Futile Epiphany: James Joyce’s Dubliners Trapped in Routine

Abstract

While observing the trapped routine life of James Joyce‘s Dubliners, this paper aims to explore why the characters were unable more challenging life. Their obedience towards Irish social and religious values always restrained them from following their own intuition. Also, their habit of following the repetitive activities and conventions made them paralyzed and unable to accept any changes in their life. Although they realized they were unhappy with their lives, at the end they still returned to the same pathetic life. Some of the characters did try to come out from their paralytic life, but after thinking about the unknown future and challenges they too fall back to usual routine. The short stories which I have chosen to support the thesis from Dubliners are: ―"The Sisters," "An Encounter," "Eveline," "A Painful Case" and "The Dead". The paper will begin with an introduction and then three chapters. Finally, there will be a conclusion in which the findings will be discussed. This paper also aims to explore the psychology of the characters and their inability to accept change.