Joyce's Dubliners Throughout His Early Years example essay topic

Origins of the Theme of Betrayal in James Joyce's Dubliners Throughout his early years, certain people and events heightened Joyce's awareness of the hopelessly corrupt environment of Ireland that had betrayed so many of its own. The more profound of these enlightening inspirations were the betrayal and downfall of Charles Stewart Parnell, the indifference of Henrik Ibsen towards literary protests, the neglected native artistry of James Clarence Mangan, and Joyce's own role as Prefect. These occurrences provoked Joyce's bitter resentment towards Ireland, initiating the gradual alienation towards his church and homeland. The issue of betrayal is prevalent throughout Dubliners, for Joyce imagined it, hated it, and feared it.

James Joyce was born into a country dominated by England, and the cause of Irish freedom captured his imagination at an early age. The spokesman for this cause was Charles Stewart Parnell, who became a heroic figure to Joyce. It was the early period of Joyce's life that saw Parnell greatest influence and tragic betrayal. By 1889 the attempt to implicate Parnell in the Phoenix Park murders of 1882 had failed, but in the same year he was accused of adultery in the divorce suit of captain O's hea. At first it appeared that Parnell might weather this scandal, but a coalition of political enemies and devout Catholics ousted him from leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and the rural population of Ireland turned against their leader with savage hatred.

Even Parnell's Lieutenant Tim Healy, who had vowed never to betray his leader, finally turned against Parnell. After a year of campaigning against his enemies, Parnell died on October 6th, 1891 - this day marks the beginning of James Joyce's resentful feelings towards Ireland, which were eventually revealed in Dubliners. When Parnell's body was brought to Dublin for burial, thousands were waiting for a glimpse of the coffin. Among the spectators was St. John Irvine, who mournfully recalled: It was taken from a deal case - 'which was thrown aside, but, as it fell, crowds seized it and tore it into fragments that they might have even that as a relic of him' - and carried to City Hall. It lay there under O'Connell's statue through a wet and stormy morning and noon, while thirty- thousand people filed past and plucked and ivy leaf from it. Later, at the cemetery, a meteor flashed across the sky as the coffin reached the bottom of the grave: 'Many people saw, or as times saw, or as time passed they believed they had seen, the portents' (Kershner 57).

Through the recollection of Irvine, we are able to see that the people of Ireland realized what they have done. Parnell had been converted in Joyce's imagination into a betrayed hero, a savior destroyed by his own people. Joyce seems to have been very concerned with the issue of 'betrayal,' which is prevalent throughout Dubliners. In the book's third story, 'Araby,' the young narrator betrays the Lord by seeing Mangan's sister through eyes of passion. The images of a dead priest and an empty, dark church suggest the absence of spirituality and the betrayal of faith.

Joyce believes that all Dubliners would suffer the same degenerate fate, eventually being part and parcel to their own betrayal. Indeed, Parnell was betrayed by those who had already corrupted themselves and Joyce feared that such betrayal would consume him, as well. John Joyce, James' father, reacted bitterly to the 'betrayal' of Parnell, and nine-year-old James was so affected that he wrote a poem attacking Lieutenant Healy called 'Et Tu, Healy. ' Not a single copy has survived, but we know from Joyce's brother, Stanislaus, that at the end of the poem 'the dead chief is liked to an eagle, looking down on the groveling mass of Irish politicians from His quaint-perch aerie on the crags of Time Where the rude din of this... century Can trouble him no more (Kershner 59). This is merely one instance of sympathetic identification with Parnell that had a profound effect on Joyce's developing personality. The arrogance and pride of the great hero, the fear of betrayal, and the hypocrisy of the 'rabblement' were to become leading themes in Joyce's life.

The fall of Parnell was Joyce's first intimation that Ireland was capable of betraying even those held so dearly to its heart. Each of the stories in Dubliners reveals a certain type of betrayal as Joyce believed that betrayal was inherent and inevitable in Ireland. In 1912, Joyce wrote Gas from Burner, which was inspired by his frustrations in finding a publisher for Dubliners. In one instance, Joyce linked his own fate with that of Parnell: But I owe a duty to Ireland: I hold her honour in my hand, This lovely land that always sent Her writers and artists to banishment And in a spirit of Irish fun Betrayed her own leaders, one by one. 'Twas Irish humour, wet and dry, Flung quicklime into Parnell's eye (Kershner 63). Joyce feared the day when he would fall victim to the corruption of Ireland, and he dreaded the possibility of 'banishment.

' It becomes evident that the betrayal of Parnell haunted Joyce all his life; the legend of the betrayed hero was incorporated into the person who believes that Joyce developed as a defense against the demands of church and homeland. Dubliners is a novel based on betrayal - of love, honor, innocence, spirituality. As his alienation from church and homeland increased, Joyce found that he needed a public personality that would compensate for the shabbiness of his private life and protect him from the powerful demands of Irish nationalism. As a part of his defense, Joyce expressed contempt for most contemporary writers and took his model the great Norwegian dramatist, Henrik Ibsen. The April of 1900, eighteen-year-old Joyce published a review of Ibsen's latest play, When We Dead Awaken, in the Fortnightly Review.

His critical observations revealed a deep understanding of Ibsen's themes and methods. However, it is in the opening paragraph that we recognize Ibsen's personal appeal to the young Joyce: Ibsen's power over two generations has been enhanced by his own reticence. Seldom, if at all, has condescended to join battle with his enemies. It would appear as if the storm of the fierce debate rarely broke in upon his wonderful calm. The conflicting voices have not influenced his work in the very smallest degree (Goldberg 37). Here we see Joyce's admiration of the personal detachment of Ibsen, which was the goal of Joyce's protests.

In March of 1901, Joyce wrote a letter to Ibsen, revealing the deeper motives behind the admiration for his Norwegian hero: I have sounded your name defiantly through a college where it was either unknown or known faintly and darkly. I have claimed for you your rightful place in the history of the drama. I have shown what, as it seemed to me, was your highest excellence - your lofty impersonal power... Do not think of me as a hero-worshipper. I am not so.

And when I spoke of you, in debating-societies, and so forth, I enforced attention by no futile ranting. But we always keep the dearest thinks to ourselves. I did not tell them what bound me closest to you, I did not say how what I could discern dimly of your life was my pride to see, how your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead - how your willful resolution to wrest the secret from life gave me heart, and how in your absolute indifference to public cannons of art, friends, and shibboleths you walked in the light of your own inward heroism (Goldberg 39). From this letter we can understand how Ibsen joined Parnell in Joyce's imagination. Joyce felt that both men had lived lives of allegory, and the figurative meaning of their lives became the foundation of his youthful persona. By imitating their 'lofty impersonal power' and their 'indifference to public cannons of art, friends, and shibboleths,' Joyce hoped to attain their 'inward heroism.

' Like Henrik Ibsen, whom Joyce admired for his ability to withstand literary protest, Joyce also stood strong: Dubliners was not published until 1914, which was nine years after its manuscript submittal, because Joyce refused to edit its contents. The nine year period of controversy surrounding Dubliners served only to strengthen Joyce's resentment towards, and alienation from, his corrupt homeland. In the spring of his last year at University College (1902), Joyce wrote a paper on the nineteenth-century Irish poet James Clarence Mangan that reveals the deeper motives for Joyce's rejection of Irish nationalism. Joyce believed that Mangan was a neglected native artist, much like he feared himself becoming, and he felt great sympathy towards his forgotten predecessor.

(In 'Araby,' a character who is, not coincidentally, named Mangan is 'neglected' throughout story. He is the enchanting young girls' brother, but is scarcely mentioned and quickly disregarded.) In a particular passage from the essay, Joyce claims that... when Mangan is remembered in his country (for he is sometimes spoken of in literary societies), his countrymen lament that such poetic faculty was mated with so little rectitude of conduct, surprised to find this faculty in a man whos vices were exotic and who was little of a patriot. This who have written of him, have been scrupulous in holding the balance between the drunkard and the opium-eater, and have sought to discover whether learning or imposture lies behind such phrases as 'from the Ottoman' or 'from the Coptic': and save for this small remembrance, Mangan has been a stranger in his country, a rare and unsympathetic figure in the streets, where he is seen as going forward alone like one who does penance for some ancient sin (Magalaner 97). In Joyce's eyes, Mangan was the victim of cheap moralist and narrowly conceived patriotism. He was abandoned, left to die within the pages of his works. It is for this reason that Joyce decided to leave Ireland, avoiding a similar fate to that of Mangan.

Joyce had imagined, witnessed, feared betrayal, and he refused to experience betrayal at the hands of his corrupt homeland. In Dubliners, each character is involved with a certain type of betrayal, either as a perpetrator or victim, but not one has Joyce's will or ability to leave and, unfortunately, neither did Mangan and Parnell. Although his departure from Dublin in December 1902 was not intended to be permanent, Joyce did see it as a means of escaping the circumstances that limited Mangan's achievements. Throughout Dubliners, he repeatedly writes of characters who can only dream of escape. For the boys of 'An Encounter' and 'Araby' the dream of escape exists in the Wild West or the exotic bazaar, but their quests for 'adventure' end in frustration. Eveline cannot bring herself to escape to Argentina; in 'The Boarding House' Bob Doran wants to 'ascend through the roof and fly away to another country' (67-68) but is instead trapped into marriage.

Already married, little Chandler in 'A Little Cloud' dreams of becoming a poet and escaping to London, 'to live bravely like Gallaher' (83), and in 'The Dead' Gabriel Conroy thinks of going to the Continent to escape Irish provincialism. Joyce believed that one had to place himself beyond the immediate demands of Irish life in order to be truly successful. Thus, he learned to accept life in exile, and his characters learned that it was useless to struggle against the overwhelming demands of Irish life, for in the end, only disappointment and betrayal remain. For a more complete understanding of Joyce's complex relationship with Ireland, one must study his early experiences with Irish Catholicism. The most important of these experiences occurred at Belvedere College, which Joyce attended from the ages eleven to sixteen. While there, he was an outstanding scholar, and the authorities soon believed him to be a possible candidate for the priesthood.

During his last two years at the college, he was elected Prefect of the Sodality, which was the leader of the group of children who banded together for the purposes of devotion and mutual help. This position stated that it was his duty - in the words of the Jesuit manual - to 'excel the other members of the Sodality in virtue' and to: ... observe with the greatest diligence not only the rules of his own office but also the common rules, those especially that relate to the frequentation of the sacraments, confessing his sins, and receiving the Blessed Eucharist more frequently that the others; and he should take care to advance the Sodality in the way of virtue and Christian perfection, more by example even than by words (Sullivan 113). In time, Joyce would find that there was no such thing as 'Christian perfection' in Ireland, and his loss of faith was only a matter of time. Of course, Joyce was not an ideal Prefect.

Like the young boy in 'Araby,' he was torn between spiritual demands and the growing interest in physical love. Subsequently, just before his election as Prefect he had his first sexual experience. Shortly after, Joyce decided that he could not possibly be a priest. The demands of the priesthood were too great and by the time Joyce was twenty years of age he had already rejected Catholicism. When a lady once asked him if he had found a satisfactory substitute for Catholicism, Joyce replied, 'Madam, I have lost my faith, I have not lost my mind' (Sullivan 117). Joyce had broken free from Catholicism, and he never wanted to subject himself to such corruption again.

The passionate sympathy and critical detachment, which marked Joyce's attitude toward Ireland, are found throughout Dubliners. The culmination of experiences of Irish life that led to the alienation from his church and homeland can be interpreted through the individual stories of the novel. In one of his many letters justifying the style an form of Dubliners, Joyce claimed: My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis. I have tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life. The stories are arranged in this order. I have written it for the most part in a style of scrupulous meanness and with the conviction that he is the very bold man who dares to alter in the presentment, still more to deform, whatever he has seen and heard.

I cannot do any more that this. I cannot alter what I have written (Kershner 97). Here we see Joyce's attempt to explain his intentions, while at the same time, defending his attitude and literary methods. I believe that Joyce's reference to the style of Dubliners as one of the 'scrupulous meanness's ymbolizes his unsentimental attitude towards Irish life. Joyce simply refused to alter what he believed to be the truth. By studying Dubliners and the early life of James Joyce, it becomes evident that he was driven by fear, a fear of betrayal.

The fall of Charles Stewart Parnell introduced Joyce to the disloyalty of the Irish people, and this initiated his fear. The neglected, betrayed native artistry of James Clarence Mangan evoked in Joyce the fear of restriction and limitation, leading to his departure from Ireland. From Henrik Ibsen, Joyce learned to ignore protest and controversy, heightening his bitter resentment towards Ireland after nine years of frustration in finding a publisher for Dubliners. And it was Joyce's failed role as Prefect of the Sodality that led to his abandonment of Irish Catholicism.

His early life proved to Joyce that Ireland was corrupt, both morally and spiritually. Therefore, Joyce's alienation from, and resentment toward, Ireland were inevitable, as was the theme of betrayal in Dubliners.

Bibliography

1) Goldberg, S.L. James Joyce. New York: Grove Press, 1962.
2) Kershner. R.B. Joyce, Bakhtin, and Popular Literature: Chronicles of Disorder. North Carolina: North Carolina U.P., 19893) Mangala ner, Marvin, and Richard Kain.
Joyce: The Man, the Work, the Reputation. New York: New York U.P., 1956.
4) Sullivan, Kevin. Joyce among the Jesuits. New York: Columbia U.P., 1958.
5) Ell man, Richard. The Conscience of Joyce. Toronto and New York: Oxford U.P., 1977.
6) Garrett, Peter K. Twentieth Century Interpretations of Dubliners. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1968.