First I will start off with what I disliked about the Dubliners by James Joyce. Bypassing the actual short stories, I want to get right into the critical essay by Heyward Ehrlich, “Araby” in Context…. Though this essay got off to a good start, providing helpful and informative facts to clarify some rather sketchy topics in Dubliners, it moved onto a monotonous barrage of WAY to much information about the history of bazaars in Europe. Not only was it more than what was needed to give some insight, it was beyond repetitive. I came across three instances where he goes into detail on the number of people in attendance (Joyce 267, 272, 273). One great piece of information I took away from this essay was the history on Irish Orientalism. I am happy to see this term come up in our reading since we haven’t had much of it yet. It was very intriguing to learn how much of Irish culture was taken from the Orient (Joyce 262).
On a lighter note, the two stories Araby, Eveline seemed much like Lahiri’s writing in the sense that it was very true to reality. There was not a lot of fluff which kept the stories easy to navigate, but both ended so abruptly I was left wondering what the point of the story had been. There would definitely be two short stories I wouldn’t mind having a little more background on to gain a broader understanding of Joyce’s purpose for the tales.
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I agree with you on the shorter stories not having much to them, I felt the same way. It seemed like it was pages of description and not a whole lot of plot. They were about the characters like Lahiri's stories, which is a good point you bring up. The stories were a bit short so I found it hard to get anything from them, I agree if they would have been a little longer they might have been a little more entertaining.
ReplyDeleteWhen thinking about critical essays, remember that the role of scholars in using critical essays is to use information to support further arguments regarding texts, and therefore the more information present the better -- not only to support their own argument but for the future arguments of other members of the critical community (which includes yourself).
ReplyDeleteI too found myself wanting to "flip" the page to finish the story only to find out that the story had indeed ended. I did like Joyce's writing style though it was initially hard to get into, I warmed to it. His choice of words at times was creative but his meaning came through just the same.
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