Cesarz 1

Jairus Cesarz

ENG 362

Prof. William Johnsen

3 December 2015

Analysis of James Joyce

In order to understand James Joyce as an author, his life and the time that he lived in must be explored. Joyce grew up in a time of political upheaval in Ireland. Charles Stewart

Parnell was a political leader of a nationalist party attempting to wrestle control of Ireland from

Britain in the nineteenth century. When Joyce was a boy, he saw Charles Parnell fall from power when a scandal broke out that he had been carrying on an extramarital affair. Due to the

Vatican’s decision to stand by the British Conservative Party rather than with Parnell, Parnell ultimately lost support, ruining many Irish residents’ hopes for independence. This event heavily impacted Joyce, in large part because his father was a staunch Parnell supporter. After the scandal the party splintered and Parnell’s goals fell out of reach for all Irish citizens, leading to years of fighting amongst the (now many) political parties.

In his novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce pens a scene with the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, hearing his father upset about Parnell’s treatment. In the novel

Stephen is torn, not sure whether or not he agrees with his father, however Joyce had no such conflict when listening to his father, who he completely agreed with. The contrast between Joyce and Stephen is indicative of a routine Joyce’s characters fall into, a routine they are unable to escape in the same way Stephen is unable to escape his indecision at many points throughout the novel, leaving him trapped. Cesarz 2

After the fall of Parnell, Joyce’s family’s finances became unsteady and his father began to drink more heavily. The effect this had on his writing can be seen in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners, as most characters are middle to low class. This may also have been when Joyce first started having disdain for religion, considering the Catholic Church’s treatment of Parnell. This negativity towards religion leaked through into Joyce’s writing, among other themes including politics and morality. The way in which Joyce portrays these concepts is often through the trap of routines, which cause paralysis of a sort, often leading to a kind of death, and his works being set in Ireland shows a certain level of national pride and knowledge.

Routine, paralysis, and death are prevalent in almost every short story in Dubliners.

In the first story, “The Sisters,” the unnamed narrator, a young boy, waits outside the house of the slowly dying Father Flynn, his friend, and as he looks up at the window, he says the word

“paralysis” to himself, which Father Flynn is suffering from. Shortly thereafter Father Flynn dies, a theme that continues throughout the stories: paralysis leading to death, as well as death being present among the living. The body of Father Flynn unnerves the narrator, afraid he might disturb his slumber. Joyce continues to employ the idea of paralysis and death both in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man when Stephen’s frequent confusion and indecision in most cases ultimately lead to nothing, and in Dubliners, in which almost every protagonist becomes paralyzed in some way.

In “An Encounter” two boys play hooky to escape the monotony of their lives, only to be confronted by a perverted older man. The perverted man represents repetition in the same way routine does: “He gave me the impression that he was repeating something which he had learned by heart or that, magnetized by some words of his own speech, his mind was slowly circling Cesarz 3 round and round in the same orbit… He repeated his phrases over and over again, varying them and surrounding them with his monotonous voice” (Joyce 29). Even the way in which the man walks lends itself to this repetition, “He turned about and began to retrace his steps” (Joyce 27).

Representing routine once again, the man leaves, only to return and repeat what he said once again. The man is an embodiment of routine and repetition itself, and the narrator finds himself paralyzed by the man; namely that he cannot leave physically or mentally, he’s stuck in the repetitive conversation, “his mind, as if magnetized again by his speech, seemed to circle slowly round and round its new centre” (Joyce 31). He only escapes when the man stops speaking momentarily and he can slip away. In the end, the narrator doesn’t find a way to escape his routine, because although he escapes the man, he returns to the routine of school, his attempt to escape was thwarted by routine itself.

The paralysis that each character undergoes throughout each story, be it the narrator in

“Araby” who is paralyzed when he reaches the bazaar he’s been trying to reach so he might buy a gift for a girl and find love, cascading him into romance rather than his loveless routine only to get there as it closes down, or Eveline in “Eveline” who must choose between the routine life she knows with her family or the love of her life, ends with a decision. They decide to stay in repetitiousness. The narrator in “Araby” gives up rather than trying to find another way to express his love, trapping him in routine, while Eveline chooses not to go with the love of her life resulting in the same.

Death is prominent throughout Joyce’s work, sometimes in the form of a literal death, and sometimes in the form of lack of change, a metaphorical death. When these characters refuse to change, their potential future, and often happiness, dies. Eveline is desperate for an escape after realizing she’s destined to live the same miserable life as her mother, “She stood up in a Cesarz 4 sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her” (Joyce 50). However when the time for her to leave comes her desperation to escape drowns in fear, a fear that poisons her thoughts and paralyzes her, leading to her staying: “[Frank] would drown her… She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition” (Joyce 52). In that moment she chooses routine rather than change, and she metaphorically dies as her emotions and will to escape do. Joyce consistently uses small events to paint a larger picture of Ireland—a land where an attempt at progress is made politically, only to return to the beginning, implying the Irish people themselves are stuck. Trapped. Paralyzed.

Dead.

Joyce accomplishes this profound lack of change in moments big and small. In “A Little

Cloud” the narrator dreams of becoming a famous writer, like his friend Gallaher, but is too scared to leave: “Sometimes… he courted the causes of his fear. He chose the darkest and narrowest streets and, as he walked boldly forward, the silence that was spread about his footsteps troubled him, the wandering, silent figures troubled him; and at times a sound of low fugitive laughter made him tremble like a leaf” (Joyce 101). When he does overcome his fear he arrives home, determined to escape his routine, only to find himself trapped again by his rude wife and baby boy: “It was useless. He couldn’t read. He couldn’t do anything… He was a prisoner for life” (Joyce 121). In this moment the narrator abandons his hopes of becoming a famous poet, doubting his own abilities as well as realizing he can’t leave as Gallaher did, and his dreams die with his spirit.

Religion in both Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is presented as another routine that doesn’t truly advance anyone, and is in this way another form of paralysis.

This is unsurprising considering Joyce’s lack of religious faith. Stephen Dedalus is trapped by Cesarz 5 the routine of religion until he turns down potential priesthood and eventually strips away his religion in order to follow his own goals, a rare moment when a character escapes routine, only to feel trapped in misunderstanding with the people he loves, unable to truly be free [in Ireland].

Joyce’s negative religious opinion can be felt in many of the stories in Dubliners, including Mr.

Kernan in “Grace,” who refuses to hold a lit candle when renewing baptismal vows, showing disdain for the church: “I bar the magic-lantern business” (Joyce 261). Throughout his works,

Joyce creates religious and political tension that reflect the strain that existed between the Irish and the British.

In “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” Joyce portrays the political strain within Ireland very clearly through four men on Ivy Day. Ivy Day is an annual holiday when ivy is worn to commemorate Charles Parnell. However, rather than celebrating Parnell the four men in the room cannot agree on politics, arguing about minutia while nothing actually gets done. They are stuck, paralyzed, and repetitive—an accurate portrayal of Ireland after Parnell died—political parties splintered and their effectiveness waned.

In the last story in Dubliners, “The Dead,” Joyce gives a hopeful outlook that escape may be possible for Ireland rather than paralysis and death without abandoning his themes. The story starts with a party that has been thrown every year with the same people for three decades: “For years and years it had gone off in splendid style, as long as anyone could remember; ever since

Kate and Julia, after the death of their brother Pat… [took] Mary Jane… to live with them in the dark, gaunt house… That was a good thirty years ago if it was a day” (Joyce 268). The words

“dark” and “gaunt” are intentional and point towards the trappings in which these characters are caught. Joyce continues the theme of failing to learn from past mistakes, similar to the Irish, when the narrator gives a toast in which he expresses how saddened he is that hospitality isn’t Cesarz 6 what it once was, but at the same time maintains people cannot linger on the past and need to instead embrace the present. He goes on to say to treasure the memories of the dead, but that they shouldn’t brood over them because it would hinder the lives of those still living, not allowing them to move forward. Later he notices his wife seems emotional and he interprets it as lust for himself and responds in kind: “he felt that they had escaped from their lives and duties, escaped from home and friends and run away together with wild and radiant hearts to a new adventure”

(Joyce 333). However, he discovers this escape is false. His wife was upset after hearing a song her first love, Michael, sang to her once. She tells him Michael died after waiting in the cold for her and the lust he felt disappears as he realizes he’s never felt the love or passion that Michael had for her: “His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling” (Joyce 345-346), reinforcing the theme of interaction between life and death. He wonders how there can be a separation when Michael can live more fully in this world despite being dead since his memory has lived on and it is fuller than the life he has. The narrator, caught in this routine, is dying in it.

This revelation gives the narrator the insight to see the routine in his life and attempt to escape it: “One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age” (Joyce 345). As he looks out over the snow he realizes he was wrong in dividing the dead from the living, as

Michael’s memory continues to live on, and the snow continues to fall on both the living and the dead. The connection Joyce has made between living and dead in this story reflects the first Cesarz 7 story, “The Sisters,” in which the young boy feels uncomfortable around the dead body of Father

Flynn since in both the dead are having an impact on the living.

The interaction between life and death and learning from the mistakes of the past in addition to themes of routine, paralysis, and death are evident throughout both A Portrait of the

Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners. These themes are likely a direct effect of Charles Parnell’s departure from politics and subsequent death leading to a shattering of the party and a less unified Ireland, which greatly influenced Joyce as a writer and is evident throughout these works. Cesarz 8

Work Cited

Joyce, James. Dubliners. New York: Modern Library, 1926. Print.