AN ANALYSIS OF THEMES AND THE LANGUAGE OF THE CHARACTERS IN JAMES JOYCE’S ‘DUBLINERS’

Abstract

The involvement of politics and colonization is a key element in Irish literature, and James Joyce’s Dubliners is no exception. In his literary works, James Joyce blames British Empire and Roman Catholic Church as the main factors for Dublin’s backwardness and inferiority (Bulson, 2006). This was the main reason that Joyce was frustrated and decided to write his short stories collection “Dubliners”. Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories written by James Joyce and published in 1914. Joyce believed that these literary works would make the Irish society reflect more about themselves. The entire collection of the stories revolves around the everyday lives of ordinary people in Dublin. In this collection, throughout each story, Joyce expresses disappointment, darkness and paralysis. Therefore, it reflects an intellectual paralysis of the modern society that came as a result of oppression, religion and politics. Joyce’s goal was to present different class types from the lower-middle class to upper-class or blue-collar Dubliners. Joyce meant Dubliners to be read as a novel that creates an image of a city where its inhabitants grow from innocence to experience. He claims that this short stories collection can be seen as a moral history of Ireland and especially Dublin that is portrayed as a city in decline. In this collection, Joyce criticizes the Irish provinciality, the Catholic Church and the Irish politics of the time. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to make a close analysis of the themes and characters in James Joyce’s unique collection of short stories Dubliners . One of the most important themes that will be discussed in this study is paralysis, whose centre is Dublin. All the characters in Dubliners are portrayed as weak and fearful people who can be considered as slaves of cultural, political and religious life. They are portrayed as narrow-minded people oppressed mostly by the Catholic Church and politics of the time. Other important themes that come as a result of paralysis in Dubliners are poverty and corruption and the desire to escape and adventure in other countries. However, death is also a very important theme that will be discussed in this study. Therefore, by paralysis, corruption and death, Joyce portrays a dark picture of his hometown and its inhabitants through symbolism and imagery.The aim of this study is to make a close and detailed analysis of the themes and the characters in short stories collection Dubliners . It will addresses issues such as: What are the most important themes in the collection? How does paralysis influence the characters in Dubliners ? Why don’t they leave Dublin? How can this dark state change? What are the messages that Joyce is trying to express through his stories? Which characters symbolize paralysis? How does Joyce portray Dublin inhabitants through his characters? It will also intend to demonstrate the importance of Dubliners as a literary work. It will provide information about the author, the Irish society, and in particular a close and detailed analytic analysis of each story in collection. Keywords: James Joyce, Dubliners, selected stories, themes, characters, Catholic church, Ireland, characters, etc.