The two stories covered this week,After the Race and The Gallants do indeed share a common theme. This a first may not be entirely apparent at first. It may be apparent that the stories are about Ireland, though there is another theme that it noted, perhaps a noted theme among many. The connecting strand that was noted by me was of a man as being a worthless , nothing, deprived animal living in a world of false constructs and hellish anxieties and realities . As Edgar Allan Poe has stated in Sonnet, to Science, “...........are dull realities”. A dull , morose reality is introduced in the readings and such concepts an reintroduced and reiterated in many of the others reading in Dubliners.
The two central characters in the reading are to a degree helpless They of course are also not helpless to a degree, the reality of the situation may be like the perception of the situations , though perception is highly subjective and this point , I believe should be considered. I am strongly reminded of the central character in Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground, an unnamed central character who is shy, introverted, timid , unhappy , bitter, morose, morbid, and generally in a sour state. The characters in Dubliners , say Jimmy and Lenehan are both mildly similar to Dostovyevsky's unnamed character, though what is sharply similar is the punishing state of affairs which these three mentioned charters find themselves in and their shared notion of change, though not that change will occur, though that each of these three characters considers change in a stated or unstated, indirect way.
Response to jrimmer 's Post
Are the stories in Dubliners in fact dark bleak tales? To an extent they may be. They are works of fiction that were based upon an author's perception of the situation of his homeland. To me it seems the stories are sweet and sour. There is hope in these stories combined with ill fortunes and a rough lot in life.
This week's readings included After the Race and The Two Gallants. In speaking of just plain old "understanding" and ease of read of the stories, After the Race was much easier for me to decipher. It is a story of an Irishman who's ideals seem to come from and be inspired by a great deal of other countries and cultures. Ireland was going through a time where its advancement was stifled, and those seeking something of higher standards looked towards other countries instead of trying to realize their own potential and working from there. The most distressing part of the story is that the irishman, Jimmy Doyle in the story, realizes his misconstrued vision of certain "ideals" but lacks the gumption to act upon his feelings.
ReplyDeleteThe Two Gallants was a hard story for me to fully understand on my own without slang translations and background information from Professor Howard. To be frank, when I first read this story I thought it was about male prositution. I did not know that "slavey" meant maid, so from basically there on I had no idea what this woman's occupation was or why the man, Corley, had such an ill description of her. Turns out, after a good discussion in class, that the man WAS a despicable man and that he was using the "slavey" (maid I know now) to steal from her employers. After this was made clear, I found the title of the short story very funny; clearly these men were not two "gallants" but con-men who were not to be trusted.
To comment on Jebediah's earlier post of these same stories, I agree that these men are "worthless" but in the sense that these men do absolutely nothing to contribute to their home society. Also, you told of how they lived within false constructs and this statement cannot be more true. Jimmy Doyle in After the Race, for example, comes from a family who acquired money and now puts all their faith on those who also have great amounts of money AND status, an outlook on life that is at best shallow and is a grim structure to build a life.