...For my Research Paper, I plan to explore James Joyce's use of Irish History in "The Dead" through the lens of the character Gabriel Conroy. This topic is significant now on the grounds that Joyce wrote short stories that demonstrated the social conformity from which Ireland, particularly Dublin, endured. Particularly controversial about this topic is that Joyce used vivid descriptions of past events when the truth about the names of Dublin public places, such as the parks and streets, and the unattractive Irish behavior, especially child and spousal abuse, drunkenness, prostitution, gambling, corruption and suicide, were revealed. As a matter of fact, including such specific details in any literary work meant to delay the publication of this...
Words: 355 - Pages: 2
...Hades The sixth episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses is based around Leopold Bloom’s thoughts and actions throughout the time before, during, and shortly after the funeral of Paddy Dignam. In R.M Adams’ essay, “Hades: Bloom Alone”, he discusses a “great hollow resonance” (96) that is present when reading this episode and Adams claims “that is the real development of this chapter, the sounding of that resonance, the deepening and darkening in Bloom’s mind of an immense emptiness.” (96,97) Throughout the episode, it is clear to see the isolation between Bloom and the rest of the characters presented. On the carriage ride to the funeral, Joyce makes it clear that the thoughts of Cunningham, Power, and Simon Dedalus are completely different from the thoughts of Bloom. Adams writes that Bloom’s “matter-of-factness often serves to set him apart from his companions.” (98) This is clear when Bloom speaks out that he would rather prefer a quick death than a slow death. Bloom, being Jewish, does not seem to take into account that Catholics fear a quick death as it does not offer a chance to repent. This conversation leads into Mr. Power, unaware of the suicide of Bloom’s father, speaking about the disgrace of having a suicide in the family. It is obvious to see that Bloom is not close to these people and that they have no intentions of being so. However, Adams writes that “Deeper than any of these on-the-whole trivial misadventures, there is the gloomy emptiness of Bloom’s encounter...
Words: 317 - Pages: 2
...An analysis of the Role of Family Disappointment in Joyce’s Dubliners James Joyce, an Irish modernist writer and influential author in the twentieth century, wrote the story collection named “Dubliners”. This collection consisted of fifteen short stories and carried a naturalist style. In “Dubliners”, Joyce rarely uses metaphors, relying on simplicity and attention to detail to create an authentic setting. Joyce often carried hidden similarities throughout each of his novels and poetry. This is seen true within Joyce’s collection, “Dubliners”. A close analysis of “Dubliners” reveals an excellent example of the role of family disappointment as shown in each of the short stories; “Araby”, “Eveline”, and “The Dead”. A direct example or claim of family disappointment can clearly be seen within each of these three short stories. Theses examples will be laid out and explained throughout this essay. Each example having varying circumstance, and outcome. Displayed from the point of view of the characters, to be taken inside their heads, and be shown a different aspect of what family disappointment means to the characters. The theme of disappointment in “Dubliners” is all about the painful experience. Ambiguity so to speak, the misconception of life being grand, only to face the troubles of reality. The characters determine that their own families don’t always have their best interest at heart, that their wives were deceitful, and that the world of business can be bitter...
Words: 1560 - Pages: 7
...Essay Question on the extract from ’An Encounter’ and one other story In this extract from ‘An Encounter’ James Joyce marks a growing sense of weariness from the boy in the direction of the old man, as the passage progresses, the boy’s attitude changes from one of naivety to one of marked suspicion and doubt at the old man’s motives for being there. However, due to his innocence and relatively inexperienced life skills, the boy seems to struggle to grasp what other reason the man would have for being there. One example which highlights this point is when the old man queries how often the boys get whipped at school, but despite this question being asked, the boy decides to ‘remain silent’. This response of silence from the boy indicates that there is indeed an element of doubt and confusion inside his head as to why the man wants to know these questions – but instead of perhaps retorting in disgust or walking away as an older person would probably have done, the boy remains where he is, and the conversation continues. Joyce’s description of the boy as ‘Magnetised’ by the old man is interesting; this suggests that the boy is enjoying the idea of listening to this old man who has encountered a lot in his long life, and that at that present point in the extract, the boy does not see the behaviour of the man threatening or in any way unnerving. The boy actually wants the man to stay and talk to him because he is intrigued about what he may have to say – adding to the little boy’s...
Words: 981 - Pages: 4
...A&P and Araby John Updike's A & P and James Joyce's Araby share many of the same literary traits. The primary focus of the two stories revolves around a young man who is compelled to decipher the different between cruel reality and the fantasies of romance that play in his head. That the man does, indeed, discover the difference is what sets him off into emotional collapse. One of the main similarities between the two stories is the fact that the main character, who is also the protagonist, has built up incredible,yet unrealistic, expectations of women, having focused upon one in particular towards which he places all his unrequited affection. The expectation these men hold when finally "face to face with their object of worship" (Wells, 1993, p. 127) is what sends the final and crushing blow of reality: The rejection they suffer is far too great for them to bear. Updike is famous for taking other author's works and twisting them so that they reflect a more contemporary flavor. While the story remains the same, the climate is singular only to Updike. This is the reason why there are similarities as well as deviations from Joyce's original piece. Plot, theme and detail are three of the most resembling aspects of the two stories over all other literary components; characteristic of both writers' works, each rendition offers its own unique perspective upon the young man's romantic infatuation. Not only are descriptive phrases shared by both stories, but parallels occur with...
Words: 7200 - Pages: 29
...Example Literary Research Paper Michelle Carerra Professor Krickstein English 1302 October 15, 2004 The Awakening of Gabriel Conroy Like the stories in Dubliners that lead up to it, “The Dead” dramatizes a moment of self-realization. The story portrays the gradual awakening of Gabriel Conroy, whose vision of his wife, Gretta, at the end of the story is at once a frustrating disappointment and a touching movement toward understanding and love. Robert Adams voices the view of more than one critic when he writes of “The Dead” that this “greatest of the stories in Dubliners stands apart from the rest, being warmer in tonality, richer in the writing, and more intimate in its subject matter” (83). Florence Walzl agrees when she writes that “’The Dead’ is markedly different from the earlier stories. . . .It is not only a longer, more fully developed narrative, but it presents a more kindly view of Ireland” (428). In one sense the “dead” of the title are all those who have lived and died, those who have gone before the festive inhabitants of Dublin who celebrate the Christmas season, Gabriel Conroy and Gretta among them. In another sense the dead are all those who, though alive and breathing, have lost their naturalness, their spontaneity, and most importantly, their passion. Gabriel, one of these, has lost touch with his past and with traditional Irish values. He looks instead toward continental Europe, toward the future, and toward change for an escape...
Words: 1783 - Pages: 8
...unspoken reality which has power to threaten the pure and romantic values of marriage and intimate relationships as well as established gender roles. Despite the alleviation of religious and moral restrictions, sex embodies the warped animal reflection of the exclusively human concept of love, exposing primal desires and ensuring its continued belonging to the realms of the shocking and distasteful, while inadvertently strengthening its power. It is this power that lies at the heart of much modernist literature. The illicit imagery serves as a physical subversion of the dated foundations the writings oppose. Prominent in early modernist work was the theoretical influence of Sigmund Freud, most notably in the case of contemporary writer James Joyce whose literary techniques, such as the stream of consciousness writing in Ulysses, have come to epitomize modernist fiction. Ulysses not only challenges the censors’ attitude to sex, but also what were considered the sexual norms for men and women in pre-war Catholic society. Similarly, Vladimir Nabokov uses sexual deviancy to protest the theoretical ideas implicit in modernist literature through characteristics derived from post-World War II civilisation. The absence of structure or control left by the war undermined contemporary opinion of western stability, presented in Lolita through American culture. This subversion is mirrored in the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy through use of explicit language rather than sexual perversion, confronting...
Words: 4061 - Pages: 17
...Realism in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Churchill’s Top Girls Nineteen-century Europe held rigid conventionalisms of class division, social order and gender roles. Society hid behind the mask of hypocrisy in an attempt to preserve bourgeoisie’s position of power. In that concern, conceptions of ‘liberty of the spirit’[1] and ‘liberty of thought and of the human condition’[2] came to question. Thus, Henrik Ibsen drew attention to the threat to ideas of freedom and public opinion by giving life to A Doll’s House (1879). He aimed to critique constraints of Victorian society rather than vindicating the rights of women. In that sense, in a speech given in his honour by the Norwegian Women’s Rights League on 26 May 1898 he stresses: ‘Whatever I have written has been without any conscious thought of making propaganda. […] To me it has seemed a problem of humanity in general.’[3] Ibsen clearly states he strove to expose the manipulation of individuals’ liberties as he worked for the human cause. In Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls (1982) the aim of the play is to reveal how the fulfilment of women’s self-realization needs in the personal and social spheres is achieved by compromising humanity and morality. In the end, what ‘The New Woman’ gets is disillusionment and loneliness as she finds herself in a predicament: mother or career woman, sensitive or hardened. In Top Girls what is represented is the price women pay to go up the corporate ladder in a male-dominant world. Thus, I will...
Words: 2225 - Pages: 9
...A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Context James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, in the town of Rathgar, near Dublin, Ireland. He was the oldest of ten children born to a well-meaning but financially inept father and a solemn, pious mother. Joyce's parents managed to scrape together enough money to send their talented son to the Clongowes Wood College, a prestigious boarding school, and then to Belvedere College, where Joyce excelled as an actor and writer. Later, he attended University College in Dublin, where he became increasingly committed to language and literature as a champion of Modernism. In 1902, Joyce left the university and moved to Paris, but briefly returned to Ireland in 1903 upon the death of his mother. Shortly after his mother's death, Joyce began work on the story that would later become A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Published in serial form in 1914–1915, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Mandraws on many details from Joyce's early life. The novel's protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, is in many ways Joyce's fictional double—Joyce had even published stories under the pseudonym "Stephen Daedalus" before writing the novel. Like Joyce himself, Stephen is the son of an impoverished father and a highly devout Catholic mother. Also like Joyce, he attends Clongowes Wood, Belvedere, and University Colleges, struggling with questions of faith and nationality before leaving Ireland to make his...
Words: 18420 - Pages: 74
...G. James Joyce 1. How does “Araby” convey a sense of desolation and gloom? What words, symbols, and motifs contribute to this atmosphere? Is the narrator’s despair at the end of “Araby” confined to his frustration with the bazaar itself or does it extend to larger issues? The “Araby” is considered gloomy in reference to the character’s feelings of isolation and being incomplete or unwelcomed. Yet, there is a theme of light vs dark. For instance, the character’s mood slightly brightens when he sees his crush, “her figure defined by the light of the half-opened door” (2279). However, symbolism is relevant to the character for the house mentioned at the beginning is, “An uninhabited house of the two stories stood at the blind end, detected from...
Words: 1098 - Pages: 5
...Not Living Dead If there is one thing that has remained true throughout the time of all human existence, it is that we all must die. However, there are sometimes moments in our lives when we encounter people who are perfectly alive, but could also be characteristically described as dead. In James Joyce’s “The Dead”, we encounter Gabriel who has an epiphany that is considered gloomy on a night that has historically always been “a great affair” (178). In reading about Gabriel’s epiphany, it has served as a sort of warning to me personally, that it is important to take the time out to really enjoy the ununiformed parts of life. The lesson is a warning against working so hard that I wake up one day to find myself dead inside, thus becoming a part of the living dead. Gabriel is a man who considers himself intelligent, in fact, more intelligent than the other guests at the party, and this is further evidenced, as he studied his speech and considered changing parts of it to accommodate those who may not understand his Robert Browning references. “He was undecided about the lines from Robert Browning for he feared they would be above the heads of his hearers” (180). The setting of the story begins at an annual party that his aunts and cousin host, and then veers off to a lonely night in a hotel room. The contrast of the settings is interesting because at the party, Gabriel appears to be this intelligent, comedic guy who his aunts deem important as they felt that he was the perfect...
Words: 753 - Pages: 4
...James Joyce: Ulysses James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, better known as James Joyce, was born on February 2, 1882 in Dublin, Ireland. Joyce soon grew to have quite a large family. He was the first of ten surviving children to be born to John Stanislaus Joyce and Mary Murray Joyce. Two of his siblings died of Typhoid. Due to the large number children the Joyces had and his father’s drinking, the Joyce’s gradually sank deeper into poverty throughout Joyce’s young life. As a child, Joyce displayed impressive writing skills and a love for literature and poetry. Dante, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and many other great writers and philosophers were among the literary giants that Joyce would occupy himself with. Joyce also showed linguistic talent...
Words: 1114 - Pages: 5
...The book “Ulysses S. Grant” is strictly a biography written by Steven O’Brien and published by Chelsea House Publishing in 1991. The author writes about Grant's life from his early age to his death. Steven O’Brien includes a detailed analysis of every event that impacted and changed Grant’s life, describing it in an organized and cohesive manner. Grant was not always a man of success and the author does a fair job of showing Grant’s achievements as well as failures because no man is perfect after all. The book presents old information in an interesting fashion, it is great for people that want to learn facts about the life of the 18th President of the United States and develop their own idea about who Ulysses S. Grant was. The author, Steven O’Brien has taught social studies in high schools for over twenty years. He holds a Masters in history from the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. from Harvard. His historical writings appear in the New York Times Magazine and other well-known publications. In the series World Leaders-Past and Present Steven O’Brien summarizes Grant’s life in every detail and explains very carefully every aspect of his life. He includes many failures as well as achievements and explains the impact of them on Grant’s life. He carefully adds that that Ulysses S. Grant had lived through what was some kind of a mystery to everyone around him but also himself. Steven O’Brien writes; “Ulysses S. Grant was something of an enigma when he lived, and he remains...
Words: 978 - Pages: 4
...James Joyce is considered one of the most famous personalities in Irish literature, as well as a central figure of the early twentieth century modernist movement. His innovative use of language was far removed from literary tradition, and Joyce was among the first modern writers utilize the technique of interior monologue (Ryan). It was using new ideas like this, also dubbed the "stream of consciousness" narration, that made Joyce popular as a modernist in the twentieth century (Ryan). Joyce's most well-known book Ulysses, a modernist epic loosely based off Homer’s poem the “Odyssey,” was a retelling of the story of Odysseus in a modern Dublin setting (Atherton). It was revolutionary works like Ulysses that starred in the push of Modernism in literature. James Joyce was considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist movement of the early 20th century because of his modernist style in his great work Ulysses....
Words: 936 - Pages: 4
...Congressman David Joyce (United States House of Representatives, 2014), stated that David Joyce was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1957. The biography noted that he graduated from West Geauga High School. It discussed that he met his wife Kelly, also a graduate of West Geauga High School, while running for County Prosecutor, and that she is a nurse. David and Kelly have three children, Trenton, Keighle, and Bridey. The family currently lives in Russell Township in Ohio. Education-wise, after high school, David attended the University of Dayton where he received his BA in accounting, and then his Juris Doctorate. After school, he first worked as a public defender in Cuyahoga County, and then as County Prosecutor of Geauga County. The biography of Joyce noted that he was elected in November of 2012 to the 113th Congress as representative of the 14th District of Ohio, and is currently still serving. The map on the House of Representatives Website showed that the 14th District of Ohio includes Ashtabula, Lake, and Geauga, Cuyahoga, Trumbull, and Summit counties, which are all in Northeast Ohio....
Words: 590 - Pages: 3
