Class Distinctions and Internal Struggle in the Works of James Joyce Es

Class Distinctions and Internal Struggle in the Works of James Joyce In the early twentieth degree centigrade, Ireland, and more specifically Dublin, was a place outlined by ramify distinctions. There were the wealthy, worldly upper-class who owned large, impressive townhouses in the luxurious neighborhoods and the less fortunate, uneducated poor who lived in either shack they could afford in the middle of the city. For the most part, the affluent class was Protestant, while the struggling workers were overwhelmingly Catholic. These distinctions were the result of nearly a century of disparity in income, education, language, and occupation, and in turn were the fundamental bases for the internal struggle that many of Joyces characters feel. Torn between the life they lead and the one they aspiration of, these people are reflections of the harsh setting in which Joyce himself spent his life. Although Joyce neer explicitly explains why his main characters in A Little Cloud, Ev eline, Counterparts, and The boarding House are so deprived, it is clear that they are at an raw disadvantage in some way. He uses them to spotlight and protest the hardships that so many people of Dublin were forced to endure simply because of their morality and its effects on the other aspects of their lives. The Irish-Catholics of Dublin in this era were overwhelmingly poverty-stricken, especially when compared to the slope people who controlled the government and businesses. In fact, in 1914, the same year that Dubliners was first published, 74,000 people in Dublin lived in one-room tenements, and well-nigh 56,000 more in two-room tenements and this 130,000 people represented 42 per cent of Dublins citizens (Cahalan 178). plane a noted employe... ...Handbook. Ed. James R. Baker and Thomas F. Staley. Belmont, Calif. Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1969. 120-24. Joyce, James. The Boarding House. The Bedford entree to Literature. 332-37. ---. Counterparts. Dubliners. New York Viking Press, 1968. 86-98. ---. Eveline. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 329-31 ---. A Little Cloud. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 337-45. Ledden, Patrick J. Education and hearty Class in Joyces Dublin. Journal of Modern Literature 22.2 (1998) 329-36. Ryan, Ellen Bouchard, Howard Giles, and Richard J. Sebastian. Attitudes Toward Language mutation Social and Applied Contexts. London Edward Arnold, 1982. Torchiana, Donald T. Backgrounds for Joyces Dubliners. Boston Allen & Unwin, 1986. Walzl, Florence L. Patterns of Paralysis in Joyces Dubliners. College English XXII. (1961) 226.