FREE ESSAY ON DUBLINERS: AN ANALYSIS OF RELIGION AS A CAPTOR

DUBLINERS: AN ANALYSIS OF RELIGION AS A CAPTOR

Kristina Lee
A collection of short stories published in 1907, Dubliners, by James Joyce, revolves
around the everyday lives of ordinary citizens in Dublin, Ireland (Freidrich 166).
According to Joyce himself, his intention was to "write a chapter of the moral history of
[his] country and [he] chose Dublin for the scene because the city seemed to [b]e the
centre of paralysis" (Friedrich 166). True to his goal, each of the fifteen stories are
tales of disappointment, darkness, captivity, frustration, and flaw. The book is divided
into four sections: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life (Levin 159). The
structure of the book shows that gradually, citizens become trapped in Dublin society
(Stone 140). The stories portray Joyce's feeling that Dublin is the epitome of paralysis
and all of the citizens are victims (Levin 159).
Although each story from Dubliners is a unique and separate depiction, they all have
similarities with each other. In addition, because the first three stories - The Sisters,
An Encounter, and Araby parallel each other in many ways, they can be seen as a set in
and of themselves. The purpose of this essay is to explore one particular similarity in
order to prove that the childhood stories can be seen as specific section of Dubliners.
By examining the characters of Father Flynn in The Sisters, Father Butler in An
Encounter, and Mangan's sister in Araby, I will demonstrate that the idea of being held
captive by religion is felt by the protagonist of each story. In this paper, I argue that
because religion played such a significant role in the lives of the middle class, it was
something that many citizens felt was suffocating and from which it was impossible to get
away.
Each of the three childhood stories uses religion to keep the protagonist captive. In The
Sisters, Father Flynn plays an important role in making the narrator feel like a
prisoner. Mr. Cotter's comment that "... a young lad [should] run about and play with
young lads of his own age..." suggests that the narrator has spent a great deal of time
with the priest. Even in death, the boy can not free himself from the presence of Father
Flynn (Stone 169) as is illustrated in the following passage: "But the grey face still
followed me. It murmured; and I understood that it desired to confess something. I felt
my soul receding into some pleasant and vicious region; and there again I found it
waiting for me". The boy feels the need to get away from the priest, but this proves to
be impossible. When he ran away into his "pleasant and vicious region", the priest was
still there-haunting him. In fact, even before the narrator is thoroughly convinced that
the priest is dead, he is worried that Father Flynn will haunt him (Stone 169): "In the
dark of my room I imagined that I saw again the heavy grey face of the paralytic. I drew
the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas". These passages convey the
idea that the boy was afraid of the priest and felt somewhat freed by his death. This is
further proven when the boy, after having seen the card announcing the death of the
priest, thinks it "strange that neither [he] nor the day seemed in a mourning mood and
[he] even felt annoyed at discovering in [him]self a sensation of freedom as if [he] had
been freed from something by [Father Flynn's] death". This feeling of freedom suggests
that the boy understood that he was a captive of Father Flynn, and thereby, also a
captive of the church. With the Father's death, perhaps the death of his captivity came
as well.
The idea of religious bondage can be seen in An Encounter by examining the relationship
between the boys and Father Butler. When Leo Dillion is caught reading The Apache Chief
in class, "everyone's heart palpitated" as Father Butler frowns and looks over the pages.
Shortly thereafter, the narrator claims that "[t]his rebuke...paled much of the glory of
the Wild West...But when the restraining influence of school was at a distance [he] began
to hunger again for wild sensations...". This passage demonstrates the control the church
has over the opinions and thoughts of the narrator. In addition, if Father Butler is
considered a symbol of the church, the fear felt by the students at the prospect of his
disapproval and the freedom they feel when the "restraining influence" of the church was
at a distance prove the suffocating nature of religion. It is from this stifling
existence that the narrator yearns to escape. This is further illustrated when Leo
Dillion doesn't appear for the ditch day because he worries that they "might meet Father
Butler or someone out of the college". Even though Father Butler's influence on the boy's
thoughts dwindles when school lets out, he is always in their minds. His presence in
their thoughts, especially at time when they are planning an activity for which they
could be punished, is a parallel to the feeling of a sinner who worries what God's
punishment will be. These passages prove captivity because the purpose of ditching class
was to escape the rigid and stifling world and to find excitement in the unknown.
However, even in the midst of the possibility of freedom, the boys can't help but think
of what would happen if Father Butler found them. 
The interior of the building is like a church. The great central hall, circled at half
its height by a gallery, contains dark stalls, dim lights, and curtained, jar-flanked
sanctuaries. Joyce wants us to regard this temple as a place of worship (Stone 175). 
In fact, even the narrator proves to understand the religious symbolism when he says "I
recognized a silence like that which pervades a church after a service". The narrator's
trip to the bazaar is journey, but even here he can not escape the images of religion.
Even here he can not escape the image of the Virgin Mary. He sees a young saleslady
standing at a door of one of the stalls, flirting with two men. This is paralleled by the
image of Mangan's sister standing in her doorway flirting with the narrator. When he
realizes the parallelism, he experiences an epiphany. His worshiped angel is only a girl,
just like the ordinary girl who stands before him now (Stone 175). When he realizes how
he has been deceiving himself, his "eyes burned with anguish and anger". When the boy
realizes the hold the church has had on him, he feels enraged and disgusted.
Religious imagery and the use of religion as a captor from which the protagonists yearn
to escape can be seen in each of the first three stories of Dubliners. Just as Father
Flynn haunts the boy in The Sisters, and the boys in An Encounter can not escape the
presence of Father Butler, the protagonist of Araby is obsessed with Mangan's sister and
can not escape seeing her image everywhere he goes. All three characters are haunted and
all three desire freedom. In The Sisters, this feeling is articulated in the
protagonist's feeling of freedom that came with the death of Father Flynn. In An
Encounter, it is expressed with his desire to "break out of the weariness of school-life
for one day at least". In Araby, this craving for freedom is not realized until the
narrator's epiphany when he finally understands the hold the church has had on him.
Because the three stories use religion as a prison, they can be seen as a set.
Bibliography
Friedrich, Gerhard. "The Perspective of Joyce's 'Dubliners'." Twentieth-Century 
Literary Criticism: Volume 35. Ed. Paula Kepos. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1990.
166-169.
Levin, Harry. "James Joyce: A Critical Introduction." Twentieth-Century 
Literary Criticism: Volume 35. Ed. Paula Kepos. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1990.
159-164.
Stone, Harry. " 'Araby' and the Writings of James Joyce." Twentieth-Century 
Literary Criticism: Volume 35. Ed. Paula Kepos. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1990.
171-177.