The Flaneur And His City

To ramble usually refers to a kind of aimless walking which does not only exist inmodern times. However, in19thcentury and at the beginning of the20thcentury, walking hasalready become a mode of life instead of a simple physical movement. Therefore in moderntimes, new meanings have been instilled into rambling. Flaneur is a modern concept whichwas brought up by Benjamin when he analyzed Baudelaire’s poems. It is the product ofmodernity and also the witness of it. Flaneurs usually hide themselves in the crowds of themetropolis with their spirits kept alienated from the routines of a society. They are the socialoutcasts who observe the surrounding environment and people with detached and curious eyes.They are abandoned by the society and always harbor a vague sense of rebelling. Walking,observing and getting shocked are their modern experiences through which they could capturethe transient urban images and analyze the metropolis living style. In flaneries or urbansketches, flaneurs describe their modern experiences and demonstrate their understanding andthoughts to their readers who live in the same metropolis and have a seemingly sober butactually perplexed mind. To a certain degree, flaneurs are the linkage of a metropolis and itscitizens. Citizens who enjoy the convenience and comfort of a metropolis will have a betterand profound understanding of its nature.James Joyce is the master of the novels of stream of consciousness and also a milestonein the history of Irish literature. As an Irish exiled writer, he is a typical flaneur who maintainsan extremely close yet complex relationship with his hometown Dublin-the capital ofNorthern Ireland. He sets all his works in this city and is familiar with every detail of it.However, he calls Dublin “the centre of paralysis” and finds it unbearable to live in the city.Dubliners is the urban sketch Joyce composed for his hometown in which Joyce depicted thelives and spirits of the middle and lower-middle class Dubliners under four aspects: children,adolescents, adults and public life. He also criticizes the indifference, inactivity andinflexibility which are pervasive in the Dublin society. In Dubliners, many characters beartypical features of flaneurs. Walking is their distinct urban experiences and the description of walking occupies the bulk of the narration. The movement of walking is essentially thecharacters’ conscious or subconscious reaction to the paralyzed society and what thecharacters have seen and felt reflects the city’s historical burdens and the current spiritualstate.This thesis mainly analyzes the thematic paralysis of Joyce’s Dubliners from theperspectives of flaneurs. Through tracing and analyzing the movement of the characters,Joyce describes the Irish life patterns at the beginning of the20thcentury and points out theillness that is entrenched in the Irish life patterns. The first chapter will mainly introduce theconception of flaneurs and flanerie and will offer a brief introduction of Joyce’s lives and hisDubliners. The second chapter analyzes the life pattern of the Irish young. In the Dublinsociety, the young people harbor the most intense desire for escape and for pursuit. Facing thedull, dim and rigid life of Dublin, the young people all attempt to escape and to pursue light,hope, freedom, romance and continental metropolitanism. However, the illness of the sociallife thwarts their pursuits and at last their pursuits all end with disillusion. For the walkingexperience, the young people all head for the east which symbolizes hope and freedom.However, all their journeys turn out to be frustrated ones. They either do not reach theirdestinations or find that their destinations are only entrapments, which conveys thatdisillusion has become the life pattern for the Irish young. The third chapter analyzes the lifepattern of the Irish adults. Compared with the young people, adults are more influenced by thesociety. The colonial history and Roman Catholicism weigh more heavily on their minds.Therefore, adults have already abandoned the desire for pursuit. Their lives become idling andrepetitive. Their walking becomes circling and wandering in the city. Their aimless wanderingin the city indicates the lack of purpose for the Irish life; the last two characters of this sectionhave thoroughly become a part of the daily routines when they invariably adhere to theirliving patterns of repetition. At last, they are so used to the fitted routes that theypsychologically reject any change. The fourth chapter analyzes the living condition of thewhole society. In Dublin society, people’s indifference, inactivity and rigidity has alreadymade Dublin the “centre of paralysis”. Without any change and with no emotion, people have no difference with the dead. In this section, protagonists of the first three stories nearly makeno obvious movement. They are all confined in the paralyzed city. For the last story, theprotagonist even takes a westward movement. In Joyce’s eyes, the west usually symbolizesthe backward and outdated Irish tradition. Therefore, the protagonist’s westward movementindicates that the whole society is heading for the spiritual paralysis.