ENGLISH 45C Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Bildungsroman, Eveline, Free Indirect Speech
Document Summary
Recap from last time: innisfree proposes future action for itself, but is framed in the past; the present gets drained out into a blank space. Some sort of epiphany is always reached - stories moved to a desired moment/crisis. Usually negative, tragic, ironic, or blank epiphanies. Araby : understands his failure/overreading of situation, realizes the older girl doesn"t really like him. Eveline : imagines escape thru frank - ends w/ blank epiphany, character is totally paralyzed. Paralysis earlier in story (hemmed in by duty) prefaces end - she doesn"t decide anything at all. Paralysis exists in dialytic tension w/ epiphany. One of joyce"s desire for the text: he wanted dubliners to look themselves in the eye and change their lives. Called the volume a nicely polished looking glass . Revealed damaging conservatism of the gratefully oppressed (oppressed by the english, Like yeats" poem, the stories attempt progression but circle back.
