Dubliners and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock :: essays papers

Dubliners and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Several of Joyce's stories in Dubliners can read as lamentations. They are showing the frustrated inability of man to represent meaning by external means, including written word. When characters in ^Araby^, and ^A Painful Case^ attempt to represent or signify themselves, other characters or abstract spiritual entities with or through words, they not only fail, but end up emotionally ruined. In T.S. Eliots^ poem, ^ The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,^ the feeling relates to one overall issue of emotional investment in representation. The poem laments, and with this theme and the symbols used, it is signified enough to be related to Joyce^s short stories in Dubliners. The name of the story itself and the bazaar-within-the-story, ^Araby^ is the most crucial object of misdirected concentration and sought signification. The boy explains, ^The symbols of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast on eastern enchantment over me.^ Joyce emphasizes the formal properties- ^syllables of the word^- thus granting ^Araby^ a kind of physical, phonetic importance beyond its external meaning. The narrator goes on to describe ^Araby^ as ^the magical name.^ Throughout the piece, the title-word ^Araby^ displays itself as a guiding metaphor. The name of the poem by T.S. Eliot, ^The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock^ is a misdirected concentration that is significant. The title is very ironic. The irony is present with the reader expecting the theme of love, but clashing that idea with the boring and dry name of J. Alfred Prufrock. The poem goes on to describe the journey as one, not of romantic, heartfelt,! or brotherly love, but of one story of frustration. ^A Painful Case,^ demonstrates a more complicated signifying condition. Early in the story, Joyce describes a piece of literature by emphasizing its formal properties, not its ^content.^ ^In the desk lay a manuscript translation of Hauptmann^s Michael Kramer, the stage directions of which were written in a purple, and a little sheaf of papers held together by a brass pin.^ The conspicuous ^purple ink^ and ^brass pin^ highlight the graphic qualities of Duffy^s volume. Joyce goes on to describe Duffy^s odd treatment of the manuscript, again emphasizing actions. ^In these sheets a sentence was inscribes from time to time and, in an ironical moment, the headline of an advertisement for Bile Beans had been pasted on the first sheet. The infrequency of Duffy^s inscription and his ^ironic^ outlook toward the physical text are made clear.