Joyce was born in Dublin, and Irish nationalism infuses much of James Joyce’s work. This makes sense because his literary career spanned the uprisings that led to independence and the creation and aftermath of an Irish state. One short story where Joyce has passages about Irish nationalism is in “The Dead”, published in 1914 – five years before Ireland declared independence. The main character Gabriel writes for a newspaper that is associated with anti-Irish-nationalist sentiments. Basically, Gabriel is accused of being a “schill” for Britain by another character in “The Dead” – Miss Ivors. Miss Ivors tells Gabriel, “Well, I’m ashamed of you, said Miss Ivors frankly. To say you’d write for a rag like that. I didn’t think you were a West Briton” (Joyce 2179). Miss Ivors is calling Gabriel a West Briton, which is an insult since West Britons thought Ireland was simply an extension of Great Britain. Gabriel takes great offense at this remark, and Joyce takes us readers inside Gabriel’s head to see him plot ways to get revenge on Miss Ivors. Joyce is showing his readers that Irish people cannot go through life without thinking about their country, especially at this time in history. Irish nationalism or anti-nationalism is part of who the Irish are in his stories, and Joyce embeds these emotions throughout his writing. Interior emotions like these are great for Joyce, because he takes his readers inside his characters minds, sometimes quite abruptly, with his stream-of-consciousness writing.
Our classmate Abdiasis Hirsi also describes Joyce’s interpretations of what it means to be Irish in his discussion post about Joyce’s short story “Araby”. Abdiasis writes, “In this tale of love, the author paints pictures of events in Dublin and the role women played in society, which was mainly to be religious, supportive of their husbands and brothers, and stay at home. Men made decisions and aggressively pursued the desires of their souls” (Abdiasis Hirsi, “’Araby’ by James Joyce”). Irish nationalism is often portrayed as being an Irish man’s fight, and Abdiasis aptly brings up how women in Irish society were often overlooked and meant to be “supportive of their husbands”. I’m sure that Irish independence would be a secondary concern to many Irish women who wanted independence in their own households first.
Thank you. I was confused about why Joyce would write about Irish nationalism if he was from Southern Ireland, and if UK's full name is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I didn't realize that Southern Ireland also was a territory of Great Britain in Joyce's time.
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