Dubliners by James Joyce

Hopes and Wishes

The problems within Dublin and the issues people have within their Irish community are seen in plain sight in the book Dubliners, by James Joyce. In this third person narrative, Joyce shows us a particular illustration of what the Irish people are experiencing during that time. The Repetitive style of living within the ordinary life in Dublin outlines the lives of some of the characters in Dubliners and seems to entrap them with a lot of dissatisfaction, self-discipline, and sometimes disorder. In the stories “The Dead”, “Counterparts”, and “Eveline” we see similarities between the characters and their motif of paralysis; these stories show us that these characters of Dublin adequately entrap themselves in these moments of paralysis and routines of everyday life which show’s their failure to change their lives and change the patterns of their life that sabotage their hopes and wishes.

The most persistent importance to notice of following day-to-day routines is loneliness, dissatisfaction and entrapment. These styles of living affect the characters that tend to display more intense qualities within the story; known to be called round characters, but it also affects characters that have not as noticeable qualities within their story which are known to be flat characters. We will be focusing particularly on the round characters in these stories. One can see within the stories a theme of an individual entrapped within their quest to escape; the escape to their hopes and wishes in life, which was known to be a personal feeling of James Joyce himself.  The motif of being trapped is shown a lot throughout James Joyce’s book Dubliners; characters feel cornered and make an attempt to escape the hauntings that are right in front of them and the hauntings that are not within their perception. When we see the motifs of individual experience in one’s life and their entrapment, and the journey they go through to escape from there entrapment, we will find out why these stories are compared and contrasted.

The ending story of Dubliners, “The Dead”, becomes a mimesis for all of the stories within with-in it and its motifs and patterns. A lovely evening in London is where this story takes place; with snow covering everything in sight it gives us a feeling of being entrapped under a rebellious force that’s blocking them from their wants. In the beginning of “The Dead,” we start off with a party being held. Joyce does this to show the actions from all the characters in each story coming together to one party.  

In the story “The Dead” we meet a happy wife and husband, Gabriel and Gretta, who have become entrapped in many ways. Both of them show this in moments of paralysis but through these moments of paralysis Gretta gets reminded of something from her past. It seems that the party makes Gabriel and Gretta come to a great epiphany of something important to them. Gabriel loves being a family man but he feels he is of much more higher class then everyone else in Ireland and he feels entrapped in this party and country: “How cool it must be outside! How / pleasant it would be to walk out alone, first along by the river / and then through the park” (Joyce 192). Gabriel’s epiphany is while at the supper table peering through the window. Windows seem to be a big symbol in Joyce’s stories. In this story the window represent Gabriel as an individual and his utter wants and desires to leave this land and all of the people it beholds. We can see Gabriel doesn’t have much respect for the Irish life because if he did he would be enjoying it with his Irish family.

The feeling of freedom in Gabriel’s relationship is rattled by the uninvited thought of a visitor: “Gretta dear, what are you thinking about?” (219). Gabriel says after feeling something weird was wrong with her. Joyce exposes the epiphany Gretta goes through after hearing the song The Lass of Aughrim: “It was a young boy I used to know, she answered, / named Michael Furey. He used to sing that song, The / Lass of Aughrim. He was very delicate.” (220). Gretta’s forgotten about devotion, Michael Furey, has been a feeling trapped inside Gretta’s memories for a long time and a feeling to be a surprise too Gabriel. When we get too the story Eveline you will see that Gretta here compares to Eveline in the since that the hauntings of Grettas past have shown up to disrupt what was meant to be a wonderful relationship with Gabriel. It contrasts with Eveline in the since that Gretta’s thoughts of the past were forgotten and Eveline has been dragged along her whole life with the memories of her past. Once Gretta’s strange epiphany is shown it becomes known she has been entrapped for a while. Gabriel here also gets entrapped but it contrast with every other story in that he has no control over Grettas lost love for Micheal Furey. He has been living a peaceful life with his wife and that’s why they came to this party to have fun. But it seems this party was just a set up to bring more confusion and entrapment into their lives.

In the story “Counterparts”, we meet a man named Farrington, a man who is constantly buried by work and obsessively taunted by a little bald man who is his boss. Joyce introduces Farrington while being yelled at by his boss to come to his office room. We see how entrapped he is just by the description of his looks: “he / was tall and of great bulk. He had a hanging face, dark / wine-coloured, with fair eyebrows and a moustache: his / eyes bulged forward slightly and the whites of them were / dirty” (82). When Joyce mentions him to be “wine colored” and the “white of his eyes are dirty” we see it to be quite ironic when we find out he actually is a drunk.  We see a man who has a desire to do well in work and also to drink constantly, a man entrapped in his work because all he wants to do is drink.  Joyce usually introduces her characters in a way of telling. She does this to give us the most descriptive view possible of the character to relate to what is going to happen in that particular story.  Work is so aggravating to the man that his work integrity has obtained to really nothing. While drinking, Farrington leaves what he thinks to be a haunting world behind him. In this story, drinking is Farrington’s escape. This contrasts with “The Dead” in the way that Gretta has forgotten about the haunting that longed her for so long. That would be the death of Michael Fury and yet she doesn’t know how to escape from her hauntings which leaves no happiness to be seen.