Dubliners, capitoli più importanti, Sbobinature di Inglese

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DUBLINERS is a masterpiece of modern international literature published in 1914 (it was already ready but wasn't published before because of concern of frenk sexual contents). it’s Joyce’s first major work of fiction of 15 stories Why is it important? because it shows us how Joyce later on would go on to write innovative and complex tests; got his start writing with conventional prose; it portraits the middle and working class in Ireland during a complicated period (“Irish question”, it was a colonial period) + irish citizens were looking for a unique irish identity setting - the dublin he knew and described was a city in declined and in the beginning of the 1800 dublin was the second city of GB and one of the ten largest cities in europe (w/charming architecture), but later in the century Belfast had surpassed dublin as a great city of ireland and its economy was in shambles → it’s no surprise that the protagonists dwells on their poverty (financial and moral) and stagnation = paralysis paralysis is in every detail of the Dublin environment and people’s attitude. reason: he was deeply critical to irish provinciality, catholic church and politic. dublin digs in this theme and explores how need and social entrapment unfavorably influence each character. the 15 stories are arranged in 4 groups 1. childhood (the sisters, araby) 2. adolescence (eveline, boarding house) 3. adulthood (a little cloud, a painful case) 4. public life (a mother, the death) what holds on the stories is the structure, the presence of the same symbols and narrative technique and the same theme themes particular technique - the description is realistic from a geographical point of view, it employs symbolism because external details have a deeper meaning + to take the reader beyond the usual aspects he employed in peculiar technique → epiphany (the key to the story itself) = a sudden spiritual revelation in which details, gestures, feelings, external objects and a trivial situation come together to produce a sudden awareness of his conditions theme - pervasive = paralysis (physical, from extern and moral) usually deriving from religion, culture, politic. all characters are spiritually weak, slaves to their familiar moral cultural religion and political life = pervasive atmosphere in which they move and act. The Prison of Routine : Restrictive routines and the repetitive, mundane details of everyday life mark the lives of Joyce’s Dubliners and trap them in circles of frustration, restraint, and violence. Routine affects characters who face difficult predicaments, but it also affects characters who have little open conflict in their lives. In “Araby,” a young boy wants to go to the bazaar to buy a gift for the girl he loves, but he is late because his uncle becomes mired in the routine of his workday. In “A Painful Case” Mr. Duffy’s obsession with his predictable life costs him a golden chance at love. Eveline, in the story that shares her name, gives up her chance at love by choosing her familiar life over an unknown adventure, even though her familiar routines are tinged with sadness and abuse. The circularity of these Dubliners’ lives effectively traps them, preventing them from being receptive to new experiences and happiness. The Desire for Escape : The characters in Dubliners may be citizens of the Irish capital, but many of them long for escape and adventure in other countries. Such longings, however, are never actually realized by the stories’ protagonists. Eveline’s hopes for a new life in Argentina dissolve on the docks of the city’s river. Little Chandler enviously fantasizes about the London press job of his old friend and his travels to liberal cities like Paris, but the shame he feels about such desires stops him from taking action to pursue similar goals. More often than offering a literal escape from a physical place, the stories tell of opportunities to escape from smaller, more personal restraints. Eveline, for example, seeks release from domestic duties through marriage. Mr. Doran wishes to escape marrying Polly in “A Boarding House,” but he knows he must relent. The impulse to escape from unhappy situations defines Joyce’s Dubliners, as does the inability to actually undertake the process. The Intersection of Life and Death : Dubliners opens with “The Sisters,” which explores death and the process of remembering the dead, and closes with “The Dead,” which invokes the quiet calm of snow that covers both the dead and the living. These stories bookend the collection and emphasize its consistent focus on the meeting point between life and death. Encounters between the newly dead and the living, such as in “The Sisters” and “A Painful Case,” explicitly explore this meeting point, showing what kind of aftershocks a death can have for the living. Mr. Duffy, for example, reevaluates his life after learning about Mrs. Sinico’s death in “A Painful Case,” while the narrator of “The Sisters” doesn’t know what to feel upon the death of the priest. In other stories, including “Eveline,” “Ivy Day in the Committee Room,” and “The Dead,” memories of the dead haunt the living and color every action. The monotony of Dublin life leads Dubliners to live in a suspended state between life and death, in which each person has a pulse but is incapable of profound, life-sustaining action. Drunkenness : Of all the stumbling blocks in the way of Irish progress, drunkenness is at the forefront of Dubliners. In “Eveline,” the unhappy protagonist is too paralyzed by a sense of responsibility to her abusive, drunk father to seek happiness with her love to Argentina. In “A Boarding House,” Mrs. Mooney’s husband drinks and gambles away her father’s business in just a handful of years, forcing her to get a separation and open her own boarding house. In the story, she manipulates a moderately successful customer into marrying her daughter, prompting readers to consider not only the material, but also the moral sacrifices women had to make to win stability. In this way, drunkenness illuminates the multifaceted, deeply personal pressures of poverty. Ambition : Every Dubliner is marked by a desire for more, and every Dubliner’s ambition is frustrated either by a lack of opportunity, the strength of their personal vices, or some combination thereof. In “A Boarding House,” Mrs. Mooney’s sensible desires for financial security are thwarted by her husband’s drunken recklessness and her limited opportunities as a woman. For Little Chandler in “A Little Cloud,” the only thing standing in the way of his literary aspirations is his own timidity. The content of the characters’ ambitions is naturally varied, but every dream deferred or unfulfilled is linked to the state of Ireland as a small Western island with a precarious political future. Even those who are comfortably middle or upper class, such as Mrs. Kearney in “A Mother,” have internalized the idea that to be Irish is a kind of inherent poverty, and therefore seek validation from the United Kingdom and Continental Europe, often to their detriment. In this way, the ambition of the Dubliners mirrors the ambitions of 20th-century Ireland, which was torn between seeking independence from the UK and desperately needing its resources. All Dubliners, like the nation they call home, are caught between the immediate demands of living and their long-term ambitions. Due to Ireland’s specific cultural vices, particularly drunkenness, religious stagnancy, and class stratification, Dubliners are often paralyzed by their inability to reconcile the two. Insularity : Ireland is an island, making it an excellent symbol for isolation and a lack of interest in outside cultures and ideas. Throughout Dubliners, more ambitious characters bemoan Ireland’s status as being cut off from the rest of the world. In “A Mother,” Mrs. Kearney promotes her daughter’s talent as a celebration of Irish culture, and yet she treats the process and its organizers as if they are beneath her, consistently seeking the approval of the foreign artists. In “A Painful Case,” Mr. Duffy believes that the concerns of the Irish middle class are too narrowed and pedestrian. He refuses to publish on the grounds of Ireland’s insularity, and yet his stunted relationship with Mrs. Sinico reveals that he, too, is fearful of anything outside his routine and comfort zone, and his lack of self-awareness gives the story its great, tragic irony. moral center - revelation pf paralysis to them = epiphany = climax relationship with the girl will also as well remain a wishful idea and that his infatuation was as misguided as his fantasies about the bazaar. what might have been a happy story of love because a tragic story of defeat. The narrator's failure at the bazaar suggests that: fulfillment and happiness remain foreign to dubliners even in the most unusual event of the city like an annual bazaar. the tiviou event that delay his trip indicate that there are no chances for love in the dubliners daily life and the lack of love makes the character almost anonymous (=without any personality) boy - illustrates the joy of young love. The “Araby” narrator’s experience of love moves him from placid youth to elation to frustrated loneliness as he explores the threshold between childhood and adulthood. he yearns to experience new places and things, but he is also like Eveline and other adult characters who grapple with the conflict between everyday life and the promise of love. He wants to see himself as an adult, so he dismisses his distracting schoolwork as “child’s play” and expresses his intense emotions in dramatic, romantic gestures. However, his inability to actively pursue what he desires traps him in a child’s world. His dilemma suggests the hope of youth stymied by the unavoidable realities of Dublin life. The “Araby” narrator is the last of the first-person narrators in Dubliners, all of whom are young boys. the girl - mentions the bazaar to the narrator prompting him to travel there, she suggests the familiarity of dublin as well as the hope for love and the exotic appeal of new places + the story presents the boy frustration as universal because he is nameless like the girl, the story closes with the narrator imaging himself as a creature, so we can say that here joyce suggests that everyone experiences frustrated desire for love and new experiences. EVELINE The title refers to the protagonist, a young woman from a poor family and she can be compared to the boy in araby. summary: considering the beginning, starts with eveline sitting at the window and her mind flows toward past and actual life. (new red houses, while she lives in brown houses_deteriorated, old). In the end she thinks of her fiancee Frank and she is charmed by his generosity. In the first paragraph we can observe the miss of chronological order, the feelings are not presented in the logical sequence because there is neither time nor plot in her reflections → stream of consciousness (early stage) . eveline is in the center of a struggle between the nostalgia of her everyday life, family, roots… and the hope for a better life with frank in buenos aires, this story belongs to the group of adolescence; the character highlights a step to adulthood, which is one of the favorite themes of joyce. she is a common girl and she sums up all the feature that joyce wanted to tribute to the dubliners that is: the lack of enterprise (mancanza di intraprendenza perché vive con un ubriacone violento, ha pochi soldi per la famiglia, lavora in un negozio dove è verbalmente abusata..but frank wants to take her away but she doesn't take action in the end, she is paralysed both physically and mentally) and the sense of resignation (si rassegna, her lack of enterprise brings her to the final resignation) in fact evelins fear prevail and in the end she will not join frank in his journey. her inner conflict is in everyone personal life. The protagonist, who has been burdened with her siblings and father who mistreats her, works hard in the shop, and she is very poor but a marriage with Frank promises a way out to her. in fact eveline makes a bold and excited decision to elope argentina with her lover but ultimately she shrinks away from it, excluding herself from love. Her constant review of the pros and cons of her decision show a willingness to please anyone but herself and her final resolve to stay in Dublin with her family costs her as a woman drust in domestic and familiar duties and afraid to embrace the unpredictable. analysis: the story illustrates the pitfalls of holding on to the past when facing the future, her is the 1st portrait of a female in Dublin and it reflects the conflicting attraction felt between a domestic life routed in the past and the possibility of a new married life abroad + her story reflects an aspect of also the situation irish women had to face: one moment she feels happy to leave her hard life, yet the next moment she worries about fulfilling promises made to her mother (she can’t let herself go of those family relationships despite her father’s cruelty and her brother’s absence) she climbs to the older and more pleasant memories (she tries to forget the harshness of her present life). and she imagines what other people want her to do. one moment she sees Frank as a rescuer saving her from her domestic situation, but then she suspends herself between the call of home and the past and the call of new experiences and the future, unable to make a decision. epiphany: the fetch of repeating her mothers life convinces her she must leave with frank and embark on a new phase in life but this decision is short-lived; in fact she hears a street organ and when she remembers the street organ that played on the night before her mother’s death eveline experiences an epiphany and remembering her mothers death she resolves not to repeat her mothers life of “commonplace sacrifices….craziness” but she does exactly that. Like the young boy in Araby, she desires for escape but her dependance on routine and repetition overrides such impulses; on the dox with Frank away from the familiarity of home, she seeks for guidance in the routine habit of prayer. Her action is the first sign that she hasn’t made a decision. paralysis: her paralysis within a lot of repetition leaves her a helpless animal, deprived of human will and emotions. The story doesn’t suggest she returns home and continues her life but shows her transformation into an automaton. She will hesitate in mindless repetition on her own in Dublin as on the dox with Frank the possibility of living a fully realised life left her . Another theme is ESCAPE: while the young narrators are too young to leave Ireland or to do anything because of their poverty, she has been given a chance. Yet in the end she finds herself incapable of going, she can’t escape her life of solitude, she finds herself unable to move forward, she lacks the courage to free herself of her oppressive situation, too scared to leave ireland; she sees Frank as a source of change. her paralysis will cost her : instead of an uncertain future she faces a certain ? technique: joyce adopts, to represent his characters thoughts is just limited at but will become the most complete experiment in the novel of the stream of consciousness’ method which tries to represent the natural disordered stream of thoughts as they come in the individuals’ mind. punctuation means order so its absence means a lack of mental order. stylistic technique: the interior monologue is a literary technique by which thoughts and emotions are represented. joyce by adopting this technique was able to penetrate in the consciousness of the characters and express their feelings comparison: Frank and Megan represent ? both eveline and the boy wish for change, it is not until they reach an epiphany -> falls hope and they will live forever a life of solitude and depression. eveline : Torn between two extreme options—unhappy domesticity or a dramatic escape to Argentina for marriage—Eveline has no possibility of a moderately content life. Her dilemma does not illustrate indecisiveness but rather the lack of options for someone in her position. On the docks, when she must make a choice once and for all, Eveline remembers her promise to her mother to keep the family together. So close to escape, Eveline revises her view of her life at home, remembering the small kindnesses: her father’s caring for her when she was sick, a family picnic before her mother died. These memories overshadow the reality of her abusive father and deadening job, and her sudden certainty comes as an epiphany—she must remain with what is familiar. When faced with the clear choice between happiness and unhappiness, Eveline chooses unhappiness, which frightens her less than her intense emotions for Frank. Eveline’s nagging sense of family duty stems from her fear of love and an unknown life abroad, and her decision to stay in Dublin renders her as just another figure in the crowd of Dubliners watching lovers and friends depart the city. Eveline holds an important place in the overall narrative of Dubliners. Her story is the first in the collection that uses third-person narration, the first in the collection to focus on a female protagonist, and the only one in the collection that takes a character’s name as the title. Eveline is also the first central adult character. For all of these reasons, she marks a crucial transition in the collection: Eveline in many ways is just another Dubliner, but she also broadens the perspective of Dubliners. Her story, rather than being limited by the first-person narration of earlier stories, suggests something about the hardships and limitations of women in early twentieth-century Dublin in general. Eveline’s tortured decision about her life also sets a tone of restraint and fear that resonates in many of the later stories. Other female characters in Dubliners explore different harsh conditions of life in Dublin, but Eveline, in facing and rejecting a life-altering decision, remains the most tragic. THE BOARDING HOUSE plot: a man used to come and ask for her so they presume he was married so her mother wants her to work in a boarding house (cleaner), she flirts but none of them seems to be serious. Then she begins an affair with mr doran. Everyone knows, including the mother who waits for the right time before talking to the daughter and to doran. In fact she intervenes, she first confronts Polly who confesses everything. and then she tells polly what she is about to do. She reconfront Doran and tells him he must marry polly. Mr Doran is a man of thirty, he has a good respectable job in a catholic while merchant sistem. he is a church going man with a good job and he could not risk it. His anxiety is described when shaving, which means he’s having difficulties. then the night before when he went to confess. the priest drag out the details of the affair in a bar assign details, he only has two options : marry or run away. he considers everything, the job, his family who will not approve the marriage as polly's father was a scoundrel, he mother boarding house has got a bad reputation, she s vulgar, uneducated. Polly comes in to tell him her mother knows everything, she cries and he comforts her, they remember how their affair began and how thoughtful she has been, thinking they may be happy. Then Mary the servants enter, announcing to him that Mr Mooney wanted to see him, he goes downstairs. Polly cries then rests and refreshes her eyes with some water, lies on the bed, looks at the pillows and dreams of happiness. at last she ears her mothers voice calling her, Mr Doran has something important to tell her. is an open ending but he will repeat as in an endless circle the failure of people who receive him ,he will become as mr mooney's husband. analysis: by this point we may notice a trend in the previous stories . araby , first crush encloses the first set of stories about childhood . eveline , starts a series of stories dealing with various kinds of marriage o and corteggiare. Marriage in eveline presents the possibility o f escape while in this story, marriage is presented as a social convention and a trap, here are light years from the boyish enthusiasm of araby. Here we have the ugly manoeuvring of a woman trying to find a respectful match for her daughter. theme : 1. marriage (promises and profits and entrapment and loss on the other). what begins as a simple affair becomes a tactical game of obligation and reparation . ms mooney’s and doran’s propositions and hesitations suggest that marriage is more about social standards public perception than about near feelings. One of the straining elements is ms mooney's silence, she knew but kept silent, her daughter honour is not a concern, he knows it from the start; what matters to her is exchanging her, pretended outrage to get a social arrangement that will benefit her daughter. 2. powerlessness. conveyed by doran, like in many other characters in dubliners several social pressures such as his job and reputation combine to rob,deprive him of any choice. because the final choice is not a real choice. Joyce in this story omits the confrontation between doran and ms mooney, this confrontation will be useless because the pressures on this man are so strong that the reader operfcelty knows what doran would like to do. 3. love. not even a consideration, and the mooneys, seem to be bothered about the fact that this marriage is based on trickery . ms mooney manipulates the weak doran, using his concern for his job and his fears of escandle, we also infer that jack has some idea of the affair. The final result is a marriage based on bullying and manipulation. the fact that a marriage is deprived of love doesn’t seem to affect her. So security is the key issue, she wants setting : picture of dublin characters : LC, the protagonist. he lives in a little house, drinks small whisky’s and he’s given cohort answers by his wife, unable to act on his desires and he’s dependant in G to provide experiences in fact he both admires and envies G, even when he realises that G refuses his invitation to see his family out of disinterest he keeps this feeling for himself. in G LC sees the hope of esco e and success; this back his fantasies allowing him to dream that G might submit one of his poems to a london paper, to feel superior. At the same time as the reunion at the pub progresses, LC feels cheated by the world, since G can succeed and he can’t. And so once again the friend provides a barometer to measure and judge himself again . left on his own with his books, LC must face his own shortcomings . With the protagonist Joyce hints at the fatalistic character of the irish, LC epiphany starts with him beginning to believe that the key to success lies in leaving Dublin like G did. However, its ending point is simply a regret for everything he has done up to now - G: almost everything LC worries about has its opposite in G which is part of what makes the evening an epic failure. G doesn’t really pay too much attention to LC, surely he’s up for a conversation but he’s most excited when he talks about the sights he has seen, all the morality to which he had been exposed, therefore he really enjoys scandalise LC. in this story, G embodies the person who runs away from dublin to fulfill his desires; he knows and believes that dublin is the ”prison without iron bars” and to satisfy his ego, he goes to london he wants to live an attractive life while LC can’t achieve that. As a representative of the world outside Dublin he is everything that LC wants but as a playboy he gives LC the evidence that leaving Dublin would involve him in a life he couldn’t handle. themes: we can add discontent, frustration, responsibility, resentment, escape, paralysis. The story is told in the third person by an unnamed narrator. From the beginning the reader gets an idea of exactly how discontented LC release. responsibility - in the end. after he had shouted at his son, danny comes home and takes the child from him, it is only after that incident that LC steps back and feels guilty, remorseful A PAINFUL CASE summary: the middle aged and solitary Duffy lives a life in a suburb of dublin. he’s home is small, tidy. Joyce describes the place in some detail (books ordered on the shelves according to bulk, simple and functional pieces of furniture and a well ordered desk). his days are run by a schedule which is always the same, good job, it lance at den mercies leaves work at 4, has dinner at the same restaurant where fashionably people will not bother him and then he spends his evenings either in front of his piano or out to enjoys concert or music at the opera house; not a church ?, no friends, he sees his family only at christmas and funerals. one evening at a concert the woman next to him makes a casual comment about the unfortunate small audience. She has an attractive intelligent face with eyes revealing a sensitive nature. She is there with her daughter, a few weeks later they see each other again then they meet a third time by accident and this time Duffy is bold enough to invite her to meet with him again. So they begin to see each other regularly, always in the evening. Duffy doesn’t like the secrecy of these meetings and insists on seeing her at her home, she is married to Captain Ceenneco who is always travelling on business, however he encourages her meetings and thinks the letter is interested in his daughter as the idea of his wife being attractive and desirable never occurs to him. so they keep on meeting, duffy shares his idea and she open up to him, he lance music and books and they become very close. in the end they spend more and more time tougher, they speak of personal matters and one night she takes his hand passionalità and presses it to his cheek, he is quite shocked, thinks she has misunderstood, he doesn’t see her for a week then asks to meet in a cake shop and then they walk in the park for 3h, they agree they can’t meet again and to put an end to their relationship. life goes on, he avoids concerts for fear of seeing her. finally one night while he is dining out, he reads the paper and sees something which stops him, he reads the pieces again and again, unable to eat, then when home he reads it again, it’s an article about the death of he who was stuck accidentally by a train. she was drunk, her daughter reveals she usually drunks. He is first disgusted by the story, she seems weak and degraded for having fallen into drink, and having died in such an undignified manner. then the memory of her hand touching his hits him and he goes out to a pub where he drinks for a while and struggles with the two images he now has of her: the lonely drunker and the charming lady he became close to, he wonders if he could have done more to her. he thinks of her lonely life and of his which will simply continue until he dies and none may remember him, as he walks in the park, he almost believe she is there with him, it is as if his memory is so strong that he can hear her voice or feel her hand, he feels responsible for her death, one of the only human being who seemed to love him, then hears a train who seems to call her name and stops under a tree but then he can no longer hear her voice or feel her presence, all is silent and he is completely alone. analysis: another story dealing with isolation and about failed or distorted love setting: is finix park which was the supposed location for parts of the tail of tristram and iseult, where legendary for their passion and where too young beautiful, joyce juxtaposes this background to Duffy and Cenn?, middle aged and taking part in an entirely sexless affair. he is completely alone and isolated but he has chosen this life for himself, he is also prudish as we can see in his treatment of MrsC,. she awakens welcome new emotions in him but she makes an intimate gesture, he reacts with surprise and rigidity. she she makes this gesture of affection, this opens the possibility for love and deep feelings and this would mean changing his life which he can’t do because he’s paralysed so he resume his solitary life with some relief. when he reads of her death 4 yrs later he reacts with shock and disgust as he did when she touched his hand so duffy lacks the courage to pursue happiness with her, despite the fact that clearly both the two are dissatisfied with their current situation (bleak gloomy life) + she needs someone to share her feelings with. however she doesn’t realise the extent of his solitude until it is too late. her dramatic death shows a depths of feeling she owned that duffy will never understand or share, and it provides ruddy with an epiphany as he walks home ( in the ep he realises that his concern with order and rectitude shakes her out of his life and that at the same time now excludes him from living fully ) like other characters in the collection wh experience epiphany duffy is not inspired to begin a new phase in his life but instead he bitterly accepts his loneliness = paralysis - the story of her death is the catalyst for duffy’s epiphany, the circumstances aroiund her death suggests that suicide wa a possibility although they said she died because of an accident. the story’s climax, is the protagonist’s epiphany and once her presence leaves him he realises he is alone, that he has been alone all along and he will always be. settings: the story concludes where it began, with duffy alone, this narrative circle mimics the many routines of his life and denies him through companionship in the opposite of solitude. colors: black, white and a little red - they are limited and in the descriptions walls are bare in the house, therefore disorder, spontaneity and passion are unwelcome. As such the house serves as a microcosm of his soul, his regulatory impulses make each day the same as the next. In life, Ms C changed his routine and she warmed his cold heart. however does she succeed in revealing his circle of solitude to him. The tragedy of this story is threefold (1. Mr Duffy must face a dramatic death before he can rethink his lifestyle and outlook. 2. acknowledging the problems in his lifestyle makes him realise his sin, that is Ms C died of a broken heart that he caused 3. most tragic one: duffy won’t change the life he has created for himself, he is paralysed, despite his revelations and his guilt) A MOTHER belongs to the public life group. summary: for a month Mr H has walked up and down dublin making the necessary arrangements for a series of concerts but in the end it was the insistent Ms K who arranged everything. Ms K: she was educated in a high class convent, she was a difficult stubborn human with few friends. When she was being courted she was very icy and very selective that no boy seemed to please her, but when people began to talk about her personality she married Mr K, an older man and a bookmaker. Mr K is a good provider, he takes care of the family, the daughter gets an excellent education and learns to play music. When a renewed interest in Irish arts and artists kicks in, ms K tries to promote her daughters’ musical career. Mr H, the secretary of the eire abu society asks her if Kateline would be the piano accompanist for 4 concerts. a contract was drawn up in which it was agreed that K)daughter) would be paid 8 guineas for playing . Ms K took an active role in planning, putting together the program, being helpful and friendly to H. She also buys expensive clothes for K to wear during the concerts. The 4 concerts were planned from Wednesday to Saturday included. wednesday: the two K arrived 20’ earlier and the place is nearly empty, backstage they meet Mr F, and he is not concerned about the little audience. The show starts. ms K enquiries what’s wrong with the concert and H replies that planning 4 concerts may have been a mistake. Ms K criticises the artists and keeps on complaining, she is angry for having gone through so much trouble + the expensive for her daughter's clothes. on thursday night there are more people but just because most of them have been given free tickets, so the society decides to cancel the friday concert and push heavily for saturday . Ms K keeps on reminding H of the contract, she insists on K being paid for 4 concerts even though one has been canceled. H and F assure her they will bring the matter before the committee. Ms K is upset and asks her husband to go with her to the saturday concert: backstage the artists are nervous, there is also a journalist, the audience is expecting the show to begin but Ms K informs H that K won’t play without the money. H tries to appeal to the mother and the daughter but in vain. then H and F give her half of the money promising the other half later. ms K is about to fight back but K goes out with the first performer. The first part goes well apart from the delay, but backstage everyone has divided into 2 camps: the secretaries , the journalist and the artists are upset and scandalised with Ms K, in the other corner, the Kfamily supports her who criticise the treatment K has received. ms H wishes she joined the other group but can’t because K is her good friend (loyalty). During the break the 2 secretaries tell Ms K that the rest of the money will be paid the next week , on Tuesday and if K doesn’t play, the contract will be considered broken and she will receive no money at all. Ms K does not change her mind, she wants the money on the spot or her daughter won’t play. harsh words are exchanged Ms Kis so irritating that everyone sights with the committee. ms Healey consents to play on K place, the second part starts and the Ks decide to go home. The story ends with H’s words who coldly says that K will not play anymore in dublin. analisys: this story is another biting portrait not only of ms K but also of the artistic scene in dublin. c’è il pensiero di joyce riguardo la scena artistica di dublino. > joyce was often critical of some of the beneficiaries of the “irish revival”, he didn’t support the movement to restore the gailic language in place of english. besides he is mocking of the provinciality of the revival and is pointing out that the mix of nationalism and art doesn’t always have good aesthetic results. actually the artist at the show are nervous provincial lot > the main tenor is jealous of the other, each of the artist has a list of unimpressive goals achieved, quite a few of them are pity, then the audience doesn’t demand much either, the surest way to please the listeners is to sing something patriotic and the small size of the audience says much about the supposed revival of irish arts. themes: poverty ( also spiritual ) - we can see how poverty and a certain stubborn pride create an unfortunate combination so the mother helps with the planning, buys expensive clothes. it’s her disappointed expectation that drives her to demand stubbornly the promises 8 guineas. > appearance is important to ms K because she wants to excel, she was educated in a high class convent, is a kind of stuck up middle class woman. characters: ms K - the protagonist, she has a practical but inflexible approach to life but while she gets what she wants most all of the time, here in the end, she only increases her own anger. personality - married someone just to be married, when the secretaries provide only half of the fee, she embarrasses her daughter and ruins her career by swiping her out of the concert hall and irritating everyone. she is not concerned with a trifling amount of money but her rights and her respect that why