ANTONIO SORIANO VIDAL. GRUPO A.

DUBLINERS, By James Joyce.

First and foremost I’m going to talk about the external structure of the book and the position of the narrator during the different chapters of the book, and how the book is separate in different parts that differentiate by the other stages of a person in his/her life.

First I’m going to talk about the title of the book. The title of the volume immediately draws our attention to the importance of the setting—both place and time unites these diverse stories. Joyce creates a panorama of Dublin by presenting a series of portraits of Dubliners in the grip of a moral paralysis he believed to be the city's overwhelming attribute. Furthermore, all the streets he says in his book are real, not imaginary (Grafton street, O’Connell street…).

Secondly I’m going to talk about the division of the book. Each stage of life, from childhood to maturity and public life was to be represented by one of four groups of stories in the collection. The first group, which Joyce described as "stories of my childhood," would comprise "The Sisters," "An Encounter," and "Araby"; the second group, stories of adolescence, would contain "The Boarding House," "After the Race," and "Eveline"; the third group, stories of mature life, would be "Clay," "Counterparts," and "A Painful Case"; the final group, stories of public life in Dublin, would contain "Ivy Day in the Committee Room," "A Mother," and "Grace."

It division of the book seems that it have a crisp structure (from youth to adulthood).

Nevertheless, the stories are told in two points of view. By one side, when the story centres on a child, the narrative is first person, told from the child's point of view. This limits the reader to the narrow world of the child, who knows very little about why others do what they do. It also shows the innocence of the child by concentrating on the things that are important to the child and how small these things look to an adult perspective.

By the other side, the stories about adults are told in the third person omniscient point of view. The reader is able to view all the characters and record all of their actions. However, most of the stories limit the reader to learning the thoughts of only one of the characters, usually used to judge the actions of the other characters.

Now I’m going to talk about the internal structure of the book, that is divided in different chapters "The Sisters," "An Encounter," and "Araby","The Boarding House," "After the Race," "Eveline", "Clay," "Counterparts," "A Painful Case”;” Ivy Day in the Committee Room," "A Mother," and "Grace."

Furthermore, Priests play some role in each of the three stories dealing with childhood: "The Sisters" tells of the death of Father Flynn; the narrator of "Araby" reads books discarded by the priest who was the former occupant of the boy's house; Joe Dillon, the supplier of the cherished boys' adventure magazines in "An Encounter" later has a vocation for the priesthood, and in Grace Kesman was convert from the Protestantism to the Catholicism.

By other side, Joyce seems us the effects of the alcohol on the Irish society. The negative effects of alcohol occur again and again through the collection of stories.

For the most part, men are brought down by their addiction to alcohol or their inability to control themselves when they are drunk. The effect on family members, particularly wives who suffer physical abuse at the hands of their drunken husbands, is a common element to many stories.

The clearest example of this theme is in "Counterparts," where the main character, Farrington, can think of nothing other than how to get drunk. He jeopardizes his career and spends all his money on alcohol, briefly feeling like an important man while telling stories to his friends in the bar. However, the effects of heavy drinking catch up with him later in the evening, when he is out of money but is not drunk enough to forget his problems. He goes home and takes his disappointment by beating his son. In conclusion that aspect seems us the decay of the Irish society.

The stories take place in Dublin or the suburbs of Dublin during the beginning of the twentieth century.

Furthermore, in the book we can see a great national consciousness in “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” because they remember the death of the Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell. And in “A mother” we could see to the rivality of the mother against the machismo, a topic in all places and times.

Finally, the intention of the writer was to write a chapter of the moral history of his country and he chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed her centre of paralysis. . . . he have written it for the most part in a style of scrupulous meanness and with the conviction that it is a very bold man who dares to alter in the presentment, still more to deform whatever he has seen and heard.

Dubliners, then, emerged from the author's dissatisfaction with the city of his birth, and his hope for the book was that it might show the indifferent public a necessarily unflattering portrait of itself. The book was published in 1914.

By mi point of view I like very much the book because reading it you could know the life of one of the most celebrated and influential English-language writers of the twentieth century.