"The Dead," by James Joyce had been a hard story for me to concentrate on. I finished the entire story, yet I am still a little confused about what happened. I know Gabriel and his wife are at a Christmas party, but there are so many characters in the story that I'm not even sure how they are connected to the people throwing the party. Then, Gabriel's wife gets emotional over a song and I think she basically tells him that she misses her past lover and will never love Gabriel as much as she loved him... or something.
Don't get me wrong, I love James Joyce and there are many of the other short stories in "The Dubliners," that I enjoy. I have been flipping through and reading them. There is just something about "The Dead," that makes me not want to read it and not able to fully understand it.
Here is something I found on James Joyce that I thought was very odd.
"After graduating from UCD in 1903, Joyce left for Paris to "study medicine", but in reality he squandered money his family could ill afford. He returned to Ireland after a few months, when his mother was diagnosed with cancer.[5] Fearing for her son's "impiety", his mother tried unsuccessfully to get Joyce to make his confession and to take communion. She finally passed into a coma and died on August 13, Joyce having refused to kneel with other members of the family praying at her bedside.[6] After her death he continued to drink heavily, and conditions at home grew quite appalling. He scraped a living reviewing books, teaching and singing — he was an accomplished tenor, and won the bronze medal in the 1904 Feis Ceoil.[7]"
(from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce#Dublin.2C_1882.E2.80.931904)
Wasteland?
1 week ago
2 comments:
Well.
That sucks.
I actually never read that anywhere before - if it's true, that's an amazing thing to post about. It completely blows most of what else is written about him pretty much directly out of the water. (Him struggling in spite of hardships, etc etc violin music etc.)
That is a complete head-scratcher. Your post is so interesting that I think despite having other homework to do, I'm actually going to research that.
Well done, Danielle. It's true that the family hoped he'd be a doctor and make some money, as he was so bright. And also true that he would not kneel at his mother's bedside as she died--a devout atheist was James Joyce. You are helping to round out the picture of a, shall we say, special fellow.
Mostly it's great that you've read ahead. As we go through the story in class, you will have a much richer understanding of it.
Keep writing...
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