Dubliners (James Joyce) Riassunto + Analisi, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Dubliners (James Joyce) Riassunto + Analisi e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE DUBLINERS By James Joyce Biography Born in 1882, he was the eldest of 10 children. His father was a singer and an alcoholic, they had economic problems. He was educated by Jesuits and enrolled at University College in Dublin, where he gained a Bachelor of Arts degree. Political and literary movements which had as their objective the freeing of Ireland from English dominance held very little attraction for him. He thought of himself as a European rather than an Irishman. His attitude contrasted greatly with that of his contemporary W. B. Yeats, who was trying to rediscover the Irish Celtic identity by referring back to the past in order to create a national conscience. Joyce believed that the only way to increase Ireland’s condition was by offering a realistic portrait of its life from a European viewpoint. He established himself on the Continent and spent some time in Paris but his mother’s death brought him back to Dublin. It was in this period that he began to seriously imagine his future career as a writer and published his first story, “The Sisters”. The following year he met Nora Barnacle, who would become his lifelong companion. 1904 he left Ireland with her and they traveled together to Europe, where he taught languages in Yugoslavia and then in Trieste. In 1906 Joyce moved to Rome, where he worked in a bank. In 1909 Joyce visited Ireland, he also signed a contract for the publication of Dubliners. In 1912 he visited Ireland again but the book would not be published until two years later, in London. The Joyces moved in 1915 to Switzerland. In 1918, his poorly received play, Exiles, was published in London. It was also that year that chapters from Ulysses, his novel-in-progress, began to appear. In 1933, a New York judge ruled that Ulysses was not pornographic; until that time, it had been banned in the United States as obscene. Joyce died at the age of 59 on January 13, 1941, in Zurich, where he was buried. City of Dublin Joyce describes Dublin as a city in decline. At the beginning of the century it was a bustling city, but later in that century Dublin was outstripped by Belfast. The power was in the hands of a protestant minority. Joyce describes the lower class and middle class, he sees paralysis almost everywhere in Dublin. It had few industries. Ireland could not communicate to other countries, also because of his collocation. It became an undefined city. His effort was to give a realistic portrait of the life of ordinary people. He portrayed ordinary Dubliners. - The Easter Rising in Ireland: in 1914 Home Rule had been suspended until the end of the war. In 1916 a group of rebellious people belonging to the Irish Nationalistic Party rebelled and occupied the general Post Office on Easter morning. The rebellion was crashed, the British army overreacted and made the Irish feel persecuted. That’s why they started supporting all nationalistic groups (such as the Republican Party Sinn Féin) and the Irish Republican Army. - Irish Celtic Revival: in that period irish people started to go back to their Celtic past and wanted to look for their Celtic roots. People idealised Ireland, Joyce’s realistic attitude prevented him from idealising his country. Plot Dubliners consists of 25 short stories. They all lack action, but they disclose human situations and moments of intensity, and lead to a moral, social or spiritual revelation. The opening stories deal with childhood and youth in Dublin, the others concern the middle years of characters and their social, political or religious affairs. Joyce was hostile to city life, finding that it degraded its citizens. In fact, his Dublin is a place where cruelty and selfishness lie below the surface. The stories are arranged into four groups. He wanted to write a chapter of the moral history of his country and he tried to present it under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. The last story, The Dead, was a late addition and can be considered Joyce’s first masterpiece. It summarises themes and motifs of the other 14 stories of the collection, but it functions more as an epilogue. It also anticipates Joyce’s move away from the short story toward the novel. Characters It was the effects of religious, political, cultural and economic forces on the lives of lower-middle- class Dubliners that provided Joyce with material for a realistic picture of Dubliners as afflicted people. Everyone in Dublin seems to be caught up in an endless web of despair. Even when they want to escape they are unable to because they are spiritually weak. The young woman in Eveline is a perfect example: instead of choosing a new life in Buenos Aires, she decides to stay in Dublin. Realism and Symbolism The description in each story is realistic and extremely concise, with an abundance of details, even the most depressing and disturbing ones. The use of realism is mixed with symbolism. The name of certain objects is carefully chosen. For example, in “Eveline”, the choice of term ‘street organ’, which is also called ‘harmonium’, takes on a symbolic meaning. It points out the general disharmony of Eveline’s family. Religious symbolism can also be found. Even colour symbolism is widely employed in the collection: brown, grey and yellow frequently suggest the atmosphere of despair and paralysis. Themes - Escape: the characters in Dubliners may be citizens of the Irish capital, but many of them long for escape and adventure in other countries. They often do not escape because they are spiritually weak. More often than offering a literal escape from a physical place, the stories tell of opportunities to escape from smaller, more personal restraints. - Prison of routine (linked to paralysis): 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. - Social class: social mobility is not possible, the rigid rules of society make it impossible for people. Poverty is one of the most pervasive themes of the novel. Dublin's poor economy is also the reason why characters must fret about keeping even miserable jobs. - Identity: the characters have problems with understanding who they are. Because of paralysis they always remain where they are and they are unable to change things. - Isolation: the Dubliners has some profoundly lonely characters in it, but the theme of isolation does not end there. Isolation is not only a matter of living alone. Failed communication is common throughout the stories. The Dubliners spend a lot of time in their own minds, trying to figure things out for themselves, even when they're in a room full of people. Symbols - Windows: windows in Dubliners consistently evoke the anticipation of events or encounters that are about to happen. Windows also mark the threshold between domestic space and the outside world. - Dusk and Nighttime: Joyce’s Dublin is perpetually dark. No streams of sunlight or cheery landscapes illuminate these stories. Instead, a spectrum of grey and black underscores their somber tone. Characters walk through Dublin at dusk. These dark backdrops evoke the half-life or in- between state the characters in Dubliners occupy, both physically and emotionally. It is a symbol of paralysis. - Food and drinking: nearly all of the characters in Dubliners eat or drink, and in most cases food serves as a reminder of both the threatening dullness of routine and the joys and difficulties of togetherness. Drinking can represent an occasion for forming social bonds. In contrast, drinking can also be deeply destructive: sometimes Joyce focuses on the short-term consequences of a night of excessive drinking, while other times on the effect of a longer-lasting addiction.