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  • Essay / The Darkness in James Joyce's Short Stories

    As readers, we look at words, words, and words. While early critics of James Joyce's Dubliners tended to see the work as a group of completely independent stories, more recent commentators have emphasized that there was a definite structure to the sequence and that the stories were linked together by several different themes and images. They found that all the stories revolve around the theme of paralysis and that images of confinement reappear frequently, in fact paralysis reigns supreme in Joyce's Dubliners. Critics have then divided, conventionally, on whether the symbolism of snow in the final short story "The Dead" evokes purification and rebirth or rather a mass reaffirmation of paralysis. Paralysis, born of Catholicism and colonization. However, I understood that "The Dead" does indeed offer ways out of paralysis that have nothing to do with this final symbolism. My understanding and perspectives were influenced by Trevor L. Williams and his journal article “Resistance to Paralysis Among Dubliners.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay. Additionally, the motif of darkness is so pervasive among Dubliners that it is difficult to discover a major scene taking place in bright sunlight in any of the stories. From the first to the top floor, the usual setting is a dark room or a dark Dublin street, and the action almost always takes place at night or in the early evening after sunset. All scenes of darkness can be attributed to Joyce's desire to present a vivid picture of the sordid side of "dear dirty Dublin". Before writing “The Dead,” James Joyce planned for the short story “Grace” to complete his collection. However, in both cases, "The Sisters" were always intended to open "Dubliners". The Sisters' first line: "There was no hope for him this time: it was the third strike." Likewise for “Grace”: “Two gentlemen who were in the toilet at the time tried to lift him up: but he was completely helpless”. Two examples cannot show a predilection for anything, according to Trevor L. Williams. Yet it is a fact that Joyce begins these framing stories by registering his helplessness, and that he ends up establishing relationships through the clauses. The first is a continuing relationship presented in the first quote "no hope: third blow", while the second quote is a contradictory relationship, "I tried to lift: but he was helpless", but the effects are radically similar. Keep in mind: This is just a sample.Get a custom paper now from our expert writers.Get a custom essayThe darkness that reigns throughout the stories symbolizes the plight of the Irish people, providing a reason to his paralysis. The darkness in the stories takes the form of the religious, political, and social darkness that surrounds the characters; they are not only subject to the physical darkness of the dear, dirty streets of Dublin. Joyce's pessimism about human relationships may seem excessive until we remember that this view emerges from specific historical circumstances. The characters' relationship with the past also reflects the historical context of Dublin. The literary articulation of life under capitalism often represents the past as a green paradise period that will be welcomed into a near future made possible by some kind of economic progress. Indeed, under colonialism, the realization.