James Joyce †An encounter Essay

An encounter is a perfectly study and also a part of the collection named Dubliners written by pack Joyce in 1914. Dubliners is a great literary work of the 20th Century, a truly masterpiece. Because of its social organization and unity of themes, it apprise be read as a novel. The stories argon based on the authors personal experiences in Ireland. They ar stories of desperate lives lived on the margins. Dublin was, to Joyce, the centre of palsy. An encounter describes the Irish society, the prejudices and restrictions of the century, the humdrum of keep, and the unability of people to change their lives. In a letter to an editor, Joyce wrote ,, I kick in tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public flavor. The stories are arranged in this order.The main themes are religion, the escape, freedom, journey, occasion, isolation, paralysis and monotony. As a cultural mainstayground, people were searchin g for freedom, for new adventures well-worn of the r let outine of spiritedness. This aspect can be easily observed by the readers, in the twaddle. The everyday life of Dubliners didnt engage joy and tempestuousness in their lives. One of the vote counters confessions is ,, But when the restraining influence of the initiate was at a distance I began to hunger again for grotesque sensations, for the escape which those chronicles of disorder alone seemed to offer me. So, the real adventures begin where the routine ends. Routine brings not only loneliness, but also despair, sadness and frustration. Joyce points out that routine is very dangerous, inevitable and it is seen as a trap from where you save can get out. Joyces characters are looking for escape from the monotony of life, an escape that they are ashame of, but they fail and they ceaselessly fall back in routine because of their inability to take actions ,, But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at floor they must be sought abroad, says the teller.The narration is made at the third person to describe people, places and at first person to chatter the psychologically complex and the thoughts of the author. The vote counter and a male child called Mahony ro globeceed games with cowboys and Indians, much(prenominal) as Wild double-u, which makes me believe that they see America as an exposure for freedom and happiness ,, The adventures related in the literature of the Wild West were remote from my nature but, at least, they opened doors of escape. But, plane the games they used to profligacy arent a symbol of full freedom since they had to hide to play the games. They decided to skip a day of school and go in an adventure at the shore where they met an encounter. I think they made this option because they were certain of the fact that they will never take part of real adventures at home. They started a disscusion close school, books, writers and ,,young s weethearts. I believe there is an voiceless desire for adventures in the life of Dubliners that never turns into something concrete. This is a proof that the narrator is looking to escape from the cotidian life, but it doesnt happen, as he and the boy return back home. They come to the conclusion that adventures dont bring with them protection as the society does. However, even the protection offered by the Irish society was illusional. They arentt able to escape the routine because they didnt have time, they never made time, they were afraid of trying and experiencing something new and because freedom al representations brings more responsability and unknown in your life.Routine is a bad habit, a roofy from where you cant get out. Breaking the monotony of life is a challenge which if you arent able to take it until the end, its damp not to take it at all. Also, An encounter reflects in a way the frustration of the Dubliners. The end of the story is ambiguous and interpretable. T he encounter touches himself and talks about whipping. Some may think of the allusion of masturbation. I think Joyce wants to tell us through this character that even an adventurous life has its routine. The experience of the narrator with the old man is not the experience he would imagine to have. His expectations dark into disappointments. During the escape they find out that their image of freedom and their expectations werent what ingenuousness brought to them. Adventures arent only about happiness and freedom as the narrator believes, adventures also mean obstacles, fear and unknown paths. I find this story a little bit terrifying because of the character of the old man, his look and his actions. Even the discourse isvery unusual and ambiguous ,, He began to turn to on the subject of chastising boys. His mind, as if magnetized again by his speech, seemed to circle slowly round and round its new centre.. He is percepted as a man with a sick and dirty mind.The encounter with t he old man can also be seen as a meet in the midst of childhood and maturity where the purity and expectations of the young boys encounter a origi nation less pure, safe and harmonius. It is a stage in which they appear the veritable meanings of a matur world and begin to understand the maturity.The language is very dynamic. thither are an abundance of details. Joyce uses in descriptions stylistic devices such as epithets (,,innocent face, ,, wild sensations, ,, real adventures, ,, green guides), comparations ( ,, he looked like some configuration of an Indian, ,, boys like you, as wearisome to me as the routine), repetitions (,,This page or this page, ,,All right All right), alliterations (,,Hardly had the day dawned), exclamations (,,Till tomorrow, couple), enumerations (,,blue and grey and even black). He is very ironic even through his characters that are aware of the fact they have to escape the world they live in, to seek freedom and happiness outside the society. They are aware that their world is a trap. So, their fault remains until the end their passivity. This moments of awareness are called by Joyce ,,epiphanies and are used as structural devices in the stories.The story is like a mirror reflecting the Dublin society a nation searching for its own identity, its darker side, its fears, but also hopes and unaccomplished desires. As Garry Leonard wrote ,, a misrepresentation mirror converting a hard reality into a compensatory fantasy.Through these short stories, the reader can notice the authors desire to leave Dublin. He also reminds to people that they can escape the monotony of life by moving into the West and starting a new life where dreams may come true, where freedom can be manifested. Before interpretation Dubliners it is important to know the historical context. ,,Reading a text of Joyces can be compared to playing a piece of music it can be done rapidly, skipping overopaque or repetitious passages to gain a sense of the longer-r ange patterns and developments, or slowly, savouring the words, puzzling over the conundrums, following up the cross-references. ( Derek Attridge)Bibliography1. Katherine Mullin, Cambridge Collections Online, James Joyce and the languages of modernism, Cambridge University Press, 2007 2. James Joyce, An encounter, David Campbell Publishers, 1991 3. Garry Leonard, Cambridge Collections Online, The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce,, Cambridge University Press, 2006 4. Derek Attridge, Cambridge Collections Online, Reading Joyce, Cambridge University Press, 2006 5. James R. carry off & Wendy Patrick Cope, A teachers guide to the Signet Classic Edition of James Joyces Dubliners, N.Y. Penguin, 1994