Dubliners Essay Research Paper Freedom versus Entrapment

Dubliners Essay, Research Paper

Freedom versus Entrapment James Joyce & # 8217 ; s Dubliners was written in 1914 right at the oncoming of World War I interrupting out in Europe. It is a journey through the phases of life itself: childhood, adolescence, maturity, public life and eventually decease. Each one of the narratives in the fresh autumn into one of these phases. & # 8220 ; After the Race & # 8221 ; falls into the adolescence facet of the book. It does this because the characters have non yet grown up. Although they are grownups they are still immature. Jimmy is easy fooled into chancing off all of his money. He ne’er regretted it. He was really happy that Routh won the game and took everyone & # 8217 ; s money. Because of actions like this they are really unworried about how they go about with life. The lone thing that they want to make is be happy. They were really free, traveling about making whatever they wanted, but a cloud was settling over them. This cloud was entrapment. Most of the narrative is about how the characters struggled to maintain their freedoms over the entrapments. It besides touches upon other characters from other narratives by paralleling Jimmy to Eveline. & # 8220 ; After the Race & # 8221 ; is a narrative in which the thoughts of freedom and entrapment are tested and joined as one to turn out the overall original in Dubliners of palsy and decease. Freedom can be seen throughout this narrative. Each character presents their ain battle with freedom. The facet of freedom can besides be seen in the scene that is used in & # 8220 ; After the Race. & # 8221 ; Even the facet of a race can be thought of as freedom. The drivers are rushing along down blowy roads toward an end point where there is a wages. While driving the driver can go one with nature. He sees his milieus and must do disconnected 2nd determinations about what to make. One can see freedom in this. It is the freedom of pick. In Dubliners as a whole many characters struggle with this freedom. It is no different in the narrative of & # 8220 ; After the Race. & # 8221 ; The race that is spoken approximately has a long history of running. It is run one time every four old ages. The class itself has long mountain ascents through Achill Island, Kerry, Cork and Wicklow and a fast frantic path from Criterium to Dublin & # 8217 ; s O & # 8217 ; Connell Street and Parnell Square. It consists of one hundred 12 kilometres through Slane, Navan, Clonee and Lucan. The roads that the race is run on are ever shut down. The drivers pass through beautiful scenery and are greeted in Dublin by 1000s of witnesss. The finish line to the race is in forepart of the President & # 8217 ; s house. 1 The race auto itself besides brings a sense of freedom to the reader of the narrative. Joyce writes, & # 8220 ; How smoothly it ran. In what manner they had come careering along the state roads! The journey laid a charming finger on the echt pulsation of life and chivalrously the machinery of human nervousnesss strove to reply the bounding classs of the fleet blue animal. & # 8221 ; 2 This shows how they viewed the complex machinery of a race auto as a kind of freedom. & # 8220 ; Today many people still view the thought of complex machinery as freedom because of world & # 8217 ; s command over nature. & # 8221 ; 3 The metropolis to metropolis races that would take topographic point along European state side around the bend of the century were a & # 8220 ; athletics of beauty in which even witnesss were free to interact with the drivers. & # 8221 ; 4 The riders of the auto were even sing their ain freedoms. Joyce writes, & # 8220 ; In one of these trimly built autos was a party of four immature work forces whose liquors seemed to be at present good above the degree of successful Gallicism: in fact, these four immature work forces were about hilarious. & # 8221 ; 5 The work forces in the auto were really unworried. & # 8220 ; They knew that they would likely non win this race, but continued to travel about their merry ways. & # 8221 ; 6 They cruised through the countryside and into the crowded streets of Dublin cognizing that they had lost the race. Garrett says they were proud of their accomplishment of doing it through the full race. 7 There is the same sense of freedom that was involved with the race. That freedom is the freedom of being one with nature. If they were non experiencing this freedom so fring the race would hold most likely come down harder on them. They were highly happy in the event of losing this race. A different, but extremely related sense of freedom comes about from the riders themselves. An illustration of this comes when Villona is singing in the auto ; & # 8220 ; Decidedly Villona was in first-class liquors ; he kept up a deep bass busyness of tune for stat mis of the road. & # 8221 ; 8 He was merely basking the drive and seeking to divert himself at the same times. The two Frenchmen besides experienced this excessively ; & # 8220 ; The Frenchmen flung their laughter and light words over their shoulders and frequently Jimmy had to strive frontward to catch the speedy phrase. & # 8221 ; 9 They were holding great merriment while they were driving. Jimmy was seeking to go a portion of all of this, but was unable to maintain up with the Frenchmans in their conversation. A really elusive position of freedom comes when Jimmy and his friend leave the race auto on the streets of Dublin. Joyce writes & # 8220 ; Near the Bank Segouin drew up and Jimmy and his friend alighted. & # 8221 ; 10 They were really happy to be in the auto, but were really dying to acquire out of the auto. In this sequence Jimmy mirrors Eveline from & # 8220 ; Eveline & # 8221 ; and her anxiety to get down a new life. However, unlike Eveline, Jimmy is really able to go forth and travel on. Another position of this is given by John Bayley. He writes that the two immature Irishmans leave the auto filled with the Frenchmen and the Magyar it is slightly a position of Ireland seeking to go an independent nation.11 However, this can non be clearly seen for Ireland was non seeking to get away France of Belgium, but instead England. If the connexion that Bayley nowadayss is true so it is highly elusive. However, subsequently on in the narrative Joyce writes & # 8220 ; The party was increased by a immature Englishman named Routh whom Jimmy had seen with Segouin at Cambridge. Bayley makes another point about this. Bayley writes & # 8220 ; At this clip the British were allied with the Gallic and were friends with the Hungarians. & # 8221 ; 12 This supports his above claim that Jimmy and his friend represented Ireland & # 8217 ; s battle for freedom. For now the Frenchman and the Hungarian are related to the English through Routh. This claim may non do that much sense, but it does work. Jimmy shows a sense of freedom a spot subsequently on in the narrative when the reader is given background on his instruction. Jimmy was at & # 8220 ; a large Catholic College & # 8221 ; 13 in England and was subsequently sent & # 8220 ; to Dublin University to analyze law. & # 8221 ; 14 At college he went about making his ain material alternatively of analyzing. Joyce writes, & # 8220 ; Jimmy did non analyze really seriously and took to bad classs for a piece. He had money and he was popular ; and he divided his clip oddly between musical and driving circles. & # 8221 ; 15 This shows that even though he was sent off to analyze jurisprudence his natural involvement was with music and autos. This shows his freedom of pick about his ain life and what he wanted to larn about. Walter Allen writes, & # 8220 ; Jimmy is really good away. He realizes that he does non necessitate an instruction to foster his wealth because he is already rich, nevertheless he uses this chance to accomplish his ain position. He intentionally slacks off so he can go popular among his wharfs. He wants to suit in with the remainder of his upper class. & # 8221 ; 16 Allen is indicating to the ground behind Jimmy & # 8217 ; s freedom of pick about his life. He says the ground he does what he wants to make is that he merely wants to suit in at school. He makes friends with rich people and gets along with them comparatively good. However, subsequently on in the narrative he is robbed of a batch of money by his friends during a fire hook game. In the terminal it might look that even though Jimmy used his friends to derive position at school, his friends used him for his money. The concluding spot of freedom besides the concluding sentence of the narrative happens at the start of their party aboard Farley & # 8217 ; s yacht. Joyce writes, & # 8220 ; Villona played a walk-in for Farley and Riviere, Farley moving as chevalier and Riviere as lady. Then and impromptu square dance, the work forces inventing original figures. & # 8221 ; 17 This transition shows the freedom in the signifier of gaiety and young person. Garrett writes, & # 8220 ; The piano playing and dance shows that the immature grownups are still in fact kids in a sense. They could care less about how they looked in forepart O

f their piers. Their only wish was to have fun and celebrate.”18 This just about shows how they started off the party. Joyce then writes, “They drank, however: it was Bohemian. They drank Ireland, England, France, Hungary, the United States of America. Jimmy mad a speech, a long speech, Villona saying Hear! hear! whenever there was a pause. There was a great clapping of hands when he sat down. It must have been a good speech.”19 In this sequence of passages it seems as if the characters move from childhood to adulthood in an instance. They are starting to get drunk. One reason being they drank to six different countries. The other that they were already drinking on top of that. The freedom that this proposes is the freedom of adulthood. In that sense being that adults have the freedom of drinking at social events without having to worry about any repercussions. At one point in the story we see the characters move from freedom to tight entrapment and at the last second when the entrapment looks as though it will conquer the party, it is destroyed by the escape. Joyce shows this in the following passage: They talked volubly and with little reserve. Jimmy, whose imagination was kindling, conceived the lively youth of the Frenchmen twined elegantly upon the firm framework of the Englishman’s manner. A graceful image of his, he thought, and a just one. He admired the dexterity with which their host directed the conversation. The five young men had various tastes and their tongues had been loosened…….Here was the congenial ground for all….The room grew doubly hot and Segouin’s task grew harder each moment: there was even danger of personal spite. The alert host at an opportunity lifted his glass to Humanity and, when the toast had been drunk, he threw open a window significantly.20 This passages shows the turning point in the story of where freedom and entrapment actually come together for the first time in this story. At the beginning of the passage the guest are all comfortable and relaxed. They eat dinner and then begin to have conversations. The actual conflict between freedom and entrapment comes when Villona is trying to ridicule the great romantic painters. Seguoin suddenly changes the subject to politics. The room began to get very uncomfortable and Seguoin had a much harder time trying to get his point across. He was most likely going to make a fool out of himself. The host realizes this and quickly proposes a toast. He most likely did this to deter the guests from realizing that Sequin was blabbering on about nothing. Vargas Llosa comments on this by saying, “the toast was highly needed for Seguoin was beginning to feel trapped in a bad situation. He could not easily get out of this, so the toast was a great diversion from him. However, to clear things up the window was definitely needed to be opened. The opening of the window provided a calming effect over the guests.”21 Vargas Llosa hits the entrapment motif on target. He helps support the contradiction of freedom versus entrapment throughout “After the Race.” Moving into the motif of entrapment, the clustered streets of Dublin are shown. This following quote from Joyce shows that there was a literal and figurative sense to the streets being an entrapment. Joyce writes, “They drove down Dame Street. The street was busy with unusual traffic, loud with the horns of motorists and the gongs of impatient tram-drivers.”22 This literally shows the entrapped state of the city. Jimmy and his friend had to later make their way through this crowd. Now comes the figurative aspect of this passage. Garrett writes, “The loud horns and gongs of the tram-drivers alludes to the Book of Revelation. When the Lord is ready to make his second coming, the trumpets of archangels are going to be blown all round the earth. Every human will hear them. It will dawn the beginning of the end.”23 What Garrett claims fits in with the paralysis and death motif’s that are found throughout the novel. This is just a very subtle example of death. Villona is also entrapped by a certain feeling and that is hunger. Although hunger might not seem as a great entrapment, it is argued by Vargas Llosa that it is. The passage in the novel by Joyce that tells of Villona’s situation is the following, “His father, therefore, was unusually friendly with Villona and his manner expressed a real respect for foreign accomplishments; but this subtlety of his host was probably lost upon the Hungarian, who was beginning to have a sharp desire for dinner.” 24 He could not pay attention to what Jimmy’s father was speaking to him about because he was entrapped by his selfishness. All he wanted to do was eat for he was hungry. Vargas Llosa comments on this when he says, “Villona was held back by one of mankind’s natural instincts, hunger. He could not help himself if all he thought about was food. Jimmy’s father should have honored Villona’s intuition for Villona was already in his own view of things.”25 What he said in that excerpt was that it was more or less instinct that made Villona not pay attention. Any person on this planet would probably do the exact same thing Villona did. Hunger is a very hard feeling not too notice. When you are a man of Villona’s size of course hunger is going to encompass your thoughts. You can not think of anything but it. Therefore, hunger was entrapping Villona and this was not the only time in the story. One of the final issues of entrapment comes from the card game. Joyce tells of this when he writes, “Play ran very high and paper began to pass. Jimmy did not know exactly who was winning but he knew that he was losing. But it was his own fault for he frequently mistook his cards and the other men had to calculate his I.O.U.’s for him. They were devils of fellow but he wished they would stop: it was getting late.”26 This passage shows that Jimmy was entrapped because he was unable to get out of the card game. He was losing so much money that he had to have the others keep track of it for him. Vargas Llosa says, “He was entrapped by the greed of his friends. They did not want to stop until Jimmy and the American were both broke. In essence the friends were in face the ‘devils of fellow’ that Joyce claims them to be.”27 Vargas Llosa is right about his claim. It was hinted at earlier in the story that some of his friends were only friends with Jimmy because he was rich. This was the final push that lets the reader become aware of their intentions towards Jimmy. The final and most important entrapment is the effect of alcohol on the characters. An example of needless drinking comes from Joyce when he writes, “They drank the health of the Queen of Hearts and of the Queen of Diamonds. Jimmy felt obscurely the lack on an audience: the wit was flashing.”28 Drinking to characters pictured on a deck of cards is ridiculous. They were enjoying themselves, but there was no need for drinking like that. The alcohol made the characters extremely unaware of what they were doing during the card game. This lead to them not being able to keep track of money. This entrapment of alcohol hindered Jimmy, however, his friends gained from it because they took all of his money. Drinking might be a part of Irish culture, but it entraps the mind. So, in this sense the alcohol was the final entrapment that helps connect the story to the greater whole of the novel. Paralysis and death are very strong motif’s throughout Dubliners. Many different characters are paralyzed in one way or another, whether it being literally or figuratively they are. In “After the Race” the paralysis comes in the form of alcohol because it rendered the characters vulnerable to each others greed. “After the Race” is also a story in which childhood freedoms are challenged by adult entrapments and that is why it is classified as being in the adolescence group. That is what adolescence is in a whole, childhood freedom versus adult entrapments. Joyce does a very good job in interconnecting these two ideas in the story. He structured characters around this that at first seemed strong and self-motivated, but soon the reader comes to find out that they are in fact weak. “After the Race” is the perfect way to depict human adolescence because it is very on target. Endnotes