The Importance Of Decision-Making In James Joyce's Dubliners

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Decision-making can be a hard thing. In the book the Dubliners, the characters have to make different choices. In Joyce’s story Eveline, the main character Eveline was faced with having to choose between running away and staying. Also, Mr. Kernan, from the story Grace, choosing between going to church and not. In the story The Boarding House, characters are faced with multiple life changing choices. These characters have different routes they can take and once they make their decision their true nature is established. The theme of The Boarding House is that the characters do not really make their own decisions rather they chose to wait to make the hard decisions until the choice is no longer theirs to make. In the beginning of the story, The Boarding House, it describes Mrs. Mooney’s relationship with her husband. After Mrs. Mooney’s father died, her husband, Mr. Mooney became a drunk, bad businessman, and “began to go to the devil” (Joyce 61). The two fought constantly, even in front of customers. It …show more content…

Doran not only cared about how other people thought of him, he also cared about what he thought of Polly. He didn’t always liked Polly’s company. One of the things he seemed to dislike the most was her bad grammar. QUOTE But if he would think to himself, if you love someone that shouldn’t matter. “He could not make up his mind whether to like her or despise her for what she had done” but then he reminded himself he was also to blame (Joyce 66). He chooses not to let part of her personality bother him because he thought to himself if he truly loved her, he should overlook it. Yet, this probably raised doubts in his mind and I think could have been one of the reasons why he had difficulty making a choice. But I also think that since he knew that he was going to marry Polly, even though he hadn’t decided to yet, and he had to overlook it because there already enough problems with their relationship. Again, Mr. Doran was paralyzed by decision

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