Ireland as a Place of Imprisonment

Upon arrival of Dublin, I heard that if Dublin was leveled, there would be two books by James Joyce, Dubliners and Ulysses, upon which the city could be built due to their deep descriptions of Dublin. Although I see Dublin as a much nicer city today, than the city Joyce writes about in his short stories in Dubliners, the book is essentially about the lives of people in Dublin. The themes touched by these stories are poverty, effects of colonization, and finally the shared, defeated feeling of its characters who feel trapped financially and socially. They also share the desire to escape Dublin.

One story is called Araby, and it's about a young boy whose sole desire is to please a woman by going to the market to choose a gift for her. He is disappointed when the man he needs to get money from to go to the market gets home so late he can't find anything worthy at the market because it's so late at night. This common feeling of elation and then defeat is common throughout the stories. Its characters long for a better future, one which apparently is not coming.

This theme is demonstrated by another story, Eveline. This young woman's wish is to esacape a life of hard work and responsibility to run off with her sailor to Buenos Aires. Upon arrival of the boat to take her away with her love, she ultimately decides to stay in Ireland and continue her mediocre life - almost in an act of self-punishment.

Another notable work and preample to the masterpiece Ulysses, is Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. This autobiographical novel of Joyce's life is dominated by the main character, Stephen Dedalus (James Joyce?). It's style is "free, indirect discource" which is written in the way Joyce thought people would think and speak at that time. This novel looks more into the religious and political unrest at the time, as well as the question of language (Irish-speaking versus English yet another future post to cover that topic...). Again, the appearance of a flight motif is evident. Events in this book, how Joyce felt about his family life, his father who was an alcoholic and the pressures of supporting a family made me think of a song by The Recieving End of Sirens on their latest album:

Joyce himself escaped to Paris and his reasons why will be evidenced in a letter that will be my next post.