Università degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari Corso di Laurea Magistrale in Lingue e Letterature Europee e Americane Classe LM-37 Tesi di Laurea Mapping Dublin in James Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’. Dublin, a Static and Timeless Environment: a Text Narrative Relatore Laureanda Prof. Francesco Giacobelli Chiara Salvagno n° matr.1034872 / LMLLA Anno Accademico 2012/ 2013 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..............................................................................................p. iii ABBREVIATIONS.........................................................................................................p. iv INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................pp. v-xi CHAPTER ONE I. DUBLINERS’ STRUCTURE: LOOKING AT THE MAP.....................................pp. 1-2 I.1. Childhood: ‘The Sisters’, ‘An Encounter’, ‘Araby’.................................pp. 2-6 I.2. Adolescence: ‘Eveline’, ‘After the Race’, ‘Two Gallants’, ‘The Boarding House’...........................................................................................................pp. 6-10 I.3. Maturity: ‘A Little Cloud’, ‘Counterparts’, ‘Clay’, ‘A Painful Case’..pp. 11-17 I.4. Public Life: ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’, ‘A Mother’, ‘Grace’..pp.17-19 I.5. ‘The Dead’............................................................................................pp. 19-20 CHAPTER TWO II. MOTIFS....................................................................................................................p. 21 II.1. The Shape of the Capital: Dublin as a Circle......................................pp. 21-24 II.2. The Colours of Dublin: a World of Blindness and Stagnation............pp. 25-27 II.3. Paralysis in the City.............................................................................pp. 27-31 II.4. Longing for Escape: Romantic Illusions.............................................pp. 31-36 II.5. Poverty.................................................................................................pp. 36-40 II.6. Isolation and Violence.........................................................................pp. 40-43 II.7. Drinking...............................................................................................pp. 44-46 CHAPTER THREE III.BEHIND DUBLIN CURTAINS. DUBLINERS’ RELIGION...........................pp. 47-48 III.1. A Paralyzing and Paralyzed Church.................................................pp. 48-49 III.2. Dublin: a Fallen Eden?......................................................................pp. 49-50 III.3. Symbolizing Religion: the Elements of Sterility...............................pp. 50-53 III.4. Symbolizing Religion: the Characters of Sterility.............................pp. 53-56 III.5. Sterility, Money and Superstition......................................................pp. 56-58 III.6. Figures in the Shadow and the Meaning of Proper Names.................pp.59-62 III.7. Betrayal..............................................................................................pp. 62-66 III.8. Joyce’s Religion.................................................................................pp. 66-67 i CHAPTER FOUR IV. SYMBOLS: A MIRROR OF DUBLIN...................................................................p. 68 IV.1. Windows............................................................................................pp. 68-70 IV.2. Dusk and Night: Light-Dark Imagery................................................pp. 70-72 IV.3. Food...................................................................................................pp. 72-73 IV.4. Dust....................................................................................................pp. 73-75 IV.5. Water..................................................................................................pp. 75-78 IV.6. Sound, Noise, Silence................................................................................p. 78 IV.6.1. Silence: Murmuring Words in ‘The Sisters’...............................p.78 IV.6.2. Noise in Dublin’s Streets: ‘An Encounter’, ‘After the Race’ and ‘Two Gallants’........................................................................................p. 79 IV.6.3. The Acoustic World in ‘Eveline’........................................pp. 79-80 IV.6.4. A Paralyzing Silence in ‘A Little Cloud’............................pp. 80-81 IV.6.5. Noise against Frustration in ‘Counterparts’ and the Silent Woman in ‘A Painful Case’.................................................................................p. 82 IV.6.6. Music sold for Money in ‘A Mother’.........................................p.82 IV.6.7. Dublin’s Music and ‘The Lass of Aughrim’: ‘The Dead’....pp.83-84 IV.7. Iron.....................................................................................................pp. 85-86 IV.8. Pictures, Mirrors and Photographs.....................................................pp. 86-87 IV.9. The Distillery.....................................................................................pp. 87-90 CHAPTER FIVE V. INSIDE THE DUBLIN BACKGROUND: DEFEAT, STASIS AND ANXIETY...p. 91 V.1. Ireland under the British Pressure: the People and the Urban Landscape....................................................................................................pp. 91-95 V. 2. A Brush Stroke of Modernity.............................................................pp. 96-97 V.3. Dublin, the Main Character in Dubliners............................................pp. 97-98 V. 4. Joyce’s Dublin..................................................................................pp. 98-100 V. 5. Dubliners’ Streets and the ‘Joyces’: the Rhythm of the City.........pp. 100-101 V.6. The Artist and the City....................................................................pp. 101-102 CONCLUSION...................................................................................................pp. 103-106 BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................................................pp. 107-118. ii ACKOWLEDGMENTS First of all I would like to thank my family for all the love and support they have been giving to me so far: my mother Antonella, my father Mauro and my sister Marta. I am extremely grateful to my supervisor, Professor Francesco Giacobelli, for his continual support and advice throughout this work. Professor Giacobelli’s wisdom, sense of humour and kindness never ceased to impress and educate me. Without him this project could not have been completed. I would also like to thank Professor Adone Brandalise, my co-supervisor, for all his guidance and advice in the project. Professor Brandalise’s enthusiasm inspired me to undertake further studies in the course of ‘Teoria della Letteratura’. I am extremely grateful to the professors and the staff at the University of Padova for all their help. I would like to extend my appreciation to all the staff and students at the Department of Languages, to the Maldura and to all the libraries of the University of Padova that gave me the possibility to find a great number of material for my dissertation. Furthermore, I could not have had so many information about Joyce without the help of the University of Leeds, where I spent one year as an Erasmus student two years ago and with which I am still in contact. The portal of Leeds, the richness of books and journals online have been an essential resource for me. It is a pleasure for me to thank above all my boyfriend Nicola, with whom I will go back to Dublin to follow the Dubliners’ path. Certainly I cannot forget my good friends and my football team for their encouragement, humour, home-made dinners and for their emails during a time when I really needed it most. I would also like to thank Pierluigi Menato, my Director of the magazine ‘Il Santo dei Miracoli’ of Padova. Thanks to him I have had the chance to write in a popular magazine since I was 16 years old. He trusted me and he fulfilled my dream of writing. iii ABBREVIATIONS D = Dubliners All references used in this study are from: JOYCE, JAMES, Dubliners, J. JOHNSON, ed., Oxford, Oxford World’s Classics, 2000. iv INTRODUCTION I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.1 Sackville Street c.1890-1910.2 The book of stone, so solid and so durable, would give way to the book of paper, even more solid and more durable.3 When you remember that Dublin has been a capital for thousands of years, that it is the ‘second’ city of the British Empire, that it is nearly three times as big as Venice it seems strange that no artist has given it to the world.4 1 F. BUDGEN, James Joyce and the Making of ‘Ulysses’ and Other Writings, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1972, pp. 67–68. 2 The National Archives of Ireland, http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/exhibition/dublin/main.html. 3 V. HUGO, Notre – Dame de Paris, A. KRAILSHEIMER, trans., New York, Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 192. 4 J. JOYCE, ‘18 September 1905’ & ‘15 October 1905’, in R. ELLMANN, ed., Selected Letters of James Joyce, London, Faber and Faber, 1992, pp.72-75 & p.78. v Dubliners is not simple a volume of fifteen stories about Dubliners, but it is above all a novel about Dublin and about Ireland itself. In Dubliners Joyce sets Dublin on the literary map and on the world stage. He creates a panorama of the city by presenting a series of