Abstract
The Return of the Native presents a world in which “doing means marrying. Thomas Hardy shows how the dominant discourse of the Victorian society defines an individual’s whole life through the conformity to the social code of marriage. This paper clarifies how Hardy’s satirical tone implicitly reflects the voice of the minority, which is not able or eager to follow this conformity code of the majority. Through a detailed analysis of the significance of marriage in defining one’s social identity, family relations, economic ambitions, and individual ideals, the paper focuses on a hermaphrodite character who cannot adapt to the majority’s code because of his physical condition. Such an individual, as the paper presents, is marginalized by the majority and suffers from problems that might lead to psychological disorders. It is Hardy’s implicit satirical tone, which encourages the readers to change their mental set about the role of marriage in defining one’s identity.
Highlights
Being an indispensible part of modern fiction, ambiguity is intended to imply what is always merited as the „literariness‟ and „sophistication‟ of such texts
All the stories are deliberately and carefully patterned, all have a density, a fullness of implication, which the even tone of the narrative by disguising [italics mine] only renders more effective (p. 31). All this patterning owes its complexity, significance, and survival to Joyce‟s disguising art. This over-all pattern existing throughout Dubliners aims to disguise the writer‟s real meaning and intention leading to the Joycean kind of ambiguity – gnomonic – which is the focal point of this essay
Gnomon? As mentioned in Euclid‟s Book II of Elements, a gnomon is the part of a parallelogram which remains after a similar parallelogram has been taken away from one of its corners
Summary
Being an indispensible part of modern fiction, ambiguity is intended to imply what is always merited as the „literariness‟ and „sophistication‟ of such texts. In modern fiction, in James Joyce‟s stories, ambiguity and indeterminacy transcend the textual difficulty and lead to a „mysterious‟ level. All this patterning owes its complexity, significance, and survival to Joyce‟s disguising art This over-all pattern existing throughout Dubliners aims to disguise the writer‟s real meaning and intention leading to the Joycean kind of ambiguity – gnomonic – which is the focal point of this essay. The opening page of the first story (“The Sisters” that will be mainly discussed here) perplexes the readers with three enigmatic italicized words; they have traditionally been read as thematic keys to the meaning of Dubliners as a whole. The following study intends to give a brief analysis of Joyce‟s main principle of ambiguity in “The Sisters” (the first story in Dubliners) demonstrating its distinctively gnomonic aspect of narrative and characterization
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
