& # 8217 ; s The Dubliners Essay, Research Paper

Maria and Little Chandler are characters who have life ends, nevertheless, due to their unequal personalities these ends are impossible. They are instead weak and incapacitated people which is merely enhanced through their childlike visual aspects and idiosyncrasies. Their insufficiency to cover with life is a major obstruction in accomplishing their ends: Maria s concealed end being marriage/love and Little Chandler s end being to go a successful poet. This childish insufficiency is physically and openly displayed through their consistent feelings of shyness and timidness and through their reactions to marriage. The major difference between Little Chandler s inability to right cover with life and that of Maria is their outward action. Small Chandler shows through his idiosyncrasies his insufficiency while Maria merely shows hers through her mentality non doing it public. Maria does non by and large genuinely believe herself unequal. However, through much of her behaviour it seems that at times she does.

Maria and Little Chandler are really unequal thereby non leting themselves to accomplish their full potency. This insufficiency is stressed throughout Clay and A Little Cloud and is emphasized by Maria s and Little Chandler s really childly visual aspects and idiosyncrasies. Maria is described as a really, really little individual ( Clay, pg. 87 ) as Little Chandler gave one the thought of being a small adult male. ( Cloud, pg. 60 ) Little Chandler s frame was delicate & # 8230 ; his voice was quiet & # 8230 ; his custodies were white and little ( Cloud, pg. 60 ) and he had a row of infantile white dentitions ( Cloud, pg. 60 ) besides giving him an stripling visual aspect. One besides receives the feeling of Little Chandler s childlike insufficiency as he enters the saloon in which he meets Gallaher. The saloon seemed to him to be full of people and he felt that the people were detecting him oddly. ( Cloud, pg. 64 ) Upon reading this statement, one pictures a little kid walking into a room full of grownups and accordingly experiencing slightly inferior. The word seemed besides stands out. The fact of whether or non the saloon was really full of people remains equivocal go forthing the lone known fact to be that Little Chandler sees the saloon as being full, one time once more emphasizing his insufficiency. This relates to Maria s ferreting her manner rapidly among the crowds ( Clay, pg. 90 ) after go outing the ropeway and after geting at Downes s cakeshop it was so full of people that it was a long clip before she could acquire herself attended to. ( Clay, pg. 90 ) The phrase she could acquire herself attended to connote some sort of attempt on Maria s portion to name attending to herself. This would propose that the ground that she did non acquire attended to sooner was non entirely that there were a batch of people in the cakeshop, but besides that she is so little that she is lost among the crowd. Maria s size-deficiency is besides stressed when she is on the ropeway when it was full and she had to sit on the small stool at the terminal of the auto confronting all the people. ( Clay, pg. 89 ) A childly image is projected into the head of the reader after reading & # 8230 ; on the small stool & # 8230 ; confronting all the people and is further stressed when it is brought to the attending of the reader that she sat with her toes hardly touching the floor. ( Clay, pg. 89 ) Joyce evidently wishes to emphasize Maria s littleness by puting Maria on a small stool and yet still have her toes hardly touching the floor. However, although Joyce shows Maria to be deficient for the outside universe she does non by and large see herself as such. She feels that she has a nice tidy small organic structure ( Clay, pg. 89 ) and she looks at herself with quaint fondness. ( Clay, pg. 89 )

Other than their juvenile visual aspects and idiosyncrasies, Maria and Little Chandler were besides unequal due to their timidness. Maria s shyness is shown through her brush with the aged gentleman on the ropeway. The gentleman began to chew the fat with her ( Clay, pg. 90 ) and as he did she favoured him with demure nods and hems. ( Clay, pg. 90 ) The text gives no grounds that Maria have a conversation with the adult male on the train or even replied to the adult male s remarks with the spoken English linguistic communication. Rather, she merely gives him demure nods and hems. Demure is the cardinal word in this phrase because it shows that even her nods and hems were modest, diffident and reserved in mode: the definition of demure. Maria could non convey herself to really talk to the adult male until she was go forthing the ropeway at the Canal Bridge.

Small Chandler s shyness is one of his greatest obstructions. He feels that Gallaher was his inferior in birth and instruction ( Cloud, pg. 69 ) , and he was certain that he could make something better than his friend had of all time done. ( Cloud, pg. 69 ) However, something stood in his manner: His unfortunate timidness! ( Cloud, pg. 69 ) Little Chandler feels that he has the P

otential to be a great poet, but shyness had ever held him back. ( Cloud, pg. 61 ) Gallaher is a much more outgoing adult male than Small Chandler. Gallaher has …thousands of rich Germans and Jews rotten with money, that d merely be excessively glad… ( Cloud, pg. 70 ) due to his outgoing nature. Gallaher s success can be pinned upon this really nature. This is what Little Chandler deficiencies and why he gave one the thought of being a small adult male. ( Cloud, pg. 60 ) Little Chandler needs to asseverate his manhood ( Cloud, pg. 69 ) , nevertheless, he can non convey himself to make it. He is excessively reserved and excessively timid to be a successful poet, and, at times, even to be a successful human being in general. In the terminal, Little Chandler takes out his emotional repression upon his kid. Following this incident, his cheeks suffused with shame…and cryings of compunction started to his eyes ( Cloud, pg.74 ) for he knew the mistake in his ways. This is really similar to Maria s feeling of shame and annoyance and letdown ( Clay, pg. 91 ) after she loses the plumcake which she bought for Joe and his married woman. Both characters show their emotional insufficiency through their self-shameful jokes.

Joyce s concluding confirmation of the insufficiency of Maria and Little Chandler is shown through their reactions to marriage. Maria is a old maid. Her witchlike visual aspect, she had a really long nose and a really long mentum, ( Clay, pg. 87 ) and her voice which was talked a small through her olfactory organ ( Clay, pg. 87 ) can be seen as her chief hinderance from matrimony. However, this is non the instance. Unattractive people marry all the clip. This would take one to believe that Maria does non wish to acquire married. However, this besides is non the instance. Mare shows throughout the work that she has a secret desire to be married and to fall in love. During the repast at the wash Lizzie Fleming tells Maria that she is certain to acquire the ring this twelvemonth, typifying matrimony, and Maria s reaction is her stating that she didn t want any ring or adult male either. ( Clay, pg. 89 ) However, this is entirely Maria s outward reaction. Inwardly Maria felt really otherwise: & # 8230 ; when she laughed her greygreen eyes sparkled with defeated shyness & # 8230 ; ( Clay, pg. 89 ) Maria s feeling of defeated shyness gives the feeling that truly she does desire the ring and a adult male and she is really defeated that she has non gotten married all of these past old ages. At the cakeshop on Henry Street, Joyce besides illustrates this thought. The immature lady behind the counter at the cakeshop asks Maria was it a weddingcake she wanted to purchase. ( Clay, pg. 90 ) This deduction to marriage made Maria bloom and smiling at the immature lady ( Clay, pg. 90 ) demoing Maria s true involvement in the topic of matrimony.

Perversely, Little Chandler is married. However, like Maria, he is still diffident about the construct of matrimony and at times Joyce speaks of Little Chandler s kid and his married woman, Annie, as if they are disconnected from Little Chandler. Little Chandler s first reaction after Gallaher s reference of his matrimony is to crimson and smile. ( Cloud, pg. 68 ) After Gallaher references Little

Chandler s kid, Little Chandler blushed once more. ( Cloud, pg. 68 ) This shows Little Chandler s shyness and possibly embarrassment toward the construct of his matrimony. Joyce so goes on to divide Little Chandler from the remainder of his household. In Little Chandler s place when Joyce references Little Chandler s babe he refers to Little Chandler s babe as the kid ( Cloud, pg.72-74 ) as opposed to Little Chandler s kid or even merely his kid. Joyce besides does this with Annie. After the babe begins to shout hysterically for rather a piece Annie comes back into the room. However, Joyce does non state Annie runs back into the room, but instead he says a immature adult female ran in ( Cloud, pg. 73 ) making the image that Little Chandler is merely married lawfully and there is no existent true connexion between he and his household.

Maria and Little Chandler have unattainable ends due to their deficient personalities. They are little people with many juvenile qualities which farther hinder the accomplishment of their ends. Small Chandler wants to be a successful poet, but can non due to his timidness and shyness. Maria in secret wishes to get married, nevertheless, she besides can non due to her shyness. Maria s and Little Chandler s infantile insufficiency is physically and openly displayed through their consistent feelings of shyness and timidness and through their reactions to marriage. The major difference between Little Chandler s inability to right cover with life and that of Maria is their outward action. Small Chandler shows through his idiosyncrasies his insufficiency while Maria merely shows hers through her mentality non doing it public. Maria does non by and large genuinely believe herself unequal. However, through much of her behaviour it seems that at times she does.