Joyce's Pattern of Paralysis in Dubliners Author(s): Gerhard Friedrich and Florence L. Walzl Source: College English, Vol. 22, No.7 (Apr., 1961), pp. 519-520 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/372869 Accessed: 15/11/2010 22:26 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ncte. 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She maintains that "at the end Joyce suggests. . but of supreme importance to the book's paralytic progression and its spiral of cumulative awareness. fumblings towards truth . searching with his stu- 519 dents for something not yet fully known. That Joyce himself chose to publish Dubliners as the organic sequence of fifteen stories which it is. Having asserted that the paralytic sub-image of the second group is "entrapment" or "the trap.." though the fifteenth story is not only Joyce's finest. in "Counterparts"(third group)." and the last two stories. he should remain in the classroom." while "sterility dominatesthe third group.It is Gabriel Conroy who most nearly comprehends the liberating vitality which underlies the conclusion that "the prognosis for the patient is death". Jan. without confusing the students with unansweredquestions. is fumbling with uncertainties.in him alone the "shock of recognition"-as Melville's phrase aptly continues -"runs the whole circle round". J. Professor Walzl's ingenious assignmentof specific "paralytic sub-images" or "plot images" exclusive to each group of stories proves indeed largely abortive. Burlington Sloe (Lawrence W. that people who live meaninglesslives of inactivity are the real dead. 1961) is in several respects seriously incomplete and misleading. do not "The Sisters"demonstrate"sterility" as much as "disillusionment"? The thematic distance between the opening story.REBUTTAL Professor Mills' stubborn refusal to walk out of the outmoded classroom."means to overlook the fact that the paralytic is an unspiritual priest who long ago broke the chalice ("that was the beginning of it") and is referred to as a "simoniac. "The Sisters. indeed in the opening paragraph. Mills places a great deal of emphasis on the teacher's "silences. however appealing the conception of "a symmetrically balanced four-part grouping" may be. but I cannot help thinking that if he really is uncertain about his material. . as he had in all the stories of public life (fourth group). is "trapped by economic need and too weak to rebel." Is Chandler in "A Little Cloud" (third group) any less trapped than Eveline in the story by that name (second group)? Is not Mary in "Clay" (third group) trapped by her unattractiveness?Or." she slips into admitting that Farrington. Professor Walzl treats "The Dead."while Professor Walzl quotes secondary and tertiary sources illuminating it. But let us hope there will soon come a time when Professor Mills will have mastered his subject and stopped "searching with his students for something not yet fully known." "as a later addition"which supposedly "obscures Joyce's early pattern. Hyman) Brooklyn College JOYCE'S PATTERN OF PARALYSIS IN DUBLINERS Florence Walzl's "Patternof Paralysis in Joyce's Dubliners" (College English. Like so many of the critics of television.. hesitations. As to the concept of "paralysis." I do not. and that he did so after the separate printing of . she fails to draw attention to the fact that Joyce introduced the term outright into the first story of the sequence. "Grace" and "The Dead. and any interpretation of Dubliners which underplays "The Dead" as absolutely essentialto the perfection of Joyce's scheme falsifies his accomplishment. To say that "The Sisters" is but "a story of physical paralysis having moral overtones. straightforwardmanner. for that matter." He will then be able to present his materialin a clear. And when that time comes." only "incidentally. S. and not as a truncated and subdivided 3-4-4-3 scheme." which is certainly inherent even in the first story. of course. For there is indeed no room on a television program for an instructor who. and only there."and the description of "Grace"as a story of "spiritual paralysis having physical effects" gives therefore an illusory sense of inversion rather than of correspondence and projection. must be acknowledged as evidence of his surpassing genius. like his students. Gerhard Friedrich Cedar Crest College REPLY ON DUBLINERS My purpose was to study the relationship of symbolism and structure in the 1905 arrangement of stories in Dubliners. are all told in the subjective first person. LXXII (1957). but the paralysis resulting from his earlier deliberate choice makes him incapable of action. ing made constraining choices earlier" (p. hav"The GnomonicClue to 1Gerhard Friedrich. I feel that "The Dead" very brilliantly complements Joyce's basic plan in the 1905 version. note my statement that "the first group would have depicted the painful disillusionment of individuals in a decadent society." "Two Gallants" and "The Boarding House") the main characters choose or accept the trap at a time in their lives when they could have made revitalizing choices. . Such deliberate keynoting of the book's theme is all the more worth noting because Joyce's prelude identifies "paralysis"with "gnomon" (as well as with "simony"). However. 227). Walzl University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee) "The Sisters" in The Irish Homestead. with the balancedopening and close dealing with the theological virtues. Its plot combines double epiphanies. shown social groups too corrupt to be aware of their decadence" (p. "The Dead" presents a revelation to the individual about himself. Note my statement: "These charactersare already trapped by life. disabled square is the geometrical and literary equivalent-the epiphanic Joycean patternof the paralyzed human condition. In general. rather than the changes effected by the later addition of "The Dead. One. The three others are offered no real alternatives. the last three depict groups of maturepeople put in situations involving politics. objective episodes whose significance is largely implied. relating experiences of apparently orphaned boyhood. the last . Professor Walzl states that "the original fourteen stories are all brief.""After the Race." "Clay" and "A Painful Case") the characters are pictured as having been trapped for a considerabletime." As a matter of fact. I was not referring to point of view. Like the early stories (up to the pivotal eighth). Duffy." Note my subtitle "A Study of the Original Framework.520 COLLEGE ENGLISH In two ("Eveline. the arts and religion and comfortably insensible to their corruption. I am insisting on thematic similarity. I do not think the "thematic distance" great.421-424. I tried to avoid the obvious as was true of the opening paralysis image in "The Sisters" which has elicited much explication already and also those fully discussed in recent or readily available criticism as the gnomon image which Professor Friedrich has himself elucidated very interestingly. all are trapped. the first three stories. The society at beginning and end is depicted as culturally and spiritually paralyzed. which as a slanted and incomplete. has a second chance. ." of paralysisbetween groups two and three. The first three stories depict the painful epiphaniesof young boys as to the condition of their society. In group three ("A Little Cloud. I believe there is a difference in degree James Joyce's Dubliners. Mr. each of which is anticipated in the earlier structure of the book.' Fl6rence L. As to the characters in group three. past tense. hence the emphasis is on the sterility of their lives. Like the final stories it presents also an epiphany which exposes a culturally sterile society." "Counterparts. in the relation of plot structure to theme. Limitations of space made comment on the numerous paralysis images and their variations incomplete. this focus is abandoned for an enlarged third-person observation in all the subsequent stories." I agree that "The Dead" changes the effect of Dubliners: its greater length and development do that alone. As to use of the word objective: in the context I was characterizing the fourteen stories as a whole and used it in Webster's sense of detached. In fact. Notes. Incidentally. . As to the relation of the opening and close. Modern Language 225). Both opening and close depict a paralyzed society in the persons of older characters. though in "The Dead" Joyce manages to create the illusion of both a sweeping objective and an intensely subjective comprehension. in a carefully revised and expanded version. The difference is in point of view.
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