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Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed

Dubliners

by James Joyce

1914

Short Story

Collection, Regionalist

This collection of fifteen subtle, depressing stories presents the frustrations encountered at each successive stage of life by the lower-middle class citizens of Dublin at the beginning of the 20th century.

Joyce views his native city as a center of paralysis, denying its citizens opportunities to grow in understanding of themselves and the social forces that determine their lives. Through the successive stages of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and public life, this theme of insufficiency of will is pursued: only the final story, “The Dead,” brightens this gloomy portrait of a moribund society by the recognition of its humor and hospitality.

Each of these deceptively simple stories focuses on an epiphany (a moment of insight into character or society). The complex and brilliant handling of language and structure suggests levels of meaning beneath the dull surface of the texts. The effect of this technical virtuosity is to illuminate the historical, mythological, political, and social patterning which make all but impossible the assertion of psychological freedom in the Dublin of 1900.

The protagonists in these stories are caught in circumstances beyond their control, and they surrender pathetically to them. They are the victims of self-deception, clumsy educators, greed, laziness, colonialism, religious servility, and an excessive desire to be socially accepted. Only in “The Dead” does Joyce indicate that his native Ireland may have the spiritual resources to counter its malaise.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Joyce, James. "Dubliners." Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed, edited by Editors of Salem Press, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=6CR_0153.
APA 7th
Joyce, J. (2015). Dubliners. In E. Salem Press (Ed.), Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Joyce, James. "Dubliners." Edited by Editors of Salem Press. Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.