Narrative Con/Texts in Dubliners PDF
Preview Narrative Con/Texts in Dubliners
BefJIlird Bens/ac/, Narrative Con/Texts • I n Dubliners Narrative Con/Texts in Dubliners Bernard Benstock University of Illinois Press Urbana and Chicago Narrative Con/Texts in Dubliners © 1994 by Bernard Benstock Manufactured in Hong Kong C 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Benstock, Bernard. Narrative con/texts in Dubliners / Bernard Benstock. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 0-252-02058-8 (alk. paper) 1. Joyce, James, 1882-1941. Dubliners. 2. Dublin (Ireland) in literature. 3. Narration (Rhetoric) I. Title. II. Title: Narrative contexts in Dubliners. PR6019.09D867 1994 823'.912-dc20 9~3377 CIP To Shari who doubles as "distant music" and with thanks again to Belinda Ghitis and Zack Bowen Contents Acknowledgements viii A Note on the Text ix Introduction: A Confluence of Texts 1 1 Narrative Strategies: The Teller in the Dubliners Tale 8 2 Narrative Gnomonics: The Spectres in the Tales 32 3 Symbolic Systems: Correspondences in the Tales 58 4 Pounds/Shillings/Pence: The Economics in the Tales 84 5 Double Binds: Talismans of Immaturity 109 6 Duplicitous Bonds: Talents of Maturity 127 Index 167 Vll Acknovv ledgem.ents Earlier versions of parts of the various chapters have appeared in the following books and journals, and I express my gratitude to their editors: Journal of Modern Literature, Twentieth Century Literature, CHerne, Abiko Literary Quarterly, Rivista de Letterature Moderne e Comparate, James Joyce Quarterly, Southern Review, Modern Fiction Studies, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism and The Languages of Joyce. I also want to acknowledge my appreciation to the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, where early segments of these chapters were written. viii A Note on the Text References to Dubliners are to the 1961 Viking Press edition edited by Robert Scholes. Quotations are by page numbers from that edition, with the title of the individual story indicated as follows: Si The Sisters En An Encounter Ar Araby Ev Eveline Af After the Race Tw Two Gallants Bo The Boarding House Li A Little Cloud Co Counterparts CI Clay Pa A Painful Case Iv Ivy Day in the Committee Room Mo A Mother Gr Grace De The Dead References to Ulysses are the 1986 Random House edition edited by Hans Walter Gabler. Quotations are by inclusive line numbers from that edition, with the chapter titles indicated as follows: Te Chapter 1, Telemachus Ne Chapter 2, Nestor Pr Chapter 3, Proteus Ca Chapter 4, Calypso Lo Chapter 5, Lotus Eaters Ha Chapter 6, Hades Ae Chapter 7, Aeolus Le Chapter 8, Lestrygonians SC Chapter 9, Scylla and Charybdis WR Chapter 10, Wandering Rocks Si Chapter 11, Sirens ix x A Note on the Text Cy Chapter 12, Cyclops Na Chapter 13, Nausicaa OS Chapter 14, Oxen of the Sun Ci Chapter 15, Circe Eu Chapter 16, Eumaeus It Chapter 17, Ithaca Pe Chapter 18, Penelope References to Finnegans Wake (FW) are to the 1947 edition (New York: Viking Press), incorporating the author's "Corrections of Misprints". Quotations are by page and inclusive line numbers. References to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (AP) are to the 1964 edition (New York: Viking Press) edited by Chester G. Anderson. Quotations are by page number from that edition. References to Stephen Hero (SH) are from the 1963 edition (New York: New Directions) edited by Theodore Spencer. Quotations are by page number from that edition. Note regarding ellipses: those ellipses which are part of the text being quoted are indicated by closely spaced ellipses (. .. ), whereas deletions made by the author are marked by normally spaced ellipses ( ... ). Introdu ction: A Confluence of Texts But total context is unmasterable, both in principle and in practice. Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless. Jonathan Culler James Joyce's Dubliners has eluded critical classification because it remains a "sampling" of experiences within discrete borders (fifteen separate short stories), as well as a "running text" that forms a con secutive whole (a single work of interconnected entities). When Araby" is anthologized in a volume of works by various authors 1/ (as it often is), the assumption is that it can stand on its own as a total experience, and the final reactions of the boy narrator derive from his immediate disappointment regarding Mangan's sister, the darkened bazaar, and his insufficient funds (although it may then take on the contextual possibilities of the anthology - one of Irish stories, for example). When read inside Dubliners as the third story of childhood experiences, that resolution can also be read as a cumulative reaction to the boy's traumas that include a succession of events such as a priest's death and a frightening encounter with a stranger. We are constantly aware that the barriers exist between each of the fifteen stories, but never sure how firm those barriers actually are, of what seeps through to create a "Dubliners" context in lieu of an individual context. James Duffy stands resolute as an individuated self, attempting to divorce himself from Dublin and from almost all other Dubliners, yet his very isolation dooms him to identifying with others around him, the fornicators in the park - hardly his normal context. The notion of context serves as a portal of entry into the narrat ive(s) of Dubliners, the way in which narrative discourse implicitly binds itself while simultaneously failing to contain that which it would attempt to define. Reading contextually means following the implications of its double sense (of context and con/text) through a series of critical distinctions (either/or, neither/nor, both/and) that mark the particular double bind of Joyce's narratives. The critical effort to define the exact nature of a particular instance, to locate 1
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