Theme Of Despair In James Joyce's Dubliners

.Q.3 ‘Everyone in “Dubliners”seems to be caught up in an endless web of despair. Even when they want to escape, Joyce’s Dubliners are unable to’ (Eric Bulson).

This essay will discuss the emotion and theme of despair and its iron grip over some of characters that appear in James Joyce’s Dubliners ‘Joyce enters directly into the thoughts of the character by the use of free indirect style borrowed’(Ingman, 2009, p. 96). According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term despair means ‘The complete loss or absence of hope’.It is both a term and theme that is clearly evident throughout the entire collection of Joyce’s work Dubliners. The following essay informs us, the reader, of many characters in Joyce’s Dubliners who feel this sense of entrapment

He tends to spend most of his time thinking about the successes Gallaher has in his life and wishes he could have to same successful life as his friend ‘Little Chandler could remember many signs of future greatness in his friend’(Joyce, 1993, p. 50)Due to the reader’s astonishment, Chandler does little or nothing to try improve his chances of achieving the life he craves, a life which he refers to as ‘Desires’. From studying the text, one could come to the conclusion that it is due to both the lack of self-esteem and self-paralysis and maybe a fear of his unknown future that he does not make any effort to achieve this happy state of mind. This trapped state of mind that chandler finds himself in drives him to imagine what living the life of Gallaher would be like. He wondered and imagined what type of places he would visit and the type of people he encountered on the way. There were many occasions throughout the story where chandler could have mentioned his many raw qualities as a poet but instead Chandler decided to deny himself the opportunity and return to his own world of ‘Desires’ where he could believe that he was a strong, wealthy, sociable and outspoken individual just like Gallaher was. Chandler is stuck, barricaded into an unhappy life, a loveless marriage and a child which one could suggest that he did not want or love. As a reader or as an audience we know that he has the capabilities to change his life around but instead he choices to block out his sense of thinking or imagination. Crippled with fear and self-inadequacy , Chandler believes in his own way that he is not like Gallaher and would not be good enough for ‘Desires’ the luxurious and high living life that he so longs and craves for. On arrival of the conclusion of Joyce’s story ‘A Little Cloud’ one can see the feelings of self-paralysis and fear turn into anger, rage, jealousy and despair interfacing the