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The Stories in Dubliners have been described as epiphanies or revelations of some truth. Consider three stories in the collection in terms of how Joyce has used language to convey a characters moment of epiphany. James Joyce was born in 1882, into a Catholic middle class family in the suburbs of Dublin a lifestyle that never really suited him, and moved him to question the tenants of the Catholic faith and the atmosphere of the city. He was an intelligent man and went from high school to university where he reveled in the work of Ibsen, at the time renowned for being an ‘immoral playwright’ as the subject matters he dealt with were ones polite society wasn’t supposed to acknowledge. This inspired Joyce in his own writing, and he wrote prose that showed real life in all its harsh reality. As soon as he was able to, Joyce left Dublin and never returned, however it remained the lace where all his stories were set. It seems he had an inexplicable love and hate relationship with the city, as it occupied all his work which in themselves do not portray Dublin in a positive light, rather show a city paralyzed by indecision. Joyce wrote a series of stories that he put together and called Dubliners. When we read through these we notice the transition through youth to maturity- we start off in childhood, gradually reach into adolescence and by the last few stories view the world through an adults eye. The stories depict Dublin in concise detail, geographical features are mentioned, such as street names and we are very aware of this living breathing entity of a city. As Joyce said, ‘I call the series Dubliners to betray the soul of that hemiplegia or paralysis which many consider a city’. The soul of the city does not seem to be a fortunate one. As with any short story, the text is hugely condensed so every word must be examined carefully for meaning. I will be looking at three stories, each one charting a different age in the book. I will examine ‘The Sisters’, where we have the narrator as a young boy, the story ‘Eveline’ where the main character is a young woman, and ‘Araby’ another story from his childhood, narrated by a young boy, about his first love. I will start with a summary of The Sisters. This story begins with a young boy thinking about the impending death of a priest, who has come to be his friend. When the boy returns home he learns that has died that day, and his relationship wit the Priest is discussed by his uncle and Old Cotter. The boy dislikes this as he feels they are criticizing Father Flynn. The next part of this story has the boy visiting the priests home where the priest is laid out, and they give their last respects to him and his sisters.
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