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Dubliners James Joyce
There was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin.
Dubliners James Joyce 22/12/2020 14:52
Introduction Joyce is known for his knottiness, although reading Dubliners (1914) may not immediately give that impression – at least not as strongly as if you started out by reading one of his later works, like Finnegans Wake (1939) or Ulysses (1922): I loved rousing that dog in the hotel rrrsssst awokwokawok his eyes shut and a bird flying below us he was shy all the same I liked him—1 The stories in this book won’t ravel a reader in syntax and semantics quite the way that those famous modernist novels do, but it is helpful to see the styles for which Joyce would later become known – partly because the reception of Dubliners is completely tangled up with them, but also because the stories themselves feature a similar, if less conspicuous, weave of voices and narrative perspectives. Dubliners always had something about it. The first reviews in June and July 1914 were somewhat mixed, but typically praised the author’s ‘technique’, ‘style’ or ‘skill of…observation’, appreciated the flecks of humour and remarked the realism of the characters.2 Some reviewers, meanwhile, turned up a nose at the apparent pessimism of the stories and at Joyce’s decision to write primarily about people ‘who would be submerged if the tide of material difficulties were to rise a little higher’.3 These reviews seemed to want some signs of respite and
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hope which Dubliners, in their view, did not provide.4 The stories were regarded as naturalistic, presenting an unvarnished perspective and dealing head-on with ‘sordid’ aspects of reality. A couple of reviewers referred cautiously to the author’s ‘genius’. Everyone seemed to agree that his lens would need to widen.5 For any number of reasons, interest in Dubliners subsequently fizzled. Until about 1956, when a series of important essays were published on the idea of ‘paralysis’ in the stories, the book received little attention from literary critics, and it sold badly.6 Since the 1920s, Joyce had enjoyed recognition as an important modern writer, but attention tended to focus on his later, more obviously complex and experimental writing. When critics finally started to look back at Dubliners, they did so in the light of Joyce’s now-settled status as the author of epic novels that had transformed the landscape of literature in English. Dubliners doesn’t look like that kind of work, and so it has sometimes been interpreted as a kind of stepping-stone in Joyce’s development as a writer. It has even been regarded as juvenilia (a word used to describe the early efforts of writers, before their ‘serious’ work, usually implying a lack of maturity or sophistication). Although this view is now considered outdated, still ‘[i]t took considerable time for readers to become aware of the understated artistry and narrative power of Dubliners’, as Mary Power and Ulrich Schneider wrote in 1997.7 These ideas of understatement, artistry, narrative power – or perhaps concentration, intensity, like a glass of not-very-diluted squash – can certainly be helpful when reading Dubliners: it has all these qualities. But one of the best analogies, I think, is Margot Norris’s borrowing from biology. Noting that Dubliners has increasingly
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been used by literary critics as a kind of testing ground for new theories of narrative and language, she compares the book to a ‘model organism’: ‘a genetically simple life form that nonetheless displays universal features of cell metabolism.’8 One of the strange things about the stories in this collection is that they do seem to metabolise after reading. Deceptively simple, sometimes a little opaque, they nonetheless contain characters, plot ambiguities, turns of phrase, silences and moods that continue to act on readers after the fact.
Contexts and concerns City, colony, church, nation Andrew Gibson says of Dubliners that it is ‘about the Dublin Joyce left, and helps to explain why he left it’.9 The city as it was around the turn of the 20th century provides the context for the psychological, educational, economic, moral, sexual, religious, aesthetic and political dramas we encounter in the book. The fact that so many of these themes overlap in Dubliners means that the contexts for the novel are extremely miscellaneous, and to trace all of them would be a fruitless (and endless) task. But this in itself tells us something important about the stories: they are immersed in the life of a city that had, in and around 1900, some characteristics of the busy, eclectic modern metropolis – characterised, in Raymond Williams’s words, by its ‘miscellaneity’, a mix and blend of lives and cultures quite different to ‘more traditional, closed societies’.10 Yet Dublin’s political status also meant that such metropolitan qualities were unevenly developed. The city was a major transport hub, had well-established technical- and higher-education systems, was closely linked to other metropolitan
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centres like London and Paris, had substantial whitecollar employment in legal, administrative and financial sectors. But it was still fundamentally a colonial city, beholden both economically and politically to the centre of Empire in England. Inequalities between rich and poor were pronounced; the death rate and infant mortality were extremely high – and, although this was not unique among industrial cities in the British Empire, Dublin’s rates were notably slower to improve than those of cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham after 1900.11 The stories in Dubliners were largely written between 1904 and 1907. Since the Act of Union in 1800, which followed an uprising against British rule in 1798, Ireland had had no parliament of its own and was governed by decision-makers in London, along with an administration headed by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and based in Dublin Castle. Ireland did have parliamentary constituencies, meaning that it had representation in the Westminster Parliament – though no direct power of government. In the 19th century, a major campaign developed calling for Irish Home Rule, a devolved form of self-government without total independence. A key figure in this movement was Charles Stewart Parnell, an Irish MP who made considerable progress with British politicians in advocating for Home Rule. In the last part of the 19th century, the Westminster Parliament voted on two Home Rule Bills: the first was defeated in the House of Commons in 1886; the second was passed by the House of Commons but vetoed by the House of Lords in 1893. In short, it had looked as though progress was being made for the nationalist cause, but when Joyce was writing Dubliners the hopes for a parliamentary solution to the demand for greater independence seemed distant.
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THE SISTERS
There was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse. He had often said to me: ‘I am not long for this world,’ and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work. Old Cotter was sitting at the fire, smoking, when I came downstairs to supper. While my aunt was ladling out my stirabout he said, as if returning to some former remark of his: ‘No, I wouldn’t say he was exactly … but there was something queer … there was something uncanny about him. I’ll tell you my opinion …’
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He began to puff at his pipe, no doubt arranging his opinion in his mind. Tiresome old fool! When we knew him first he used to be rather interesting, talking of faints and worms; but I soon grew tired of him and his endless stories about the distillery. ‘I have my own theory about it,’ he said. ‘I think it was one of those … peculiar cases … But it’s hard to say …’ He began to puff again at his pipe without giving us his theory. My uncle saw me staring and said to me: ‘Well, so your old friend is gone, you’ll be sorry to hear.’ ‘Who?’ said I. ‘Father Flynn.’ ‘Is he dead?’ ‘Mr Cotter here has just told us. He was passing by the house.’ I knew that I was under observation so I continued eating as if the news had not interested me. My uncle explained to old Cotter. ‘The youngster and he were great friends. The old chap taught him a great deal, mind you; and they say he had a great wish for him.’ ‘God have mercy on his soul,’ said my aunt piously. Old Cotter looked at me for a while. I felt that his little beady black eyes were examining me but I would not satisfy him by looking up from my plate. He returned to his pipe and finally spat rudely into the grate. ‘I wouldn’t like children of mine,’ he said, ‘to have too much to say to a man like that.’ ‘How do you mean, Mr Cotter?’ asked my aunt. ‘What I mean is,’ said old Cotter, ‘it’s bad for children.
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The Sisters
My idea is: let a young lad run about and play with young lads of his own age and not be … Am I right, Jack?’ ‘That’s my principle, too,’ said my uncle. ‘Let him learn to box his corner. That’s what I’m always saying to that Rosicrucian there: take exercise. Why, when I was a nipper every morning of my life I had a cold bath, winter and summer. And that’s what stands to me now. Education is all very fine and large … Mr Cotter might take a pick of that leg mutton,’ he added to my aunt. ‘No, no, not for me,’ said old Cotter. My aunt brought the dish from the safe and put it on the table. ‘But why do you think it’s not good for children, Mr Cotter?’ she asked. ‘It’s bad for children,’ said old Cotter, ‘because their mind are so impressionable. When children see things like that, you know, it has an effect …’ I crammed my mouth with stirabout for fear I might give utterance to my anger. Tiresome old red-nosed imbecile! It was late when I fell asleep. Though I was angry with old Cotter for alluding to me as a child, I puzzled my head to extract meaning from his unfinished sentences. In the dark of my room I imagined that I saw again the heavy grey face of the paralytic. I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. But the grey face still followed me. It murmured, and I understood that it desired to confess something. I felt my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region; and there again I found it waiting for me. It began to confess to me in a murmuring voice and I wondered why it smiled continually and why the lips were so moist
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with spittle. But then I remembered that it had died of paralysis and I felt that I too was smiling feebly as if to absolve the simoniac of his sin. The next morning after breakfast I went down to look at the little house in Great Britain Street. It was an unassuming shop, registered under the vague name of Drapery. The drapery consisted mainly of children’s bootees and umbrellas; and on ordinary days a notice used to hang in the window, saying: Umbrellas Re-covered. No notice was visible now for the shutters were up. A crape bouquet was tied to the door-knocker with ribbon. Two poor women and a telegram boy were reading the card pinned on the crape. I also approached and read: July 1st, 1895 The Rev. James Flynn (formerly of S. Catherine’s Church, Meath Street), aged sixty-five years. R. I. P. The reading of the card persuaded me that he was dead and I was disturbed to find myself at check. Had he not been dead I would have gone into the little dark room behind the shop to find him sitting in his arm-chair by the fire, nearly smothered in his greatcoat. Perhaps my aunt would have given me a packet of High Toast for him and this present would have roused him from his stupefied doze. It was always I who emptied the packet into his black snuff-box for his hands trembled too much to allow him to do this without spilling half the snuff about the floor. Even as he raised his large trembling hand to his nose little clouds of smoke dribbled through his fingers over the
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Glossary Note on punctuation When Dubliners was first published in 1914, Joyce was adamant that he wanted dialogue to be printed with dashes rather than speech marks. He felt that the English convention of inverted commas was extremely ugly, and he preferred a continental tradition of printing dialogue between dashes. However, Grant Richards, his publisher, was resistant – he had exactly the opposite taste – and Joyce ultimately relented, perhaps in part because of the difficulties he had faced to get the book this close to print. However, he never abandoned his preference for dashes, and insisted on this again for future works. (For a fuller account, see Elizabeth M. Bonapfel, ‘Marking Realism in Dubliners’, European Joyce Studies, 23 (2014), 67–86.) The text of this edition is based on the earlier publication and uses quotation marks. The S isters 1
gnomon in the Euclid: Euclid was a 3rd-century BCE Greek philosopher and mathematician, known as the founder of geometry. In his important work Elements, a gnomon is defined as the shape left when a smaller parallelogram is cut out from a larger one – an L-shape. The word also refers to the standing part of a sundial.
1
simony in the Catechism: the Catechism is a text that outlines the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church. Simony describes an abuse of clerical privilege, specifically the buying and selling of religious offices or favours. Joyce may be hinting at the alternative sin of sodomy.
1
stirabout: a type of porridge made of rolled oats or oatmeal
2
faints and worms: technical terms from the process of whisky distillation
3
that Rosicrucian there: Rosicrucianism is an esoteric, mystical branch of Catholicism, suggesting an interest in concealed metaphysical truth.
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3
it desired to confess something: alludes to the institution of Confession, a private ritual in which a priest listens privately to a parishioner’s self-confessed sins and offers the person absolution (forgiveness)
4
High Toast: a brand of snuff
4
snuff: a type of tobacco inhaled through the nose
5
catacombs: underground passageways used for burials and religious observance; here probably alluding to the catacombs in Rome, which were used by early Christians to hide from persecutors
5
ceremonies of the Mass: Mass is a central act of worship in Catholic Christianity, which culminates in the sacrament of the Eucharist – a re-enactment of the Last Supper through the breaking of bread and drinking of wine. The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is the belief that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ through consecration at the mass.
5
vestments: the robes worn by members of the clergy
5
mortal or venial or only imperfections: alludes to the Catholic belief that there are different levels of sin. Venial sins are smaller moral violations; mortal sin implies breaking with God in a more decisive way. Both kinds of sin can be absolved. Imperfections alludes to the view that humans can be guilty of moral shortcomings that are not strictly sinful.
5
Eucharist: see ceremonies of the Mass above (p.5)
6
Persia: an old name for Iran, here used to suggest exotic customs and pleasures
7
I saw that he was not smiling: The coffin is open – a common custom in Catholic funerals and wakes.
9
notice for the Freeman’s General: notice of death to be published in a daily newspaper, likely referring to the Freeman’s Journal; when Joyce was writing, this paper was edited by Thomas Sexton, who had been an antiParnellite MP
9
beef-tea: a hot drink – a kind of thin broth sometimes used as a dietary remedy
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