Dubliners racconti e analisi, Dispense di Inglese

Scarica Dubliners racconti e analisi e più Dispense in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! DUBLINERS The sisters A young boy reflects on the impending death of his friend Father Flynn. Knowing that after three strokes the paralyzed priest has little time left, the boy makes a habit of walking past Father Flynn’s house, looking for the light of the traditional two candles placed on a coffin that would indicate his death. Each time, the boy thinks of the word paralysis. One night at his aunt and uncle’s house, the boy arrives at supper to find his uncle and Old Cotter, a family friend, sitting before the fire. Old Cotter has come to the house to share the news that Father Flynn is dead. Knowing that everyone waits for his reaction, the boy remains quiet. While the aunt shuffles food to and from the table, a conversation ensues between the uncle and Old Cotter, and the uncle notes the high hopes Father Flynn had for the boy. He hints that Father Flynn planned to prepare the boy for the priesthood and remarks on the friendship between them. Old Cotter, however, thinks of Father Flynn as a “peculiar case” and insists that young boys should play with people their own age. While the uncle agrees with Old Cotter, the aunt is disturbed that anyone could think critically of Father Flynn. She asks Old Cotter to clarify his point, but Old Cotter trails off and the conversation ends. That night, Old Cotter’s comments keep the boy awake, and he dreams of Father Flynn smiling and confessing something to him. The next morning the boy visits Father Flynn’s house, where a bouquet of flowers and a card hang from the door handle. Instead of knocking, he walks away and reminisces about the time he spent there. He used to bring Father Flynn snuffing tobacco from his aunt, and Father Flynn would teach him things, such as Latin pronunciation and the parts of the Mass. Remembering Old Cotter’s cryptic comments, the boy then tries to recall more of his dream from the night before, but he can remember only a Persian setting —he cannot remember the end. That evening the boy visits the house with his aunt, and they kneel at Father Flynn’s open coffin with one of Father Flynn’s sisters, Nannie, to pray. Afterward, the three retire to another room to join Eliza, Father Flynn’s other sister. Over sherry and crackers they discuss Father Flynn’s death, his taxing career as a priest, and the helpful services of Father O’Rourke, another priest who anointed Father Flynn and completed all of the necessary paperwork and death notices. All the while the boy remains quiet. The story ends with Eliza’s recollection of Father Flynn’s increasingly odd behavior, which started with dropping a chalice during Mass. When one night Father O’Rourke and another priest found Father Flynn shut in a confessional box, laughing to himself, they finally realized he was sick. Analysis In “The Sisters,” and in the rest of the stories in Dubliners, strange and puzzling events occur that remain unexplained. Father Flynn suffers from paralyzing strokes and eventually dies, but his deterioration, epitomized by his laughing frenzy in a confessional box, also hints that he was mentally unstable. The reader never learns exactly what was wrong with him. Similarly, Father Flynn and the young narrator had a relationship that Old Cotter thinks was unhealthy, but that the narrator paints as spiritual when he recounts the discussions he and Father Flynn had about Church rituals. However, the narrator also has strange dreams about Father Flynn and admits to feeling uncomfortable around him. Joyce presents just enough information so that the reader suspects Father Flynn is a malevolent figure, but never enough so that the reader knows the full story. Such a technique is hinted at in the first paragraph of the story. The narrator thinks of the word paralysis when looking at Father Flynn’s window and says the word sounds strange, like the word gnomon, a term that generally refers to instruments, like the hand on a sundial, that indicate something. Joyce does exactly that: He points to details and suggestions, but never completes the puzzle. The physical presence of Father Flynn lingers throughout the story, coloring the narrator’s experience of dealing with death in life and showing how a death interrupts normal human activities. Father Flynn plays a fleshly role in the story. His approaching death makes the narrator think of the corpse, which he eventually sees. When Father Flynn dies, the narrator continues to think of his physical presence, particularly the lurid way in which his tongue rested on his lip, and dreams of his face. Such bizarre physical images evoke the awkward nature of death. Like the episodes of Father Flynn’s odd behavior that the sisters recount, the narrator’s memories give Father Flynn a haunting presence that is fearful and mysterious, not beautiful and neat. In the final scene with the sisters, eating, drinking, and talking become difficult since death frames those activities. After viewing the corpse, the narrator declines the crackers offered because he fears that eating them would make too much noise, as if he might disturb Father Flynn in his coffin. Similarly, the narrator’s aunt is unable to broach the subject of death. She asks questions about how Father Flynn died, but her thoughts trail off. Father Flynn may be dead, but in many ways he is still very present among the living. The inability of the narrator and his aunt to eat and speak during their visit to the sisters recalls the sense of paralysis that the narrator connects to the dying Father Flynn in the story’s opening paragraph. This link between paralysis or inaction to both death and religion underpins all the stories in Dubliners. Characters face events that paralyze them from taking action or fulfilling their desires, as though they experience a kind of death in life. In “The Sisters,” such paralysis is connected to religion through Father Flynn. Father Flynn’s dropping of the chalice and his inability to grasp the same object in his coffin suggest that the rituals of religion lead to paralysis. His sisters also attribute his demise to the strains of clerical life. The crippling quality of religion resurfaces in other stories like “Grace,” in which Joyce more directly questions the role of the Church in the lives of Dubliners. This story opens with an image of a Dubliner gazing through a window and reflecting on a dilemma. Such a symbol appears throughout the collection, and here it is particularly important because it draws attention to the narrative point of view. “The Sisters” is the first of three stories in the collection told in first-person point of view. As in the other two stories, “An Encounter” and “Araby,” the narrator never divulges his name and rarely participates in the conversations. The opening image of the window in the first paragraph reinforces this sense of quiet, detached observation, which the narrators of the later stories adopt. Through this narrative technique Joyce suggests that even first-hand experience is in some ways voyeuristic, and that it’s possible for a person to observe his or her own life from the outside. Araby The narrator, an unnamed boy, describes the North Dublin street on which his house is located. He thinks about the priest who died in the house before his family moved in and the games that he and his friends played in the street. He recalls how they would run through the back lanes of the houses and hide in the shadows when they reached the street again, hoping to avoid people in the neighborhood, particularly the boy’s uncle or the sister of his friend Mangan. The sister often comes to the front of their house to call the brother, a moment that the narrator savors. Every day begins for this narrator with such glimpses of Mangan’s sister. He places himself in the front room of his house so he can see her leave her house, and then he rushes out to walk behind her quietly until finally passing her. The narrator and Mangan’s sister talk little, but she is always in his thoughts. He thinks about her when he accompanies his aunt to do food shopping on Saturday evening in the busy marketplace and when he sits in the back room of his house alone. The narrator’s infatuation is so intense that he fears he will never gather the courage to speak with the girl and express his feelings. One morning, Mangan’s sister asks the narrator if he plans to go to Araby, a Dublin bazaar. She notes that she cannot attend, as she has already committed to attend a retreat with her school. Having recovered from the shock of the conversation, the narrator offers to bring her something from the bazaar. This brief meeting launches the narrator into a period of eager, restless waiting and fidgety tension in anticipation of the bazaar. He cannot focus in school. He finds the lessons tedious, and they distract him from thinking about Mangan’s sister. On the morning of the bazaar the narrator reminds his uncle that he plans to attend the event so that the uncle will return home early and provide train fare. Yet dinner passes and a guest visits, but the uncle does not return. The narrator impatiently endures the time passing, until at 9p.m. the uncle finally returns, unbothered that he has forgotten about the narrator’s plans. Reciting the epigram “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” the uncle gives the narrator the money and asks him if he knows the poem “The Arab’s Farewell to his Steed.” The narrator leaves just as his uncle begins to recite the lines, and, thanks to eternally slow trains, arrives at the bazaar just before 10p.m., when it is starting to close down. He approaches one stall that is still open, but buys nothing, feeling unwanted by the woman watching over the goods. With no purchase for Mangan’s sister, the narrator stands angrily in the deserted bazaar as the lights go out. Analysis In “Araby,” the allure of new love and distant places mingles with the familiarity of everyday drudgery, with frustrating consequences. Mangan’s sister embodies this mingling, since she is part of the familiar surroundings of the narrator’s street as well as the exotic promise of the bazaar. She is a “brown figure” who both reflects the brown façades of the buildings that line the street and evokes the skin color of romanticized images of Arabia that flood the narrator’s head. Like the bazaar that offers experiences that differ from everyday Dublin, Mangan’s sister intoxicates the narrator with new feelings of joy and elation. His love for her, however, must compete with the dullness of schoolwork, his uncle’s lateness, and the Dublin trains. Though he promises Mangan’s sister that he will go to Araby and purchase a gift for her, these mundane realities undermine his plans and ultimately thwart his desires. The narrator arrives at the bazaar only to encounter flowered teacups and English accents, not the freedom of the enchanting East. As the bazaar closes down, he realizes that Mangan’s sister will fail his expectations as well, and that his desire for her is actually only a vain wish for change. The narrator’s change of heart concludes the story on a moment of epiphany, but not a positive one. Instead of reaffirming his love or realizing that he does not need gifts to express his feelings for Mangan’s sister, the narrator simply gives up. He seems to interpret his arrival at the bazaar as it fades into darkness as a sign that his relationship with Mangan’s sister will also remain just a wishful idea and that his infatuation was as misguided as his fantasies about the bazaar. What might have been a story of happy, youthful love becomes a tragic story of defeat. Much like the disturbing, unfulfilling adventure in “An Encounter,” the narrator’s Clay Maria, a maid at a Protestant charity that houses troubled women, proudly reviews her preparation for Halloween festivities at her workplace. Running through the evening’s schedule, she also looks forward to her celebrations for later in the night with the family of a friend, Joe Donnelly. Maria nursed Joe and his brother, Alphy, when they were young, and both of them helped Maria get her present job. Though Maria was at first uncomfortable with the Protestant association of the charity, she has grown to accept it and is warmly loved by the staff and residents. The time for festivities arrives, and Maria distributes the seasonal spiced bread, called barmbrack, and tea. One of the women raises a toast to Maria. Afterwards, Maria prepares for her journey to Joe’s home, admiring her appearance in the mirror before leaving her room. On her way to Joe’s, Maria does some shopping. Moving through the crowded streets, she visits two shops to buy cakes for the children and a special plum cake for Joe and his wife. She boards a crowded tram and sits next to a “colonel-looking gentleman” who kindly makes room for her. They chat casually during the ride, and at Maria’s stop they cordially say goodbye to each other. At Joe’s home, the Donnellys happily greet Maria. She distributes the sweets to the children, but when she goes to present to plum cake to Joe and his wife, she cannot find the package. Maria desperately looks everywhere, with no success. The Donnellys suggest that she probably left it on the tram, which makes Maria think about the man, and she scolds herself for getting distracted by his presence and for ruining her own surprise gift. Joe consoles Maria by telling her stories about his office and offering nuts and wine. The conversation turns to the past, and Maria tries to say good things about Alphy. The brothers have had a falling out, though Joe has named his eldest son after Alphy. Joe grows defensive, and his wife attempts to divert the matter by starting a round of traditional Halloween games. Two girls from the house next door help the children to arrange a table of saucers filled with different objects and lead a blindfolded Maria over to them. Maria touches the saucer with a mound of wet clay on it, which in games of this sort represents early death. Joe’s wife reproves the visiting girls, as though clay should not be an option given its bad omen. Maria reaches again and touches a prayer book, forecasting a pious life in a convent. The festivities continue happily until Joe asks Maria to sing for the family. With Mrs. Donnelly at the piano, Maria timidly sings “I Dreamt that I Dwelt,” a popular opera aria written by an Irish nineteenth-century composer. Maria sings the first stanza twice, but no one points out her mistake. Joe is visibly moved to tears and, to cover up his reaction, asks his wife where the corkscrew is. Analysis Unlike the female protagonists in earlier stories, Maria does not confront decisions and situations with large consequences, but rather those whose consequences seem small or even nonexistent. Nothing much seems to happen in this story, and its inaction stands out even more since it follows the violent “Counterparts” in the collection. Maria illustrates the quiet life of a single maid, whose spotless reputation as “a veritable peace-maker” attests to her placid lifestyle. The excitement with which the Donnelly family greets her shows that outside of work she is equally loved. Maria is a small, gentle woman whose continuous laughter brings the tip of her nose to touch her chin—as though she loses herself in her joy. However, the events in “Clay,” though quiet, are far from innocuous. Even Maria, with her serene life, harbors unhappiness and frustration, and instead of being exempt from the tedium of routine, she is in fact entrenched in it. Maria has such little conflict and so few varied experiences that the smallest details of daily living have become the focus of her energies, and these details deaden her life. For Maria, everything demands organization and precision. She fastidiously supervises the distribution of food portions at the charity, she prides herself on her neat and tidy body, and she repeatedly divides up the minutes she will schedule for traveling and shopping for the evening at Joe’s. Maria intends for her attention to minute details to create order and clarity in her life, but such rigidity actually encourages frustration and emotional reactions that are out of proportion to the situation at hand. When she realizes that she has misplaced the plum cake, she is so furious with herself and her carelessness that she almost cries. Unlike Eveline, who feels numb to the loss of her lover and a potential new life, Maria feels acute emotions over events that are far more trivial. “Clay” demonstrates that Maria’s responses are just as restraining as Eveline’s. Maria most likely focuses intently on life’s small details in order to avoid greater pains. Joe exhibits the same behavior: He covers up his mysterious, tearful reaction to Maria’s song by asking his wife to show him where an ordinary household item is. Preoccupation with such trivial matters helps to repress the more difficult aspects of life. The reader never knows what moves Joe, nor what Maria might feel on deeper levels. The title “Clay” draws attention to Maria’s fateful selection of clay in the Halloween game and applies that symbolism of early death to the story as a whole. Rather than implying a literal death, the clay casts Maria’s uneventful, detail-oriented life as a metaphorical early death. Clay also suggests the state of Maria and her life up to that moment. Like the paralytic Father Flynn from “The Sisters,” Maria hovers in a state between living and dying where engagement with her surroundings cannot move beyond a superficial, material level. Like Farrington in “Counterparts,” she fails to recognize the tedious routine of her days, as her repetition of the song suggests. Maria does not actively shape her experience in significant ways, but instead she allows it to shape her. The image of her face collapsing into itself in laughter implies that Maria in her blind happiness is moldable and soft, like clay. Maria chooses the prayer book after the clay, which suggests she might find escape in the cloistered life of a convent. Whether Maria escapes or not, some part of her will die. She will lose her vibrancy to the dullness of routine, or she will lose the life she knows for one that is unfamiliar. A painful case A predictable, unadventurous bank cashier, Mr. Duffy lives an existence of prudence and organization. He keeps a tidy house, eats at the same restaurants, and makes the same daily commute. Occasionally, Mr. Duffy allows himself an evening out at the opera or a concert, and on one of these evenings he engages in a conversation with another audience member, Mrs. Sinico, a striking woman who sits with her young daughter. Subsequent encounters ensue at other concerts, and on the third occasion Mr. Duffy sets up a time and day to meet purposely with her. Because Mrs. Sinico is married and her husband, a captain of a merchant ship, is constantly away from home, Mr. Duffy feels slightly uncomfortable with the clandestine nature of the relationship. Nevertheless, they continue to meet, always at her home. Their discussions revolve around their similar intellectual interests, including books, political theories, and music, and with each meeting they draw more closely together. Such sharing gradually softens Mr. Duffy’s hard character. However, during one of their meetings, Mrs. Sinico takes Mr. Duffy’s hand and places it on her cheek, which deeply bothers Mr. Duffy. He feels Mrs. Sinico has misinterpreted his acts of companionship as sexual advances. In response, he cuts off the relationship, first by stopping his visits and then by arranging a final meeting at a cake shop in Dublin, deliberately not at Mrs. Sinico’s home. They agree to end the relationship, but Mrs. Sinico’s emotional presence at this meeting suggests she is less willing to say goodbye than is Mr. Duffy. Four years pass. One evening, during his usual dinner in town, Mr. Duffy reads a newspaper article that surprises him enough to halt his eating and hurry home. There, he reads the article, entitled “A Painful Case,” once more. The article recounts the death of Mrs. Sinico, who was hit by a train at a station in Dublin the previous evening. Witness accounts and the coroner’s inquest deem that the death was caused by shock or heart failure, and not injuries from the train itself. The article also explains that Mrs. Sinico was a drinker and had become increasingly detached from her husband over the past two years. The article concludes with the statement that no one is responsible for her death. The news of Mrs. Sinico’s death at first angers but later saddens Mr. Duffy. Perhaps suspecting suicide or weakness in character, he feels disgusted by her death and by his connection to her life. Disturbed, he leaves his home to visit a local pub, where he drinks and remembers his relationship with her. His anger begins to subside, and by the time he leaves to walk home, he feels deep remorse, mainly for ending the relationship and losing the potential for companionship it offered. Upon seeing a pair of lovers in the park by his home, Mr. Duffy realizes that he gave up the only love he’d experienced in life. He feels utterly alone. Analysis Because Mr. Duffy cannot tolerate unpredictability, his relationship with Mrs. Sinico is a disruption to his orderly life that he knows he must eliminate, but which he ultimately fails to control. Mrs. Sinico awakens welcome new emotions in Mr. Duffy, but when she makes an intimate gesture he reacts with surprise and rigidity. Though all along he spoke of the impossibility of sharing one’s self and the inevitability of loneliness, Mrs. Sinico’s gesture suggests that another truth exists, and this truth frightens Mr. Duffy. Accepting Mrs. Sinico’s offered truth, which opens the possibility for love and deep feeling, would mean changing his life entirely, which Mr. Duffy cannot do. He resumes his solitary life with some relief. When Mr. Duffy reads of Mrs. Sinico’s death four years later, he reacts with shock and disgust, as he did when Mrs. Sinico touched his hand. Mrs. Sinico’s dramatic demise points to a depth of feeling she possessed that Mr. Duffy will never understand or share, and it provides Mr. Duffy with an epiphany as he walks home. He realizes that his concern with order and rectitude shut her out of his life, and that this concern excludes him from living fully. Like other characters in Dubliners who experience epiphanies, Mr. Duffy is not inspired to begin a new phase in his life, but instead he bitterly accepts his loneliness. “A Painful Case” concludes where it begins, with Mr. Duffy alone. This narrative circle mimics the many routines that comprise Mr. Duffy’s life and deny him true companionship. The story opens with a detailed depiction of Mr. Duffy’s unadorned home in a neighborhood he chose for its distance from the hustle and bustle of Dublin. Colors are limited and walls are bare in Mr. Duffy’s house, and disorder, spontaneity, and passion are unwelcome. As such, Mr. Duffy’s house serves as a microcosm of his soul. His regulatory impulses make each day the same as the next. Such deadening repetitiveness ultimately brings Mr. Duffy death in life: the death of someone who once stirred his longings to be with others. In life, Mrs. Sinico invigorated Mr. Duffy’s routine and, through her intimacy, came close to warming his cold heart. Only in death, however, does she succeed in revealing his cycle of solitude to him. The tragedy of this story is threefold. First, Mr. Duffy must face a dramatic death before he can rethink his lifestyle and outlook. Second, acknowledging the problems in his lifestyle makes him realize his culpability: Mrs. Sinico died of a broken heart that he caused. Third, and perhaps most tragic, Mr. Duffy will not change the life he has created for himself. He is paralyzed, despite his revelations and his guilt. Joyce’s choice of symbolic names in “A Painful Case” articulates the story’s somber subject of thwarted love and loneliness. Duffyderives from the Irish word for dark, suggesting the grim, solemn mood in which the story unfolds and Mr. Duffy lives. The suburb in which Mr. Duffy resides, Chapelizod, takes its name from the French, Chapel d’Iseult. Iseult is half of the famed set of lovers, Tristan and Iseult, whose doomed affair ranks as one of the most iconic love stories in literature and music. This name’s appearance in the story as Mr. Duffy’s home neighborhood, which he purposely chose in order to distance himself from Dublin’s hustle and bustle and which is the starting point for his daily routine, connects the unrequited love and death of Mrs. Sinico with Mr. Duffy’s restrained existence. A Mother As the assistant secretary to the Eire Abu, or “Ireland to Victory,” Society, Mr. Holohan tries to organize a series of concerts showcasing local musicians. He finally visits Mrs. Kearney, whose eldest daughter Kathleen has a reputation in Dublin as a talented pianist and exemplary speaker of Irish. Kathleen studies the piano and French in a convent school like Mrs. Kearney did, and she receives tutoring in Irish at the insistence of her mother as well. Mrs. Kearney is not surprised when Mr. Holohan proposes that Kathleen perform as an accompanist in the series, and she advises Mr. Holohan in drawing up a contract to secure a payment of eight guineas for Kathleen’s performance in the four concerts. Given Mr. Holohan’s inexperience in organizing such an event, she also helps him to lay out the program and complete other duties. After her efforts, Mrs. Kearney is disturbed when the concerts turn out to be sub-par for her high standards. The first two concerts are poorly attended, the audience members behave “indecorously,” and many of the artists are mediocre. Mrs. Kearney complains to Mr. Holohan, but neither he nor the head secretary, Mr. Fitzpatrick, appear bothered by the turnout. Nevertheless, the Society’s committee cancels the third concert in hopes that doing so will boost attendance for the final one. This change in plans infuriates Mrs. Kearney, who already has become aggravated by the men’s lax attitudes and what she sees as loose manners. She approaches Mr. Holohan and insists that such a change should not alter the contracted payment, but Mr. Holohan only refers her to Mr. Fitzpatrick, who also dodges her inquiries. On the night of the final concert, Mrs. Kearney, accompanied by her husband and Kathleen, arrives early at the performance hall to meet the men, but neither Mr. Holohan nor Mr. Fitzpatrick has arrived. As the musicians gather and await curtain call, Mrs. Kearney paces in the dressing room until finally she finds Mr. Holohan and, following him to a quiet hallway, pursues the issue of the contract. Again he insists that such matters are not his “business” and that she must consult Mr. Fitzpatrick. Enraged, she returns to the dressing room, where the musicians wait for Kathleen to join them so they can start the performance, for which the audience loudly clamors. Mrs. Kearney detains her daughter, and when Mr. Holohan arrives to query the delay in performance, she announces that Kathleen will not perform unless paid in full. Mr. Holohan departs in haste and returns with Mr. Fitzpatrick, who gives Mrs. Kearney half of the amount, explaining that the remainder will come at the intermission, after Kathleen’s performance. Kathleen plays, during which time the artists and committee members criticize Mrs. Kearney’s aggressive conduct. At the intermission, Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Holohan inform Mrs. Kearney that they will pay her daughter the balance after the committee meeting next week. But Mrs. Kearney angrily bickers with Mr. Holohan and finally whisks away her daughter, leaving the concert hall. Analysis In “A Mother,” Mrs. Kearney’s practical but inflexible approach to life, while it gets her what she wants most of the time, ultimately does nothing but increase her own anger. Mrs. Kearney drives herself to accomplish whatever task, challenge, or need is at hand, often without much show of emotion. She marries her husband just to be married, not because of love. In her unyielding insistence that her daughter, Kathleen, receive full payment for her performance, Mrs. Kearney pursues her interests to such a degree that she undoes her own efforts to perfect the concert, and herself. When the organizers provide only half of the fee, Mrs. Kearney embarrasses her daughter and ruins her career by sweeping her out of the concert hall and irritating everyone. Mrs. Kearney is not concerned with a trifling amount of money, she insists, but her rights and her respect. The story leaves the reader guessing why Mrs. Kearney abandons her cause and leaves the concert hall. Is she humiliated? Does she realize that no one shares or sympathizes with her frustrations? Like “an angry stone,” Mrs. Kearney will not soften to the circumstances and reconsider. Like other characters in Dubliners,she will continue to live according to her own routine.