Joyce Appleby

Women in the 19th century were seldom independent as gender equality was absent. Independence can be defined as the unwillingness to adhere to the husband’s desire. In Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, Ibsen delves into Nora’s journey toward independence as a result from the inconveniences of her seemingly carefree relationship with Torvald. Torvald’s inconsiderate and hurtful criticism toward Nora acts as a stepping-stone toward her independence. Additionally, the revelation of Torvald’s…

James Joyce, in his genius, cleverly placed food and drink throughout his short stories in his collection Dubliners. Despite how subtle and meaningless they may seem, they have a very specific meaning and were deliberate, that is, they were a way of giving the story much more meaning through one of the three themes of the entire collection: paralysis, gnomon, and simony, express his character’s situations into materialistic substances such as food, and communion, which aren’t exclusively in…

a glimmering future. The story is dark and dreary as it unfolds itself, drifting between memories and current time spinning around the mind of young Eveline, who longs for a world that she will not let herself be a part of. In “Eveline,” by James Joyce, though the character of Eveline wishes to escape the life she’s living, she is bound tightly by her abusive relationship with her father and a promise to her dead mother, as well as being overwhelmed by change and excitement, leaving her both…

#1 In the short story “Eveline” by James Joyce, the first paragraph helps to introduce the theme of not taking the opportunities presented and letting life just go on without enjoying it. In the short story, it states “She was tired.” because she was living her life as she always had; without any real excitement. Instead of getting ready to leave to go somewhere more enjoyable, she was sitting there “watching the evening invade the avenue.” She was doing what she always has:…

Henrik Ibsen’s play “A Doll’s House” features complex characters who are different than they appear. Nora and Torvald each undergo a transformation of their character from the start of the play until the finish. Torvald begins the play appearing very strong and confident, but by the end he is broken down to a scared and unhappy man who is holding onto an image of himself to receive respect from all he encounters. Additionally, Nora experiences a similar transformation of moving from a wife who…

Throughout someone’s life, they experience the moment that they realize their identity and self-awareness, and the surround settings and people around them can change and influence their identity. Gabriel who is the main character of The Dead by James Joyce shows the process of his change in development of new self-awareness through Greta’s confession. The time Gabriel was spending with Greta at the Gresham hotel was the conclusion part of The Dead that shows how Gabriel reached his…

In Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield and Araby by James Joyce we notice many common things in both main characters. One is their fantasy. In both stories both of the main characters are deluded by their imagination and have made their imagination shape their way of living. In Miss Brill, a middle-aged woman has a lonely life, she has barely any social interactions thus she finds distraction by eavesdropping into other people’s conversations. Miss Brill lives in a fantasy of her own she enjoys…

to all of the continual themes and plot devices found throughout the collection. With a modernist lens applied, the main protagonist, Gabriel Conroy is seen to replicate many themes found in modernist literature. Throughout this short story, James Joyce uses this main protagonist to portray modernist themes of alienation, stream of consciousness, and epiphany by accounting events in which the character finds himself alone and lost in a setting that should be otherwise favorable. Early on at the…

In the novel of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce a künstlerroman written in a modernist style, we see the religious and intellectual awakening of the fictional alter ego of James Joyce named Stephen Dedalus. We see the struggles Stephen are faced with as he grows up and these struggles are his family, morality, religion and nationality. As these struggles between Stephen and the above issues progresses Stephen reaches a point in his life where he decides to reject the…

Irish author, Charles Handy, once said, “Change is only another word for growth, another synonym for learning” (“Charles” 2017. Par 7). Handy attempted to convey that growth is prompted by change. This assertion is a lesson that I learned first hand when I moved from Tennessee to Michigan at the age of ten. The move pushed me into adolescence, and I transformed into an entirely different person that year. Later down the road when I saw myself headed down the wrong path because of my lack of…