Essay on "The Boarding Hous", by James Joyce: A well-orchestrated "human comedy"

Résumé du document

"The Boarding House?: This article, will study the most interesting aspects of Joyce's narrative technique in this short story. Joyce's (1882-1941) short story ?The Boarding House' was published in ?the Dubliners', a collection of stories set in the ?paralyzed' town of Dublin. The tale, in which Polly Mooney, the housekeeper's daughter, is involved with one of the boarders, a clerk in his mid-thirties named Mr. Doran, belongs to the stories that deal about adolescence. The technical innovations -especially an extensive use of interior monologue- of Joyce, noted for his experimental use of language in such works as Ulysses (1922), appear in ?The Boarding House'. The main interest of this short-story- the first story in Dubliners told from more than one perspective- lies in the apparently simple narrative technique. In the first instance, let us examine the polyphony of the narrative, or the way in which the narrator ironically juxtaposes the viewpoints of and about the protagonists through the streams of consciousness and the reported speech.

Extraits

[...] Mooney intervened 51) Not only did she trap him, but she accuses him to be dishonest He has simply taken advantage of Polly's youth and inexperience : that was evident (l.80): the impersonal form and the explicative points underline that the conclusion of the «outraged mother is faked. that lead to the confinement Joyce aims at showing the confinement of these people, imprisoned in a straitjacket of convention. Not any of the protagonists is free. Though over thirty years old, Mr Doran seem to have made little forward progress in life, and he will make even less as Mrs. Mooney's son-in-law. [...]

[...] It may be mentioned in passing that this ultimate scene makes the time of the plot coincide with the time of the story. The point is that, throughout the text, only a few words are pronounced O Bob! Bob! What am I to do? What am to do at all? ( 1.27 Polly's agonized question is immediately relayed by the narrator's voice that ironically sum up her thoughts: She would put an end to herself, she said The narrator resorts to the indirect discourse to deflate the character. [...]

[...] As the quotation she had all the weight of social opinion on her side (l.75) stresses it, the question of honour is fundamental in a micro society whose scandalmongers may slander the young couple. Disgrace falls easily on a family and having a spotless reputation is the most important thing, even more important than gold: Some mothers would be content to patch up such an affair for a sum of money, thinks Mrs Mooney at line but she wants reparation: marriage. [...]

[...] On the other hand, he has to perform his duty by Polly in spite of His instinct urged him to remain free[ ] Once you are married you are done for, it said His repentance is alienating. Moreover he has to confront the implacable faces of his employer and Madam stared upon his discomfiture Doran, worried because his employer will get wind of the affair, is also surveyed, and this right from the beginning, by her future mother-in-law- note the lexical field of regard made up of sentences like she watched the pair or Polly knew that she was being watched (l.46). [...]

[...] This first part showed that the characters perspectives temporarily control the narrative, but we have to note the obvious contrast between their visions and the secret signification of the text. The polyphony of the text serves a satiric vision of this human comedy. II/ in the service of a social satire A diatribe against social, financial and moral conventions Joyce's antipathy for the conventions that govern the right-thinking people of Dublin, which form the basis of the Dubliners, is apparent in this story. The Dubliners are the narratee of the tale. [...]