Paralysis in Dubliners

In his letters, Joyce himself has said that Dubliners was meant “to betray the soul of that

hemiplegia or paralysis which many consider a city” (55). The paralysis he was talking about is

the paralysis of action. The characters in Dubliners exemplify paralysis of action in their

inability to escape their lives. In another of Joyce’s writings, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young

Man, Joyce writes of Ireland: “When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung

at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly

by those nets” (Joyce 238). The characters of Dubliners face similar nets that prevent them from

escaping their lives. Unfortunately, their attempts to “fly by those nets” are not always present;

the characters often do not try to break out of their lives (as in “Clay”). In the case that they do

attempt to break their paralysis, the characters typically fail, or at least such is the case for the

time before and during the story that the reader observes. The causes of this persistent paralysis

vary between the characters: some are paralyzed by lack of motivation or fear, others by familial

or other bonds; by religion, addictions, by simple lack of resources, or misconceptions or

misinterpretations of events or words.

Most all of the characters in the stories covered in class share fear or lack of will as the

cause for their being paralyzed in their lives. To give an example, Chandler from “A Little

Cloud” wants to break free of his dull life to become a writer and explore the world. However, he

lacks confidence in himself. “Shyness had always held him back,” in all aspects of his life, from reading poetry to his wife to enter...

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...ple no matter what city they are in. But as Joyce shows

us, the possibility is there to break out of the mold; to create a meaningful life from a once dull

existence.

Works Cited

Brendle, Mark. "Paralysis and Epiphany in Dubliners." Web log post. Unabashedly Bookish.

Barnes & Noble, 14 Oct. 2010. Web. 22 Apr. 2012.

Fairhall, James. “Joyce's DUBLINERS.” Explicator 43.2 (1985): 28. Academic Search Premier.

Web. 22 Apr. 2012.

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. New York, B.W. Huebsch, 1922. Print.

Joyce, James. Dubliners. Ed. Margot Norris. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print.

Joyce, James. Letters of James Joyce. Ed. Stuart Gilbert. New York: Viking, 1957. Print.

Rice, Thomas Jackson. "Paradigm Lost: `Grace' And The Arrangement Of Dubliners." Studies In

Short Fiction 32.3 (1995): 405. Academic Search Premier. Web. 22 Apr. 2012.