Suspending Reader Criticism in James Joyce's Dubliners

Stanislaus Joyce once stated that, "in Dubliners judgment is everywhere suspended." Much like his older brother, James Joyce, Stanislaus enjoyed using a mixture of potency and ambiguity in his word choice. The utterance of 'judgment' has the ability of interpolating the moral paralysis that pervades in all of the short stories of which Dubliners is comprised, in addition to making reference to the capacity of judging by the reader. Indeed, Dubliners proves to make the reader pendulant between both judging morally and the ability to do so. This is accomplished through the use of language and narration shifts throughout the text-written with 'scrupulous meanness'. In the final story of Dubliners, 'The Dead', one can clearly see the objective of judgment evolving through the impressions of characters to other characters, Joyce's own self-effacement to his audience through autobiographical inside jokes, and the perceptions of the readers on the characters through allusions and shifts in narrative language.

The importance of the perception of others on oneself is portrayed through the protagonist's anxiety about giving a speech at a dinner party in 'The Dead'. Interestingly enough, there is no other character in the final chapters of Dubliners that so much resembles James Joyce autobiographically. "Gabriel Conroy is the most immediately and conspicuously Joycean protagonist in the later stories. His resemblances to Joyce are well-known: his physical appearance, Continental experience and enthusiasms, teaching, book-reviewing and relationship with a woman from Galway who had had an admirer named Michael" (Wright, 27). Therefore, any experience that Gabriel undergoes may be viewed as a tounge-in cheek reference to Joyce himself. The protagonist is a bit more pompous in speech, however, this might be a fantasy of what the author's projected sense of self might be. "Where Joyce does depict characters he might have grown to resemble had he remained in Dublin, he treats them not with contempt but with a kind of benign amusement, a blend of sympathy and judgment…a mood which represents his acceptance of life's possibilities rather than a rejection. This mood is clearest in the presentation of Gabriel Conroy" (Wright, 14). Ironically in Dubliners, most of the characters contrast with Joyce's own persona, and seem as defeated by Dublin, in a time when Joyce had managed to detach himself from both intellectual and geographical propinquity of the city. "There were few things that could hold James Joyce's attention like the spectacle of a man speaking in public" (Kenner, "Joyce's Voices" 39). Joyce was concerned with the idea of the presentation of self in relation to an audience, for both its comic possibilities as well as the opportunity to display several layers in regards to authorship, morality and judgment.

Gabriel Conroy's notion of what others perceptions were in regards to his reputation actually reveal the genuine self for both character and readers alike. He is concerned with the intellectual capacity of his addressees, believing that his references may be lost on them. "He is certainly patronizing and bumptious, concerned about his own self-image; yet he is also self-critical and desirous of pleasing" (Wales, 48). It is the questioning qualities that save Gabriel's character from complete loathing by the genuine audience, which is the Joycean readership. Furthermore, the irony of Gabriel's speech is that he is himself an example of his own hyper-education. In the speech's expanded form, "he himself has proved 'skeptical' and 'thought-tormented', and he seems to lack, from his attitude to his aunts, 'those qualities of humanity, hospitality, of kindly humour'" (Wales, 49). Furthermore, Gabriel's egoism was somewhat justified for not only did they not understand the allusion to the three graces, they failed to notice the faults in his references. The readers are given a major instance by Joyce into a presenter/audience relationship created under the guise of a narrator. "In Dubliners we can read the banality and paralysis of Dublin. But this reading is accomplished without the writing offering a point of insertion for our own discourses within an agreed hierarchy of dominance. The text works paratactically, simply placing one event after another, with no ability to draw conclusions from this placing" (MacCabe, 28). It would appear that the result of this on a basic character to character level is that of blind leading blind, and neither being able to make accurate judgments on the other or the self.

The reader is left to fill in the missing links to the puzzle of what seems to be only a superficial argument. Joyce has left clues via allusions, shifts in narrative style, and language, which will allow the audience to make tentative judgments on the protagonist- and eventually, the work of Dubliners as a whole. Kenner notes in Joyce's Voices that Gabriel "staggers from cliché to cliché into exegetical disaster… [there is] confusion between the Three Graces and the three goddesses in the story of the Judgment of Paris" (39). While it has already been noted that his presence among the other characters in 'The Dead' is preserved, the reader is not so easily appeased. There are a few theories on why Joyce chose to have Gabriel blunder.

Gabriel has offered us two myths, jumbled together. Not even unjumbled would either one really fit. Bit by the end of the story there is a myth that fits, though it does not belong to the story's public occasion, and Gabriel had no reason to think of it. This is the myth of Orpheus. He has played Orpheus, and failed as Orpheus failed. He has sought to lead Gretta up from the land of The Dead, up to where moments of their life together were 'like the tender fire of stars,' but has made the Orphic mistake of looking back ('I suppose you were in love with this Michael Furey, Gretta'). So she sleeps, communing with the dead, and he gazes through the cold window at the snow
(Kenner, "Joyce's Voices" 40)

However, one must also remember that Gabriel states of the Morkans in his speech, "I will not attempt to play to-night the part that Paris played on another occasion. I will not attempt to choose between them." "He might remind us that in Greek mythology Paris awarded the beauty prize to Aphrodite; Gabriel's failure to choose could be interpreted as a failure to recognize what Aphrodite represents-the true nature of love" (Wright, 28).

Both allusion options hold thematic relevance, however, they work best if combined. They are both in regards to his lack of judgment, being his inability to choose at all; being that he can not remain on one track without looking back in doubt, such as Orpheus, or chose between the Morkans. Furthermore, their still remains the failure to evolve into a stable sense of self, whether to be egotistic or self-effacing, thus he must be witnessed through the eyes of other characters. His failure to judge is more then likely a reflection of his moral paralysis of a Dantean kind-where he remains in limbo for lack of action. This becomes more so pertinent when placed in relation to the name of the chapter. "The first point to grasp about 'The Dead' is the universal reference of the title. 'I had not thought death had undone so many'; in reading The Waste Land aloud Mr. Eliot puts the stress not on 'death' but on 'undone'. The link, through the quotation, with the outer circle of Dante's hell, the soul who lived without blame and without praise, the world of the Hollow Men, is an Eliotic perspective of the utmost relevance to Joyce's story" (Kenner, "Dublin's Joyce" 62). Finally to note in relation to the allusions made in Gabriel's speech would be his impossibility to use the female character in a narrative. "Lily, the servant girl, Miss Ivors, the nationalist, and Gretta, his wife, all refuse the identifications which Gabriel wishes to make. 'The Dead' constantly promises a story which never gets told: neither the events at the Misses Morkan nor the heavy symbolism ever come to anything. Gretta is immune to any attempt to narrativise her" (MacCabe, 55). There still remains the possibility of Joyce creating a new myth out of pieces of classical imagery, additionally; Gretta is not incapable of creating her own kind of myth around herself. She is an alteration on the classic idea of the Literary Revival's romanticism of the West. For example, her past love interest, Michael Furey worked in the gas works and must have therefore been from urban Galway, rather than the rural as the classic representation of the West would imply. Therefore, one blunder by Gabriel leaves the reader with a plethora of allusions to explore, all of which seem to work back to the centrality of the idea of judgment in Dubliners.

There is a remarkable passage of neutral descriptive narration, quite unlike anything else in Dubliners, that emphasizes the permeating sense of hospitality. "It is a passage of twenty-three lines describing the festive dinner-table, just before the table-talk which is followed by Gabriel's speech. With the striking visual imagery, words of colour and hyperbolic metaphors or architecture and battle tactics, it has more then a touch of the Dickensian about it, and is very much a rhetorical set-piece, a descripto that befits the tableau portrayed" (Wales, 52). This therefore, indicates more of Joyce's own control over the narration then before, a clue to the active reader that there are going to be linguistic cues dropped. The rest of the language in all of Dubliners appears to be more of the litotes variety in lieu of the hyperbole, and it seems to indicate that this is a reminder that there is more to this story then just Gabriel, who's general language (that is, when not putting on a performance for his speech) is towards understatement. The effect that is conveyed by the lines describing the spread on the dinner table is that of "opulence and good organization: similar, in fact, to the effect of Gabriel's speech, which is to follow" (Wales, 53). Apprised that there is a backstage narrator involved, the reader is reminded that they are an audience of the story itself, and are quick to notice the fatal flaws in Gabriel's speech, thus linking back to the idea of the sense of the character's sense of self through the eyes of others as well as the idea of the reader's judgment of the protagonist via the Joyce connection.

Joyce uses the language of the narrator to create a sense of unease of judgment from the start of 'The Dead.' The first sentence, "Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet" proves, rather then to ring true, borne with a "leaden ring, very perceptible to a translingual ear" (Kenner, "Joyce's Voices" 15.) Naturally, Lily could not have been literally run off her feet, but only figuratively so. The following lines confirm that the narration is shaded with her idiom, rather then being strictly an objective narration. Indeed, where Joyce's fiction does not have a detached narrator, this keeps his words in "delicate equilibrium, like the components of a sensitive piece of apparatus, that they detect the gravitational field of the nearest person. One reason the quiet little stories in Dubliners continue to fascinate is that the narrative point of view unobtrusively fluctuates" (Kenner, "Joyce's Voices" 16). Language is part of the reason that Gabriel is incapable of interacting properly with Lily. Indeed, when Gabriel speaks his language too seems odd, his pomposity and affectation seem to set him apart. However, his anxiety is still revealed though his repetition of conditional verbs such as 'would' and 'could'. All of these linguistic clues aid the reader to judge that Gabriel is anxious being from a newly emergent, newly educated, Catholic class which is in an unstable situation. It would appear that the narrative voice is altered and working as Joyce dictates to make political and cultural points. However, it is hard to walk to line of realism and symbolism with such narrative flexibility. With the narrative view constantly shifting with the sympathies and idiom of the nearest character, it is impossible for the reader to make concrete judgments on the surroundings and the statements being made. Furthermore, the shifting articulations make the reader question the reliability of all of the narrative voices.

There seems to be an end to the suspense for judgments to be made in 'The Dead'. "In Dubliners Joyce had kept his language on the whole transparent, a medium thorough which we perceive the goings-on which we are to comprehend as the characters do not" (Kenner, "Joyce's Voices" 41). Therefore, we are to see his linguistic playfulness as cues for reader attentiveness. In the final two paragraphs of 'The Dead', the narrative voice moves from a satirical position and becomes more closely related to Gabriel. The ultimate section "is subjective rather than objective; it is also the symbolic representation of a mind losing consciousness in sleep, and gradually losing awareness of the physical world around it. The effect of the repetitions, lexical and phonetic, and of epanodos (the repetition of vowels in the reverse order), is to convey a sleep-inducing sense of snow falling and silence of reconciliation and also resignation" (Wales, 54).

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, father westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey was buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Full of apocalyptic imagery, this is again a new twist on the Revival (like Gretta's first love interest being from urban rather than rural Galway) with blacker connotations. Furthermore, while Wales argues that this is sleep inducing, it is also a manner of self-hypnotic death. This may be a physical manifestation or implied through the use of striving only for mediocrity as embodied in moral paralysis. Joyce managed to display this through a unique use of language rather then smother the reader in Revivalist imagery. What is there is subtle, so he is not relaying on past glories as his alternative.

"The Dubliners stories mostly resolve themselves through moments of revelation, rather than incidents and what is revealed is often the true nature of a particular character, whether that revelation is made only to the reader…or to the character as well" (Wright, 10). Such is the case of 'The Dead' where Gabriel's moment of truth is shared among the readers. "His soul already pursues the 'wayward and flickering existence' of the dead; it has taken very little to cause his identity to fade out 'into a grey impalpable world'. He is named for the angel who is to blow the last trump; but having released no blast of Judgment he watches through a hotel window the pale flakes falling through darkness" (Kenner, "Dublin's Joyce" 68). Therefore, Gabriel doesn't begin or end anything, as his biblical name would imply. The Annunciation does not take place, for his virgin has already been taken by another. If judgment was suspended in Dubliners, the reader is finally able to draw a conclusion by the finale of 'The Dead'.

To conclude, judgment, in all senses of the word, is suspended throughout Dubliners, but the reader is allowed to draw suppositions by the novel's end. Therefore, there is much truth in the statement made by Stanislaus Joyce. (Unfortunately for him he did not get the dedication of Dubliners as he was promised.) Much of the force of 'The Dead' arises from its uniqueness, from its impressive ability to balance, counterweigh and finally transcend the fourteen earlier stories in the collection, and it could not have become a paradigm for subsequent short stories, worldwide. Through the use of narrative shifts that lean towards different characters' idioms, to allusions that one must decipher, there is still plenty of room for speculation and debate. "There is no single message inscribed in the code and the meaning of the text is produced by the reader's own activity although the text determines that a certain odour of corruption will float, always in suspension, over any such meaning" (MacCabe, 29). However, this is just as Joyce intended it to be, for even though he was immortalized within his characters with autobiographical snippets, only in the never-ending debate amongst scholars did he feel he could insure his own immortality.

Bibliography

Works Cited

Kenner, Hugh. Dublin's Joyce. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.
Kenner, Hugh. Joyce's Voices. London: Faber & Faber, 1978.
MacCabe, Colin. James Joyce and the Revolution of the Word. London and
Basingstoke: The MacMillian Press Ltd., 1978.
Wales, Katie. The Language of James Joyce. London and Basingstoke: MacMillian
Education Ltd., 1992.
Wright, David G. Characters of Joyce. Goldenbridge, Dublin: Gill and MacMillian
Ltd., 1983.

Works Consulted
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce: New and Revised Edition. New York, Oxford,
Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Prose
Joyce, James. Dubliners. New York, New York: New American Library & Penguin
Putnam Inc., Signet Classic, 1967.