Haunted By Mental Paralysis

James Joyce (1882-1941) is recognized as one of the most important writers in the 20th century as well as the distinguished representatives of modernists.From a Catholic background, Joyce received a thorough education of religion. Yet he broke up with the religion in his early years. Meanwhile, his extensive reading got him much familiar with some excellent Irish writers and European authors and philosophers. Joyce absorbed a comparatively large number of intellectual figures and movements, including modern thinkers as well as historical figures reinterpreted by the nineteenth century. Especially under the influence of Dante, Ibsen and Bruno, he broke up with the Catholic Church and began to pursue the artistic independence.Dubliners, a collection of fifteen short stories, depicts various people of the middle class with a focus on the pervading moral paralysis in Dublin. In a letter to the publisher Richards, Joyce stated clearly the aim of his creation of Dubliners was to write a chapter for the moral history of his motherland. According to Joyce, Ireland was hopeless because it was under the oppression of the Catholic Church and the exploitation of Britain. Dublin was the center of paralysis, for there were real stories of depression and apathy happened in Dubliners'daily life. The rotten politics and nationalist parochialism also accounted for the moral paralysis in the city. Joyce chose a life of permanent exile in the Continent. Whatever and wherever Joyce wrote it was the Dublin of his youth that provided the central substance of his work. For he believed that by writing about Dublin he was at the same time penetrating the heart of all cities and all mankind.Guided by the social-historical approach and based on text analyses, this thesis is a thematic study of Joyce's Dubliners, with the focus on the paralyzed mental state of Dubliners in these stories. The thesis consists of three chapters besides Introduction and Conclusion.The Introduction is a survey of Joyce's Dubliners and relevant literary reviews.Chapter One deals with Joyce's description of the Dubliners'paralyzed mental...