Darkness in The Short Stories of James Joyce

As readers we pore over words and words and words. Through the earliest reviewer’s of James Joyce’s Dubliners tended to see the work as a group of completely unconnected short stories, more recent commentators have pointed out there is a definite structure to the sequence and that the stories are linked together by several different themes and images. They have noted that all the stories centre around the theme of paralysis and that images of confinement reappear frequently, in fact paralysis reigns supreme in Joyce’s Dubliners. Criticism has then divided, conventionally, over whether the snow symbolism within the final short story ‘The Dead’ connotes purification and rebirth or rather a massive reassertion of paralysis. Paralysis, that has spawned out of catholicism and colonisation. However, it has come to my understanding that ‘The Dead’ does indeed offer ways out of paralysis that have nothing to do with that final symbolism. My understanding and perspectives have been influenced by Trevor L. Williams and his journal article ‘Resistance to paralysis in Dubliners’.

Furthermore, so pervasive is the motif of darkness in Dubliners that it is difficult to discover one major scene that takes place in bright sunlight in any of the stories. From the first story to the last the usual setting is a dark room or a dark street in Dublin, and the action almost always takes place at night or in the early evening after the sun has gone down. All the scenes of darkness can be attributed to Joyce’s desire to present a vivid picture of the seamy side of “dear dirty Dublin.”

Before James Joyce wrote ‘The Dead’ he had intended for the short story ‘Grace’ to end his collection. However, in both situation ‘The Sisters’ were still intended to open ‘Dubliners’. The first sentence of The Sisters: “There was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke”. Similarly for ‘Grace’: “Two gentlemen who were in the lavatory at the time tried to lift him up: but he was quite helpless”. Two examples cannot show a predilection for anything, according to Trevor L. Williams. Yet it is a fact that Joyce starts out these framing stories by registering helplessness, and that he results to colon to set up relationships across the clauses. The first is a continuing relationship showcased in the first quote “no hope: third stroke”, whereas the second quote is a contravening one, “Tried to lift: but he was helpless”, but the effects are radically similar.

The darkness within all the stories symbolises the plight of the Irish people, providing a reason for their paralysis. Darkness within the stories take the form of religious, political and social darkness which surrounds the characters, they are not only subjected to the physical darkness of the dear, dirty Dublin streets. Joyce’s pessimism about human relationships may appear to be excessive until one recalls that this vision emerges from specific historical circumstances. The characters relation the past is equally reflective of Dublin’s historical context. The literary articulation of life under capitalism frequently represents the past as a green paradisal time that will be received in a near future made possible by some kind of economic advancement. This is because under colonialism economic fulfillment must be deferred until the political future has been settled. Time has been unforgiving for the characters of ‘Dubliners’, as Joyce disregards all clemency in his words.