| Dubliners, a short story collection written by the famous modern Irish novelist James Joyce can be regarded as a mirror of Dublin life during the turn of the twentieth century. Joyce takes his hometown Dublin as background, describes a collection of short stories, using realism and symbolism combined approach, successfully reproduces the late 19th and early 20th century British colonial social reality of the country Ireland. Theme of paralysis and death run throughout the book, emphasizing a common theme, that is apathetic, lifeless mental state filled in the whole Irish community in late 19th and early 20th century. Joyce defines this mental state as "paralysis". Paralysis of the spirit manifests four aspects in Dubliners, they are the religious paralysis, political paralysis, emotional paralysis and psychological paralysis. Joyce explored deep into the person’s inner world through the consciousness appearance,which was distorted by the deformity of the modern western civilization, completely showing the multi-level and erratic mind world of modern people. Joyce started using a new and unique creative skill epiphany to illustrate the character’s thoughts and erratic surging consciousness. It shows the characters’ complex thoughts and feelings clearly. Almost at the end of every novel, the hero can not help but suddenly see their own predicament and realize from the essence of life. It not only has a profound symbolic meaning, and often constitute the climax of the novel.This paper discusses the significance of the theme of Dubliners and is divided into five parts. Chapter One tells the background of the publish of the novel, analyzes the social situation of Ireland under the British colonial rule and the family influence upon Joyce. Chapter Two analyzes the thematic meaning of Dubliners in detail. According to the text, focus on the common theme throughout the fifteen stories in Dubliners-"spiritual paralysis" to elaborate from the religious paralysis, political paralysis, emotional and psychological paralysis respectively. Chapter Three discusses Joyce’s solution to the current situation of Ireland in the text, the way out is to eradicate the "spiritual paralysis". Few people can recognize the spiritual paralysis of Irish society so that to produce the idea of "escape", but finally failed, however, so the author skillfully takes The Dead as the ending passage, gives a heavy snow as the ending of the whole novel, as a symbol of purity, implies the hope of a rebirth. He wished to awake the people in the country and finally realized the national rejuvenation. Chapter Four analyzes the technique used by Joyce in the process of writing. In order to express the the theme of spiritual paralysis, Joyce used his original way -- "Epiphany". Chapter Five summarizes the content of the full text, and puts forward the research content of the paper.Dubliners reveals a wide range of mental situations in Ireland during the turn of twentieth century. This thesis attempts to provide a better understanding of the Irish society before the independence of the Republic of Ireland through the discussion of the multiple themes of Dubliners. Through the text, readers can appreciate the creative mind of Joyce, and to treat the modern spiritual crisis through the classic novel hundred years ago. Therefore, it is of certain literary and social significance. |
