Joyce, Dubliners and diaspora

Abstract

Despite his self-imposed exile in continental Europe, James Joyce’s oeuvre is almost entirely set in Dublin. That paradox in itself reveals much about the psychological ramifications of diaspora in his life and writing. In their passing or more sustained encounters with migration, the characters of Dubliners are, like Joyce, subject to competing demands of personal, familial and national allegiance. The often subliminal presence of migration in their lives is especially manifest in their self-doubts, fantasies and obfuscations, as well as the conversations they have with themselves and others about it. In two stories in particular, “Eveline” and “A Little Cloud”, the focus is on characters who, while they both have aspirations to leave Ireland, decide to stay put. By addressing Dubliners through the lens of Avtar Brah’s concept of “diaspora space”, this article highlights the psychological complexities of migrant experience for those who choose to stay as well as leave. By demonstrating how such complexities are mediated through fiction, it contributes to a still under-researched aspect of Joyce scholarship, but equally, by putting diaspora space to the test of the narrative prerogatives and specificities of prose literature, it challenges and enriches our understanding of the concept and of diasporic Irishness more generally.