Essay - Escape the Character that James Joyce Portrays in His Collection...

Escape

The character that James Joyce portrays in his collection of short stories, Dubliners, is attempting to escape unsatisfying conditions that he find himself in during childhood. In three of the stories, "Sisters," "The Encounter" and "Araby," the main character hopes to ***** the pressures ***** society ***** in the case of the three ***** he does escape. Yet while ***** escapes on the surface, ***** character does not break away from the internal feelings he has. ***** leaves his character with the hope of escaping his oppressive environment, but without hope of escaping feelings that accompany death, mono*****ny and the emotions ***** occur from awakening to the physical ***** mental attraction to girls.

In the story "Sisters" the boy attempts to escape the reality of death. In the beginning he thinks, "if he was dead, I thought, I would see t***** reflec*****ion of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head ***** a corpse." ***** his mind, not seeing the reflection of the candles serves to push away the reality of what he knows is imminent death. He attempts ***** escape the reality of death, even when it is confirmed that ***** friend, ***** priest has died. "I knew that ***** was under observation so I continued eating as if the news had ***** interested me." ***** is reacting matter-of-factly, trying to hide h***** true feelings from his family, as well ***** from *****. He is not successful. Later in a dream, he struggles ***** escape the ***** ***** he will *****ev*****ably encounter when he finally accepts that death ***** come to ***** friend. "In the dark of my room I imagined ***** I saw again ***** heavy grey face of the paralytic. ***** drew ***** blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. But the grey ***** still followed me." His suppressed feelings of grief will not leave him alone.

He only allows himself to confront death when he sees the note announcing the passing of the priest. Yet he cannot ***** the conflicting ***** that go on in his m*****d, as if accepting and not accepting his ***** at the same time. He w*****ers off and tries to think of something else as shown in following sentence: "I walked away slowly along ***** sunny side ***** the street, reading all the theatrical advertisements in the shop-w*****dows as ***** went." On one h***** *****e feels a sense of liberation from acknowledging the ***** and on the other hand his mind *****es back to what he ***** be doing ***** t***** priest were still alive. In ***** words, he is not liberated and has not escaped the feelings that come with losing someone he cares for.

Through t***** idle chatter of the s*****ters in ***** ***** where the priest lies in a coffin, Joyce ***** the conversation ***** skim across the boy's mind, leaving the reader with the impression that the boy will not be able to escape