dubliners

[vango]

is there anyone reading or have read dubliners? i am. i hope we can talk about it. thanks

[nothingman87]

Yes, I've read Dubliners.

[vango]

how do you like it?
i read a few short stories from winesburg,ohio. i think dubliners is a little alike it. they are both about strange society and people. and their styles are similar. what do you think?

[Stanislaw]

I have read Araby, one of the stories in dubliners, have you read that one yet?

[simon]

Dubliners wasn't up to the hype it was portrayed as. I was a trifle bored, the characters though moderatly interseting seemed normal to me and thier lives and trials weren't all that unusual.

[vango]

yes, i have. it is about the little boy is frustrated when he loves mangan's sister. from the context, i think the main reason for his frustration is that he is innocent, while the world is not.

in the end of the story, joyce wrote: "i saw myself as a creatrue driven and derided by vanity." but the story does't mention he is pride in himself anywhere. he loves mangan's sister, but he is too shy or timid to tell her about his feelings. that illustrates he is not pride of himself at all. then why "vanity"?

and "my eys burned with anguish and anger". what is he angry about? the society or himself? i think it's himself, for then he trys to change himself and become muture and not innocent anymore.

what do you think? can you tell me? thanks.

I have read Araby, one of the stories in dubliners, have you read that one yet?

[vango]

Dubliners wasn't up to the hype it was portrayed as. I was a trifle bored, the characters though moderatly interseting seemed normal to me and thier lives and trials weren't all that unusual.

hi, simon. try to select one story or two from dubliners and read it again, and again. maybe you will have a completely different idea.

thier lives and trials weren't all that unusual.

yes, they are not that unusual. but is a great book have to discribe unsual lives and things? there is beauty in simpleness

[Stanislaw]

I don't think he relly loves mangans sister, it is more of a lust, and I think the reason he refers to himself as a creature driven by pride and vanity, is that he was always sitting in the shadows and trying his hardest to convince himself that he was actually in love, I think the main idea of the story is that earthly lust, is perhaps forbidden, like the tree of knowledge in the bible, and once tasted causes one's eyes to be opened to the real world, and all of its motives.

I think he is angry with himself, but also with mangans sister, I say this because when he sees the shopkeep in araby talking to the other two gentlemen, more flirting than talking really, he realizes that perhaps mangans sister was just teasing him in a sense, pulling him along, like the shopkeep, or like the snake in the garden of eden.

[vango]

i totally agree with you that he doesn't really love mangan's sister. but i think maybe he just loves her image, a visional image, just like gone with the wind, scarlett love the image of ashley. so he even doesn't know his lovers name, only mangan's sister

[nothingman87]

The Dead may be the most beautiful short story in the English language. The epiphany that Gabriel Byrne has at the end of the story that the only truly perfect beings in this world are the dead is very profound. The way Joyce shows the many classes and characters which populate the Irish population is astounding. The Dead also contains one of the most memorable final lines to a story that I've read, "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. Great lyrical prose from a master.

[Stanislaw]

I have found that almost all of joyces characters have an epiphany, I wonder if that was a reflection of his personal growth.

[Deep Space Bass]

I'm reading Ulysses, and I think it's wonderful, but I've only read certain portions of Dubliners.

I frankly think the Dubliners, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, aren't what they're hyped to be. Joyce didn't reach his tops until Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, which I thought was amazing.

Also, Stanislaw, I love your username. ^_^

[Stanislaw]

Thanks, deep space, not too many people recognize it!

[MrD]

I recall a class who read Araby and most felt that the story ended badly. When I asked them the symblism in the story there was a lack of additional reading.

The girl stood by the railings in front of the church is the Virgin Mary, when the lad goes into the priests back room and sits praying, his hands shaking, it is euphemism for masturbation.

What can you expect from a man who had harsh words for the church and british imperialism? Dubliners was delayed distribution because living persons would try suing him, the printers and the distribution house for slander!

There are some very interesting books available on authors and their works that need reading. You cannot sit down in modern times and read a simple publication without the additional reading that provides historical context, essays, letters between the author and friends/family that together give some ideas as to their life, behaviour and writing intentions.

[Mockingbird_z]

i thought that in Araby the boy was upset because of the way he was treated in the market. He learnt that in this world money talks.
in Dubliners there is strong connection with Irish history and you need to know it before reading the stories as well as The Portrait of the artist as a young man.