The Search for Truth or Meaning in James Joyces Dubliners

The Search for Truth or Meaning in Dubliners Several of James Joyces stories in Dubliners can read as lamentations on a frustrating inability of man to represent meaning by external means, including written word. When characters in Araby, Counterparts, and A Painful Case attempt to represent or signify themselves, other characters, or abstract spiritual entities with or through words, they not only fail, but end up emotionally ruined. Moreover, the inconclusive endings of the three stories correspond with the fates of their characters. The short texts of Dubliners imply that representing the real is frustrating, if not impossible. Early in Dubliners, Joyce establishes the theme of emotional investment in†¦show more content†¦(108) The conspicuous purple ink and brass pin highlight the graphic qualities of Duffys volume. Joyce goes on to describe Duffys odd treatment of the manuscript, again emphasizing actions which reduce words to non-referential form: In these sheets a sentence was inscribed from time to time and, in an ironical moment, the headline of an advertisement for Bile Beans had been pasted on to the first sheet. (108) The infrequency of Duffys inscriptions and his ironic irreverence toward the physical text are made clear. Any notion of his feelings regarding the content or meaning of the text is invisible or implicit. Joyce implies a sort of detachment from an conventional notion of textual meaning. Duffys relationship with modes of representation is complicated and multi-faceted. While his treatment of the Hauptmann text is ironic and detached, the character seems to hold strong beliefs in objective truth and the potential for a representable reality. Joyce writes, He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a predicate in the past tense. (108) The passage implies that Duffy wishesShow MoreRelatedA Look At The Themes Of Home1742 Words   |  7 PagesJuan Linares Mr. Maust English IV AP 11 April 2016 The Wayfarers, A Look at the Themes of Home In James Joyce’s Dubliners In Dubliners, James Joyce explores the objective view of the paralysis that is a city. He believed strongly that Irish society had been paralyzed by two forces, both which he encountered throughout his life. One being England, and all of its social bewilderment, and the other being the Roman Catholic Church. 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