The Middle Class In James Joyce's The Dead

“It’s the middle class; it’s middle Ireland, and it’s a group of people who often feel that they contribute a lot to the economy and a lot to society, but maybe they don’t get as much back for it as they should” (Leo Varadkar). The middle class of Ireland is often one of the most overlooked aspects of the Irish culture; yet, it is one of the biggest social classes in most economies.W. B.Yeats didn’t want to acknowledge them, and most of Joyce’s writings were about the middle class. These two authors had varying outlooks on the middle class. The middle class is one of the most hardworking and often taken for granted social classes. James Joyce depicted the middle class in the short story called, “The Dead” and Yeats’ ideals of the middle class

James Joyce has given all of his characters an identity from the middle class. Joyce tends to have a positive tone towards his middle class characters because he doesn’t portray them in a negative light. For example, in “The Dead,” he portrays the characters at a lavish party, dancing, and having fun. He doesn’t portray them as drunk, dirty, or barbaric like many of the Irish stereotypes. He gives them an intellectual, graceful image that allows the readers to realize that they aren’t horrible people that should be ignored like Yeats believed. Joyce allows readers to see another side of middle class Ireland. When one thinks of Ireland, they might believe the stereotypes of alcohol, potatoes, dirty, hardcore, and many others; but, if one were to read James Joyce, then their perspective might

However, according to Rob Doggett, “Yeats now conceptualized ‘an unpopular theatre, with an audience like a secret society where admission is by favour and never to many,” (Doggett 1). Doggett is suggesting that Yeats bailed on the Abbey Theatre to create a new secret theatre for those who were wealthy enough for it: almost like a secret club with bouncers where only the elite were allowed on the guest list. Yeats didn’t want the middle class filling up his theatre anymore. Doggett observes, “he evokes the figure of the ‘hostess’ that clichéd reminder of Big House culture where the wealthy might dabble in art as rent-strapped peasants starve” (Doggett 2). Doggett is realizing the shift in Yeats as he starts to idealize the aristocrats and Big House culture which I would go further to say that one might see a shift in Yeats’ purpose for putting on shows. Perhaps, instead of putting on the shows to “shows that Ireland is not the home of buffoonery and of easy sentiment” (Gregory 402), Yeats is putting on shows for the money. According to Doggett, “something else is needed-- and that something else, hinted at in the rhetorical parallels between wisdom, justice, and generosity, is money” (Doggett 3). In this section of the article, Doggett is pointing out the fact that Yeats is nostalgic for some