James Joyce and the Irish Conscience in Dubliners

• Main Authors: Chou, Yimei, 周宜美
• Other Authors: Hsiao, Yen-yen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/9hbpsk

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 外國語文學系 === 92 === Abstract My thesis focuses on Joyce’s conception of conscience in terms of the Irish political, religious and cultural context. The word “conscience” comes from Portrait to reveal two aspects of Joyce’s intention of writing Dubliners: first, to demonstrate his literary conscience against the image of Ireland in the colonial discourse and to challenge definition of Irishness in the revival movement. And second, Joyce also starts a self-critical view of his own cultural mission and his own artistic role of being an Irish artist in the nationalist movement. This introduction begins with my interrogation of the cultural project of the Irish Revival. It is a critical survey on the issues of the Gaelic Revival initiated by Douglas Hyde and W. B. Yeats. This interrogation anticipates my assertion of Joyce’s portrait of Ireland’s debasement. In Chapter One, I explore the Irish colonization and subjugation under the British oppression of the Great Famine in the nineteenth century. I will explore the destruction of the Irish economy on the themes of sexuality, gender and marriage. However, Joyce realizes that the Irish subjugation and victimization are not only the result of the British colonialism but also the Irish own degradation when they are willing to become the consent subservience and grateful for being the oppressed. In Chapter Two, I discuss the theme of betrayal in the Irish nationalism as well as the Church’s involvement in the political movements. And I would highlight the theme of betrayal with Seamus Deane’s discourse of “Ireland’s traditional unfaithfulness” to explore the Catholic Church as a political institution for her involvement in the nationalist movement. In Chapter Three, I discuss the longest story “The Dead”. First, I examine the critical reviews about the final vision and assert my assumption of how Joyce concludes his Dublin world as a world of rebirth through Gabriel’s confrontations with three females (Lily, Miss Ivors and Gretta) and imagines his motherland by Gabriel’s epiphanic journey to Galway in the snow vision. In the conclusion, I will assert Joyce’s contribution of writing Dubliners that serves as a “moral chapter” of demonstrating his literary conscience against the superficial practices of the revivalists’ cultural enterprise and the British colonial discourse in naturalizing the Great Famine. I will re-examine the importance of Joyce’s Dubliners in the Irish Revival movement.