Gente di Dublino, Lingua e letteratura inglese

Appunti riguardanti l’opera “Dubliners” di James Joyce. Curiosità sull’opera e breve

spiegazione di alcuni racconti (Racconti: Sisters, Eveline, Two gallants, A painful case, The

dead).

1.Introduction

James Joyce wrote his “Dubliners” in summer 1905, when he was 23 and lived in Trieste. When he

sent a copy of the book to his English publisher Grant Richards, who lived in London, he explained

the attempt to show, with his collection of 15 short stories, some aspects of Dublin and its citizens.

He wanted to present his town to the world, but not its amenities, the old beautiful corners or the

breathtaking sceneries of the city, but the negative aspects of it, the corruption of Dubliners, the

paralysis of politics and the religion. For this reason the publisher didn’t publish the book until June

1914. Joyce said that “Dubliners” was the only authentic description of his land, with its problems.

He loved Dublin more than the other places where he had lived, despite he had left it when he was

very young, and we can find this close relationship in all his books.

2. Topics

The main topics of “Dubliners” are:

- Paralysis: The characters of the book are very often described while they are going through

a moment of paralysis. According to Joyce, these are metaphors of the general situation of

Ireland.

- Epiphanies: The meaning of “Epiphany” is explained by Joyce in his autobiographical novel

“Stephen Hero”, it is a fleeting moment of revelation about the self or the world, a sort of

spiritual manifestation very often showed in some vulgar or ordinary speech or gesture.

3. The book

The book is divided into 15 short stories characterized by the same set, Dublin. The sequence of

the stories follows the pattern: CHILDHOOD-ADOLESCENCE-MATURITY AND PUBLIC LIFE.

4. Sisters

It is the first story, and is part of the first life period, the childhood. The main character is a child,

who is the same who tells us the events. He was a close friend of Father Flynn, an old priest. The

day after his death he goes to his house with the aunt. Once there they sees the corpse in bed and

then the aunt starts to talk with the two sisters of Father Flynn, Eliza and Nannie Flynn. They are

very old women who lived with their brother and looked after him who was paralyzed. During the

conversation they tell an event in which Father Flynn was involved some years before. He was

cleaning a chalice in the sacristy of his church when suddenly it fell and smashed to pieces. After

this incident he went crazy. One evening he was discovered into the confessional of the church

while he was laughing alone without a reason. This is the Epiphanic moment of the story. The

paralysis is here both physical, the old priest is a paralytic, and the metaphor of a man who wasn’t

able to overcome a negative period.

5. Eveline

It’s part of the “Adolescence”. The main character is a 19-year-old girl called Eveline who lives in

the outskirts of Dublin. She’s looking out the window with a letter in her hands and thinking over