A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man
Ratings103
Average rating3.6
15
Ratings103
Average rating3.6
Dubliners is a collection of vignettes of Dublin life at the end of the 19th Century written, by Joyce’s own admission, in a manner that captures some of the unhappiest moments of life. Some of the dominant themes include lost innocence, missed opportunities and an inability to escape one’s circumstances.
Joyce’s intention in writing Dubliners, in his own words, was to write a chapter of the moral history of his country, and he chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to him to be the centre of paralysis. He tried to present the stories under four different aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life.
‘The Sisters’, ‘An Encounter’ and ‘Araby’ are stories from childhood. ‘Eveline’, ‘After the Race’, ‘Two Gallants’ and ‘The Boarding House’ are stories from adolescence. ‘A Little Cloud’, ‘Counterparts’, ‘Clay’ and ‘A Painful Case’ are all stories concerned with mature life. Stories from public life are ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’ and ‘A Mother and Grace’. ‘The Dead’ is the last story in the collection and probably Joyce’s greatest. It stands alone and, as the title would indicate, is concerned with death.
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Contains
[Sisters](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15073389W/The_Sisters)
[Encounter](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15073256W)
[Araby](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20570121W)
[Eveline](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15073302W)
[After the Race](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18179262W)
[Two Gallants](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20570300W)
[Boarding House](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15073259W/The_Boarding_House)
[Little Cloud](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18179222W)
[Counterparts](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20570464W)
[Clay](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18179205W)
[A Painful Case](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL5213767W)
[Ivy Day In the Committee Room](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20571820W)
[Mother](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18179244W)
[Grace](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15073323W)
[Dead](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15073437W/The_Dead)
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Also contained in:
- [Dubliners / Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15073371W/Dubliners_Portrait_of_the_Artist_as_a_Young_Man)
- [Essential James Joyce](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL86338W/The_Essential_James_Joyce)
- [Portable James Joyce](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL86334W/The_Portable_James_Joyce)
Reviews with the most likes.
“Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?”
Need to think, re-read, and go over this a bunch before reviewing(and write a paper), but I thought it was fantastic. Why are Irish writers so good?
I was vibing with the free indirect speech early on, but as Stephen's sense of self importance grew, my interest waned. The uncritical portrayal of this adolescent self-aggrandisement is no doubt realistic, but I'm not sure I could take another page of his lectures on esthetics. I also felt that the same effect with regards to religion could have been achieved without dedicating half the novel to sermons.
