Friday, February 6, 2015

Question #1 Dubliners

I think each story has its own message in relating to relationships and friendships. I found that they had the very same lonely concept and that moment of rethinking and trying to relive what are now memories. James Joyce’s Dubliners – A Painful Case and Kate Chopin’s, The story of an hour stuck out to me the most especially Dubliners.
While reading James Joyce’s Dubliners I had mixed emotions. At one point I pity Mr. Duffy then I was happy for him, then I was angry at him. I gathered he is an old and lonely man but very professional. “Meeting her a third time by accident found the courage to make an appointment”. This makes me think that he is of great class or standards and professional. He didn’t ask her out like any other man would instead he made it a very formal proposal. I admired this about him but then I began losing that admiration for him, since to me he thought of himself as better than everyone and he was selfish too. His feelings matter but not Mrs. Sinico’s. At this point I was angry but I pity him having to live such a lonely life. Even though he chose to, sometimes society and the people you are surrounded by makes you think or feel this way. This relates well to me. Since growing up I have never met such rude and disrespectful people as I did in New York. Even the children have no respect for anyone. Back home in Guyana, you walked the streets feeling so comfortable. The kids would bright up your day with a “Good Morning Aunty” or “How are you Aunty?” In New York City they would push you out there way to get by and refer to you as the nastiest names ever. It seemed to me when I first moved here one year ago that indecent language seem to be a part of the alphabet over here. At some point I wanted to just stay indoors where he faces are familiar and warm. So I wouldn’t completely blame Mr. Duffy for being this way. However, he met a great woman that made him feel so comfortable and that warm familiar feeling was beginning to come back. The kind that made him feels not everyone is how he pictured them to be by the experience with a few.
I was hoping for a great ending. It felt so great to know that Mr. Duffy was finally about to leave his lonely life in the past. However, this didn’t happen. I think that he was scared of being hurt and had too much pride to be made a fool. He preferred to live his lonely life since it made him happy. Mr. Duffy surely enjoyed the meetings he had with Mrs. Sinico especially since he kept going back and was looking forward to spending time with her alone. However, I believe Mrs. Sinico wasn’t given a fair chance by Mr. Duffy. He was too caught up in his own lonely life.
By paragraph eleven they had many “meetings” then for one week Mr. Duffy decided to have no contact with Mrs. Sinico until one day when he finally wrote asking to meet her. He met her that afternoon in the Park but only to break her heart.  She eventually killed herself. He never stop to think about her feelings until she died then he figured what a life she had to live.

As the reader I wondered why the author started the story in a very lonely place and ended it in the same place only with pain now. Mr. Duffy started off as a lonely man and the story ended with him being in this very same place. I think everyone should be given a fair chance and so should Mrs. Sinico. I think Joyce is trying to tell her readers to never be afraid to let people into your lives and make the most of every present day since one day it would all become memories. 

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