusions that he is able to catch a glimpse of light amidst the darkness. The introduction of Joyce's Araby immediately creates a dark, mundane setting for the story.
By changing voice from a narrator who tells the reader to a narrator who shows the reader in Dubliners, Joyce has seemingly relinquished considerable control over his vision of Dublin. However, Joyce's change of narrator yields him alternative forms of authorial sovereignty. In fact, Joyce guides the reader in a much more powerful way in Dubliners; without the reader's knowledge. Through quick shifts in point of view and interjections that seem to be the voice of a character, yet are not directly linked to it, Joyce controls the stories in Dubliners more subtly and with more effect than the bold declarations in Stephen Hero ever do.
In the words of Giuseppe Verdi, “You may have the universe if I may have Italy” (Brainyquote.com). Italy is one of the top hotspots for vacation, and there is a plethora of reasons why. Immediately upon arriving, you can smell the aroma of fresh, home-made foods. The beauty of the architecture in even the average buildings is overwhelming. The culture is unique and fascinating; unlike anything you will ever see anywhere else. There are so many places you could visit in Italy, you could spend a lifetime there, and it would never be enough. Rome, Tuscany, Pompeii, Pisa, Florence, and Venice are must-sees, to name just a handful. (http://www.kids-world-travel-guide.com) Italy is in essence, a paradise unlike any other, that everyone should have the privilege of enjoying. (pathos)
Hot and dry summers tend to be selling points drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists each year to Italy. This has an impact on the people of Italy by drawing in tourist money and helping to spread Italian influences and cultures to other groups and ethnicities while they are in the country. This is apparent in the number of Italian-style clothes distribut...