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DUBLINERS - Coggle Diagram
DUBLINERS
Dubliners consist of 15 short stories all set in Dublin and it's a collection published on the eve of the first world ward in 1914 even if it was compleated since 1905.
It deal with a situation of paralysis, anxiety, allienation, disillusionment, depression and isolation due to the first world war
Joyce was hostile to city life and Dublin is a place where true feeling and compassion do not exist. there are only cruelty and selfishness
Dublin is also the centre of paralysis because all the characters are paralised: even if they want to escape they are unable to do it, they can't. For example Eveline instead of choosing a new life in Buenos Aires with Frank, she decides to stay in Dublin
Joyce represents Dublin in four aspects or fases: Childhood, Adolescence, Maturity and Public life
The last story "The Dead" is considered Joyce's masterpiece and it summaries all the theme of the other 14 stories of the collaction but it's more an epilogue and it anticipates Joyce's move from the short stories to the novel
There is the absence of didactisism (opposite of the Victorian Age): the writer isn't a moral guide saying what is wrong or what is right. is only task is to render life objectively
STYLE
The interior monologue in which through the free direct speech, the narratr non omniscent tends to disappear. Facts develope in a non chronological order
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Joyce uses a particular prose for each story because the language adopted for Eveline isn't the same in The Dead, so it depends on the character
In the first three story of the Childhood Joyce employs a first-person narrator who isn't identified. For the other 12 stories he uses a third person narrator omniscent.
PARALYSIS
Joyce wanted to portray a moral paralysis (linked to religion, politics and cuture) and a physical paralysis (linked to external objects)
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The opposite of paralysis is escape and its consequent failure because everyone in Dublin want to escape but they can't, because they are paralysed and afficted
The description in each story is realistic and realism is mixed with simbolism because external details generally have a deeper meaning
For example the street organ in Eveline is also called harmonium and it has a symbolic meaning. in fact it represent the disharmony of Eveline's family because her death mum was victim of her father and now she has the same destiny.
There are also religious symbolism and colour symbolism (colours like brown, grey and yelllow suggest the paralysis)
EPIPHANY
Joyce thought that the function of the symbolism is to take the reader beyond the real life through the analysis of the particular. This technique is called epiphany that is the sudden spiritual manifestation of the interior reality caused by external object