2007, Volume 5, Number 1
Paralysis and Epiphany: How Joyce Could Save Dublin
When James Joyce finally got his collection of short stories Dubliners published nearly eight years after its completion, he remarked that his sole intention was to “write a chapter of the moral history of my country [choosing Dublin because] that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis” (O’Neill 85). He believed that the people of Ireland had the capacity, but lacked the true desire, to come to a realization about their situation. He thought that their refusal to open their eyes to their situation (and also to accept some responsibility for it) was the reason they were trapped in a state of paralysis. Physically, emotionally and sexually, the people of his Dubliners could do no more than float through a life that barely scratched the surface of what they could truly experience. The collection presents us with characters mired in the stagnant existence that he believed was the fate of all Dubliners. However, Joyce planted in each individual story the possibility of awakening. These little epiphanies typically only let the reader and the narrator understand the truth of the situation, but there were also moments where the characters were painfully close to breaking through and realizing their plight and their ability to change it. It is through these little moments that we see Joyce’s hope that his home country of Ireland has the ability to awaken from its paralysis. It is the individuals of Ireland that he hopes, or more accurately wishes, can save his country. He holds out little hope that the larger movements of Irish Nationalism will end the paralysis, each individual must realize the truth about Dublin, and no larger group can do it for them. Though this is not to say that Joyce believed it would be easy for the peoples he chronicled to achieve the lofty goals he had set for them.Joyce was initially ignored by the people of Ireland because he rejected the ideals of the other artists involved in the literary revival, specifically, he rejected nationalism. He remarked to his brother that, “If the Irish programme did not insist on the Irish language I suppose I could call myself a nationalist” (Cheng 2). As the nationalists held the preservation of the Irish language as the most important aspect of nationalism, it was no surprise he eventually felt compelled to leave the country he so wished could free itself. As a result of his refusal to live by the standards of the nationalists, Joyce’s writings were deemed apolitical, and until the 1970’s, critics only saw Dubliners as an influencing force in changing literary styles. It was ignored as a call to action for the people of Ireland. This undoubtedly occurred because the hope he held out for Ireland that was deeply buried in his writing was nonexistent in his interactions. In a letter he wrote: “I call the series Dubliners to betray the soul of that hemoplegia or paralysis which many consider a city” (Heffernan 172). His works were ignored as political writings because they didn’t preach the same solutions that the other Irish writers espoused. His quarrel was with the government that allowed Ireland to whither away like a third world country under British imperialist rule, against the church which was too full of corruption to add to a solution, and against an academia that didn’t believe the Irish could help themselves (Cheng 2). It was upon his style instead of his message that the critics focused, because he had to invent his own. He refused to follow in the footsteps of Shakespeare, or Milton, because they represented to him British oppression. He saw in the writers of the comic Irish tradition the tendency to act as nothing but clowns dressed up as writers to impress their British oppressors. And when the traditionalist Irish writers turned to the church when they saw the paralysis of their people, Joyce could do no such thing, for he could not imagine a free Ireland so willingly submitting itself to spiritual tyranny (Manganiello 174). Though modernist scholars did not always see Dubliners as such, it is now clear that Joyce’s collection of short stories is not only a history of the city of Dublin, but also a wish for its salvation. Joyce was advocating delliverance, not only from the oppression of England, but from the paralyzing effects of the oppression from within Ireland itself.
The stories in Dubliners were divided into four sections, each one representing some aspect of Dublin’s collective consciousness. They appear in the order in which Joyce wrote them, “The Dead” being written nearly a year after the rest of the stories were completed. Not only do they show how different parts of Dublin society experience their paralysis, they also show how Joyce’s attitude towards it evolved. The first three stories are those of young childhood, representing the time of Dublin’s absolute ignorance towards its state of being. Youth and early adolescence, in which a problem is noticed but not fully comprehended, is given the next four stories. Late adolescence and adult life, in which the characters are presented with the reality of their lives, but choose to look the other way, is also given four stories. The last four stories are about Public Life, pointing to what Joyce saw as the cause of Ireland’s problems: overwhelming Catholicism, pub life, and the corrupt dealings of those in power (Kenner 53). The false connections of the church and the self betrayal of those governing Ireland were to him slowly leeching away the true culture of the country, and filling their lives with empty promises instead of substance (Stewart 44). The things they held the dearest were keeping them in stasis. All of these stories involve some sort of epiphany, be it for the reader or the characters; but the only story in which the character truly realizes something and learns something of themselves is “The Dead.” This realization is the husband knowing that he can never truly have what he had imagined he had with his wife, that he can never escape the ghost of her dead suitor. This is hardly the sentimental epiphany so many critics claimed was at the heart of all the stories, and that caused so many of them to brush off the stories altogether. Frederick Jameson claimed that the collection was simply a sentimental and shallow account of Dublin, claiming the stories, “suggest that epiphany or revelation is conceivable as an event within the secularized world of modern capitalism” an idea which he thinks is absurd (“Magical” 146). The husband in “The Dead” has realized that he has spent his entire married life stuck in his own little reality where he was the center of his wife’s world, an assumption that was clearly wrong, not really the most sentimental of realizations. The rest of the stories merely clue the reader into the cause of the paralysis being experienced by each given set of Dubliners, they do nothing to romanticize Dublin or suggest that revelations are easy to come by. Instead, they show how the paralyzed city cannot fully experience what they should be capable of (Heller 15).
In the first three tales that center around childhood (“The Sisters,” “An Encounter,” and “Araby”) the children, who represent events from Joyce’s childhood, are confronted with the stark reality of the paralysis of the adults that should be providing them guidance. It is painfully obvious to the reader that the children’s trust in the adults, particularly in their delusion of the virtuosity of those in the priesthood, is the beginning of their life of paralysis, for they are looking for guidance from those who cannot even provide it for themselves. In “The Encounter,” the adult/father figure that the boys find in the field is nothing more than a pervert, yet the boys feel they must give him proper respect by listening to his stories and feigning interest. This is what they’ve been told to do, to respect their elders no matter how ridiculous it may seem. In “Araby,” the little boy narrating the tale sees himself “bearing his chalice safely through a throng of foes” (Joyce 28) as if it were a grand and noble task, though the only other mention of a chalice in these stories is when Father Flynn was clumsy and broke his own (Kenner 53).
As readers, we get our epiphany when we see how ridiculous it is for this little boy to aspire to be something that should be admirable, but in Dublin turns out to be nothing but farce. The priest that this boy is aspiring to be like is found sitting in his own confession box weeping and laughing madly at the cruel joke he sees as his own life. His own confession (omitted in later versions of the text): “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger” (Joyce 11). The closest that any of the children get to realizing their idols may not be so perfect is in “The Sisters,” when the young boy looks at the dead priests old arm chair and says, “I felt annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death” (Joyce 11). Unfortunately, this thought is quickly shaken away by the lad. But why did it even appear if Joyce was trying to get us to see that the people of Dublin were incapable of seeing the things keeping them paralyzed? This is the first story in the collection, and the only other than “The Dead” that has even a hint of the cloud being lifted from the vision of the Dubliners. Joyce couldn’t simply allow each of his characters to realize their problems and come out victorious. Life doesn’t work like that, and Ireland didn’t work like that. The only way to show how close the people of Dublin could be to a true epiphany was to show how close they could be while still ignoring the awful truth. It would have been so simple for the little boy to look at this enthroned image of priestly goodness and virtue and realize he would be better off without it, but instead he ignored what the voice in his head was telling him. It was easier for him to look to his elders for advice, no matter how incapable of giving it they may have been; which parallels how it was easier for Ireland to accept British control, or to blindly obey the whims of the priestly class. When the adults in “The Sisters” questioned Father Flynn’s integrity, it was the man they were questioning, not the occupation. They were incapable of imagining that a blameless priesthood could be the problem, so instead they had to assume that Flynn just wasn’t cut out for God’s work. The problem couldn’t be God, or his institution.
The next set of stories representing youth and early adolescence (“Eveline,” “After the Race,” “Two Gallants,” and “The Boarding House”), deal with the characters themselves causing or perpetuating their paralysis, and being absolutely unaware of it. In the cases of the women involved in these stories we see the virgin (Polly) and the temptress (Eveline) both perpetuating the paralysis present in the story. Eveline is foisting the end results of her paralysis on Frank, instead of having to experience it herself, while Polly is slyly manipulating a marriage without having any idea that she is involved with the planning of her future paralysis (Kenner 55). With the males in these stories we see a kind-hearted man (Frank) left out in the cold because of someone else’s failure to act, and the men in “Two Gallants” reduced to prostitution, ending their night’s adventures with a shiny gold coin, exceedingly proud of their night’s work. These characters are clearly presented with the knowledge that they are not fully in control of their own destinies, that they are letting outdated expectations of them run their lives, but they continue on anyway. They simply do not care, it is easier for them to do what is expected and let other people manipulate their lives than it is for them to take a stand and think for themselves. The characters in “After the Race” are the ones you would assume to be the most free of paralysis, they are after all racing cars around town, free as could be. But even these relatively free youth are described as “pellets in a groove” as they travel the road. They still have no freedom of movement, are still stuck on a track while they are pretending to be free (Werner 36). These are perhaps the most frightening stories in Dubliners, because these young adults just close their eyes to the reality of what they have become. They are setting themselves up for a lifetime of paralysis, and making the same mistakes that their parents before them had made--which are presumably the same mistakes that they will push their own children into when the time comes. These stories seem to be Joyce’s fear for the future of Ireland. He hopes that Ireland realizes what it has become, that it would rather be a comfortable monster than break free of the pitiful existence in which it is trapped. This is our epiphany as readers, the frightening truth that people as a whole are not willing to break away from the norm; no matter how terrible it is.
The next four stories deal with the lives of mature adults (“A Little Cloud”, “Counterparts,” “Clay,” and “A Painful Case”). The people in these stories are experiencing an intense loneliness, cut off from the world around them, but are too paralyzed to seek real camaraderie from their fellow Dubliners. They are no longer the young adults of “Two Gallants” striving to impress each other, they are grown men afraid to read their beautiful poetry to their wives, who take their aggression out on innocent children, and pretend they are not lonely because they share a few drinks with “friends” who are practically strangers. Their epiphany is that they have no real connections; they see that they cannot connect with those closest to them, and instead of trying to bridge the gap they foster false connections, hoping they can ignore the loneliness inside them. In “Clay,” Maria attempts to bury this loneliness in little acts of kindness. She hopes that if she surrounds herself with these small, yet grand, gestures, she will no longer be alone. She hopes she will no longer cease to fit into the world in which she lives (Heller 23). Her continuing all of these small acts, no matter what it has done to both her repressed sexuality and her entire mindset, is her paralysis. She is trapped in a tiny world from which she can’t escape. Her epiphany cannot save her, for it is merely a realization that she is trapped, and that she would rather live in the adolescent world where she could pretend otherwise.
The last four stories of Dubliners deal with those who are in the Public Life (“Ivy Day in the Committee Room”, “A Mother,” “Grace,” and “The Dead”). These stories illustrate what happens when the paralysis of the previous two sections leaks over into the daily routines of those in power. The priestly members of these stories compare themselves to accountants, trying to balance the spiritual checkbooks of those they encounter. They don’t actually think they are helping people or making Ireland a better place. They see their vocation as merely that, they have given up on the idea that what they do is more than a job. The spiritual wellbeing of Ireland is in their hands, but they couldn’t care less.
Arguably the most important story of the collection, “The Dead” is the only story where the epiphany brings a hopeful note. Gabriel spends most of his night realizing that his friends care more about showing him up, and about their own problems than they do about him. The only thing that stops him from cracking is his sudden desire for his wife. His entire walk home he builds up and builds up the anticipated encounter, when his wife, out of the blue, brings up a man from her past. A man that died because of his love for her, someone she had kept hidden in her mind all the years they had been married. At first this seems like a shattering of illusions just like all of the rest of the epiphanies in Dubliners. It first appears that the only realization Gabriel will achieve is that he will never truly know his wife. But this interpretation couldn’t be farther from the truth. The entirety of their relationship up to this point in the story is what wasn’t real, it was their paralysis. Gabriel has finally made the greatest connection possible with his wife, he is now a part of the biggest occurrence in her life. It matters not that he was not there when it happened and that they didn’t even know each other. What matters is that now he can understand her, and she can trust him with her innermost secrets. Gabriel certainly hasn’t in this moment overcame his paralysis, but we certainly see him beginning his journey to overcome it. The best analogy is Dante’s vision at the close of the Inferno, it is a daunting vision, but one that precedes his eventual departure from hell. At the close of “The Dead,” Gabriel is the visionary, gazing out at the lonely snow falling over Dublin (Heller 40). This seems not to be a story ending on a note of hopeless desperation, but rather foreseeing Gabriel’s journey out of the land of the dead. Could we expect Joyce to let it be an easy journey for Gabriel? We know he did not see Ireland’s journey out of paralysis as an easy one, but “The Dead” ending on this note allows us to see that no matter how difficult he thought the journey would be, he did still believe that the people of Ireland had the potential to awaken themselves. When editor after editor refused to publish Joyce’s collection of stories, he wrote unapologetically that:
It is not my fault that the odour of ashpits and old weeds and offal hangs round my stories. I seriously believe that you will retard the course of civilization in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking glass. (Werner 12)
Through all of the stories of Dubliners, we see frustration after frustration. We readers get moments of epiphany while seeing how the people of Dublin are perpetuating their own paralysis. For the most part though, the characters themselves are unable to see through the looking glass at what they are missing, and what their paralysis has reduced their lives to. In “The Dead,” Gabriel sees the truth. He got a good look at his reality and realizes his need for a long and difficult journey. His epiphany is the one that Joyce hopes all of Ireland will be able to experience--he wants his people to see that their great mistake is failing to question the world they have been given, failing to question the wisdom of those in power who have put them in such despair. Joyce wrote these stories because he believed that Ireland had the potential to break itself free of paralysis, and because he believed every man and woman in Ireland could have Gabriel’s epiphany, if only they would open their eyes.
WORKS CITED
Cheng, Vincent. Joyce, Race, and Empire. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Heller, Vivian. Joyce, Decadence, and Emancipation. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.
Heffernan, James. British Writers Retrospective Supplement I “James Joyce”.
Kenner, Hugh. Dublin’s Joyce. Boston: Beacon Press, 1956.
Joyce, James. Dubliners. New York: The Viking Press, 1961.
Manganiello, Dominic. Joyce’s Politics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980. Werner, Craig. Dubliners: A Pluralistic World. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
This paper was written for English 464 (Modern Literature), as a final research project.