James Joyce, Dubliners - An A-Z post

Picture courtesy of www.keelinggallery.com

James Joyce was an Irish writer born in 1882. His family was prosperous at the time off his birth, but his fathers unreliability meant that their financial situation declined rapidly. The family moved around a lot, living at twenty-three different addresses by the time Joyce left Dublin.

He studied modern languages at University College and, upon graduating, headed off to Paris to study medicine.
However, he was called back to Ireland in 1903 when his mother fell very ill and eventually died.

Joyce remained in Ireland until 1904, and after leaving he only returned another four times in his life, leaving for the last time in 1912. Once he left he found the subject matter for his writing, and wrote passionately about the place he once called home.

By 1907, Joyce had finished 15 short stories that would he put together to make up the collection Dubliners.

This collection was to provide a moral history of his country as he saw it, and Dublin in particular was to him a centre of paralysis. The stories cover four different aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life and they are arranged in order to reflect these concepts.

It wasn't until 1914 that Dubliners was finally published, even though Joyce submitted it to plenty of publishers. At the time some of the stories were considered to be too risque for publishing, and Joyce was asked to remove and amend parts of the them, which of course he refused to do.

The theme for this set text is the 20th Century city, and how Dublin is represented through the different characters of the stories.




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This post is part of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. To get involved and check out other blogs taking part just click here. You won't be disappointed!


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