The backgrounds of Dubliners

1. The backgrounds of Dubliners

2. The Irish tradition of storytelling

3. Dubliners is a collection of short stories, a genre exceptionally popular in Ireland, which is heir to the immemorial national tradition of the oral tale told by a professional storyteller. Every year, from Halloween to the night of St. Patrick’s Day (17 March), such storytellers were the very soul of gatherings of people around the fireplace, in mansions or cottages – where their performance was drawn from a repertory of 350 items or more.

4. From a sociological point of view, the short story, more than the novel, can easily become the voice of those whom Frank O’Connor calls “submerged population groups”. • From an aesthetic point of view, it seems that Irish writers feel more at ease in the “face to face” relationship entailed by the narrator’s role in short pieces, and in the less elaborate type of structure involved.

5. Joyce’s claims to novelty • The setting and environment becomes totally urban instead of rural (resulted from the consequences brought about by the Industrial Revolution: more than a quarter of the population of the South of Ireland moved to Dublin) • Joyce attempts to remain a modernist writer but cannot help returning to the Gaelic sources.

6. Joyce’s Irishness can be studied on at least five levels: • religious • cultural • political • geographical • autobiographical

7. Joyce’s autobiographical references in Dubliners • Structure: Childhood – Adolescence – Mature Age The Dead: • personal tendencies (love-hate relationship with money, his fondness of the bottle, his jealousy) • Nora’s relationship with Michael Bodkin, suffering from consumption • references to the West of Ireland, where Joyce went in pilgrimage • he also chose an Irish, plain, nearly rustic , girl to be his wife

8. Nora Joyce and Gretta Conroy (Anjelica Huston)

9. The Dead, completed in 1907

10. From Thomas Moore’s Irish Melodies, written between 1807 and 1834 Oh, ye Dead! Oh, ye Dead! Whom we know by the light you give From your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live. […] It is true, it is true, we are shadows cold and wan; And the fair and the brave whom we lov’d on earth are gone […]

11. Structure and plot • Arrival of the guests and first dances • Gabriel’s Dance with Miss Ivors, supper and speech • Last song, departure, hotel scene with the revelation of Gretta’s past love

12. The Divine Comedy (1308-1321) by DanteDante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above, in Michelino'sfresco The nine circles of hell: Limbo Lust Gluttony Greed Anger Heresy Violence Fraud Treachery

13. A different approach to seeing the plot structure – parallels with Divine Comedy • The Morkans Household – Gabriel’s hell • The carriage trip to the Gresham – a period of purgation • The hotel scene – a revelation scene

14. The main theme – a man’s realization of his psychological paralysis - or egotism – which is broken down by three failures or rebukes, one in each part of the story:

15. Lily’s refusal of a tip: Gabriel’s failure as a gentleman • Miss Ivors’ use of the abusive term “West Briton” - Gabriel’s failure as an Irishman • Gretta’s withdrawal into the past and her revelation - Gabriel’s failure as a man , a lover and a husband.

16. The ambiguity of Joyce’s symbolism • Death (the dead vs. the living; dying as a precondition to surviving?) • Snow (the end or the beginning of the life cycle?)