Paralysis Betrayed, or: How Joyce Promoted the Course of Civilisation in Ireland

“I call the series Dubliners to betray the soul of that hemiplegia or paralysis which many consider a city” (LI 55): Joyce’s intentions in Dubliners become clear from a number of similar passages from his letters, insisting on his thematisation of the stupefying social and intellectual atmosphere suffocating all Dubliners; indeed, the city itself, offering that famous “nicely polished looking-glass” that, as he promises the publisher Grant Richards, will promote “the course of civilisation in Ireland” (LII 134). Indeed, on the opening page of the first story, the very word paralysis is emphasized, a gesture most teachers of creative writing might have advised against, warning their students to show, not tell: “Every night as I gazed up the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis” (D 9). So much for “scrupulous meanness” (LII 134).
I shall explore how Joyce, while describing his contemporaries’ “paralysis” in no uncertain terms, leaves room in a number of stories for certain characters to offer an alternative – not only as foils to the victims of paralysis, but also as characters in their own right, betraying Joyce’s sought for “soul of … paralysis.” If only, for instance, by leaving a story in a lively fashion, despite being quite dead: “Wide-awake and laughing-like to himself…” (D 18).