A Painful Case By James Joyce - 1508 Words

In author James Joyce’s short story, â€Å"A Painful Case†, the reader is immediately introduced to the character Mr. James Duffy. Upon further inspection, it becomes evident that this character is easily defined by his tendency towards misanthropy. Misanthropy, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the â€Å"hatred or distrust of humankind†. This trait in Mr. Duffy is demonstrated clearly in a passage early on in the story: â€Å"His cheekbones also gave his face a harsh character; but there was no harshness in the eyes which, looking at the world from under their tawny eyebrows, gave the impression of a man ever alert to greet a redeeming instinct in others but often disappointed (142).† The key statement in this passage is the second†¦show more content†¦The pupil reasserted itself quickly, this half-disclosed nature fell again under the reign of prudence, and her astrakan jacket, moulding a bosom of a certain fullness, struck the no te of defiance more definitely (143). What draws Mr. Duffy to her initially is her general disposition; she acts very calm and natural, and she isn’t too shy or awkward. She points out the numerous empty seats around them in the concert hall, but makes no fuss over it whatsoever. He also detects her intelligence and sensibility, both of which are important facets of Mrs. Sinico’s personality. To him, the most important of the traits he sees is her vulnerability. This is revealed briefly as her pupils momentarily â€Å"swoon† into the irises, indicating that she is open to his influence in ways she has not verbally stated. This is significant to Mr. Duffy because he knows that if she is vulnerable toward him, he can be dominant over her. The suggested attraction she has leads him to believe later on that â€Å"he would ascend to an angelical stature† in her eyes. He believes that this vulnerability is in fact a weakness in her character, and that she would hold him in a much higher esteem than anyone else in her life. Eventually, after their companionship has developed for some time, Mr. Duffy abruptly decides to sever the connection completely. Though the true motive for this choice is unclear, the decision is definitely rooted in the dominant status in the relationshipShow MoreRelatedJames Joyce s A Painful Case1159 Words   |  5 PagesWhat does the story signify? James Joyce s short story, A Painful Case, signifies the dramatic isolation inflicted on man by his own human nature, which leads to a life best described as an an adventure-less tale. How does it signify this? A Painful Case signifies the woes of self-inflicted isolation through the characterization of the main character, Mr. Duffy. The short story opens by conversing Mr. Duffy s choice to live as far as possible from the city of which he was a citizen... he foundRead MoreJames Joyce’s Dubliners Essay1493 Words   |  6 PagesJames Joyce’s Dubliners is a collection of short stories that aims to portray middle class life in Dublin, Ireland in the early twentieth century. Most of the stories are written with themes such as entrapment, paralysis, and epiphany, which are central to the flow of the collection of stories as a whole. Characters are usually limited financially, socially, and/or by their environment; they realize near the end of each story that they cannot escape their unfortunate situation in Dublin. These storiesRead MoreParalysis In James Joyces Dubliners1086 Words   |  5 Pagesnever explored: to remain paralyzed between the two states, unable to commit to eith er. James Joyce’s Dubliners is a collection of short stories first published in 1914, that follows the inhabitants of Ireland. Published nearly a half a century before the Republic of Ireland would be recognized as an independant country, many of Joyce’s short stories in Dubliners explore the theme of Irish paralysis, that Joyce found afflicted both the whole of Ireland and its individual citizens. Many of the storiesRead MoreAnalysis Of James Joyce s Dubliners Dubliners1633 Words   |  7 PagesBria LeeAnn Coleman ENG 299 Dr. Mark Facknitz October 12, 2015 Epiphanies in James Joyce’s Dubliners Characters in Dubliners experience revelations in their every day lives which James Joyce called epiphanies. Merriam Webster defines an epiphany as â€Å"an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure.† While word epiphany has a religious connotation, these epiphanies characters in Dubliners experience do not bring new experiences and possibility of reform that epiphanies usually have. Joyce’sRead MoreA Mosaic Of The Inevitable Disappointments And Delights Of Life By James Joyce s Dubliners1238 Words   |  5 Pagesthe inevitable disappointments and delights of life, James Joyce’s Dubliners is a striking representation of the lives of not only those in early twentieth century Dublin, but also of each one of us. As these unhappy situations progress, it is apparent that each character is caught between contradiction after contradiction; these complex â€Å"ambiguities that reveal a text’s instability† are the key to understanding Dubliners ( Meyer 2100). No painful situation is unalloyed: all of the characters experienceRead More Fragments of A Painful Case and Paper Pills1665 Words   |  7 PagesFragments of A Painful Case and Paper Pills Although James Joyce and Sherwood Anderson situate their subjects in very different milieux (Joyces in Dublin; Andersons in Winesburg, Ohio), two of their subjects speak the same language of idiosyncrasy. In Joyces A Painful Case, Mr. Duffy keeps on his desk a little sheaf of papers held together by a brass pin. In these sheets a sentence was inscribed from time to time and, in an ironical moment, the headline of an advertisement for BileRead MoreEssay about Search for Meaning in James Joyces Dubliners2379 Words   |  10 PagesSearch for Meaning in James Joyces Dubliners Throughout Dubliners James Joyce deliberately effaces the traditional markers of the short story: causality, closure, etc. In doing so, the novel continually offers up texts which mark their own complexity by highlighting the very thing which traditional realism seeks to conceal: the artifice and insufficiency inherent in a writers attempt to represent reality.(Seidel 31) By refusing to take a reductive approach towards the world(s) he presentsRead More The Erotic in Joyces A Painful Case1861 Words   |  8 PagesThe Erotic in Joyces A Painful Case      Ã‚  Ã‚   The characters whom inhabit Joyces world in Dubliners, often have, as Harvard Literature Professor Fischer stated in lecture, a limited way of thinking about and understanding themselves and the world around them. Such determinism, however, operates not on a broad cultural scale, but works in smaller, more local, more interior and more idiosyncratic ways. That is, the forces which govern Joyces characters are not necessarily culturalRead More Paralysis in Dubliners Essay2290 Words   |  10 PagesIn his letters, Joyce himself has said that Dubliners was meant â€Å"to betray the soul of that hemiplegia or paralysis which many consider a city† (55). The paralysis he was talking about is the paralysis of action. The characters in Dubliners exemplify paralysis of action in their inability to escape their lives. In another of Joyce’s writings, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce writes of Ireland: â€Å"When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to holdRead MoreThe Search for Truth or Meaning in James Joyces Dubliners1788 Words   |  8 PagesThe Search for Truth or Meaning in Dubliners       Several of James Joyces stories in Dubliners can read as lamentations on a frustrating inability of man to represent meaning by external means, including written word. When characters in Araby, Counterparts, and A Painful Case attempt to represent or signify themselves, other characters, or abstract spiritual entities with or through words, they not only fail, but end up emotionally ruined. Moreover, the inconclusive endings of the three