Style and Theme in James Joyce’s Short Story The Dead by group 7 (dwi, runi, isna) *daaaannn kata pak dosen semua isi paper ini salah dan harus revisi secara keseluruhan which is menyakitkan which is bikin sedih*

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I THE INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1  Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …1

1.2  Statements of problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...2

1.3  Scope of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

1.4  Objectives of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.5  Significances of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

CHAPTER II THE ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-7

2.1 Style ………………………………………………………………………………………..3

      2.1.1 Stream of Consciousness (James Joyce unique narrative perspective) ……………3-4

      2.1.2 Mimetic Style ……………………………………………………………………….4

      2.1.3 Soliloquy …………………………………………………………………………...5-6

      2.1.4 Joycean Naturalism ………………………………………………………………..6-7

2.2 Theme ……………………………………………………………………………………...7

      2.2.1 Epipheny …………………………………………………………………………..7-8

      2.2.2 The Death ………………………………………………………………………...9-10

      2.2.3 Dublin in 20th century …………………………………………………………..10-11

CLOSING

Conlusion

Suggestion

CHAPTER I

THE INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

As we live the one and only life we have we will encounter various things in life that we have never expected before but everything keep come and left even without any seeking for permission until we finally reach the ultimate point where we may start to giving the judge over something in particular whether a place, a phenomenon, or a someone we have shared the experience in life with or might be shared a single conversation with.

The Death as we always know, it is the condition when we are being forced to leave the world we live now in order to go to the other world that has been waiting for us. The characteristic of the death might be found when our heart stops beating and other vital organs stop working and the body stops moving. These are the basic concept of the death we all agree with.

In this short story, the author proposes another kind of death. The author abandoned the principle of how we died, which is physically, with the author’s perspective; spiritually dead or in other words dead on the inside. The author is arguing that we are not necessarily need to actually died to feel how the feelings of being dead. There is another way of dead that we may not recognize but it is actually contains the same feelings of dead. This might be coming from a single talk.

In order to creating the atmosphere according to the theme, the author need specific particular style in writing to help implemented and better transfer of the contain. Those styles that the author uses might be one of the key to reach the goal in the creation of this story. The message will be successfully delivered to the reader by the writing style.

Based on the elaboration above, the researcher is interested in analyzing the style of the author on how to construct the story and what theme that the author is trying to deliver through this short story The Dead by James Joyce. How the author description on the way the characters think and talk and move could actually represents the whole short story The Dead.

1.2 STATEMENTS OF THE PROBLEM

Based on the research background above, the researchers formulate two problems as follows

1.      How is the style the author using in the short story “The Dead”

2.      How is the theme that dominated in the short story “The Dead”

1.3  THE SCOPE OF PROBLEM

The problem that being discussed in the James Joyce’s The Dead is focusing on how the style that the author using in this short story and how the theme of the story is really about.

1.4  Objectives of the Study

From the statement of problems, this research has some purpose. The objectives of the research are mention as follow:

1.4.1        To find out the author’s writing style in short story The Dead by James Joyce

1.4.2        To find out how the theme in short story The Dead by James Joyce

1.5  Significances of the study

The researchers hope this research can be useful for readers which are divided into theoretically and practically significance.

1.5.1        Theoretical Significance

1.      This research can help and provide an overview of short story The Dead analysis.

2.      This research can provide input concept of how to analyze the short story.

1.5.2         Practical Significance

1.      The researchers want to give analysis reference to readers about short story The Dead.

2.      This research can be useful for English Literature students

CHAPTER II

THE ANALYSIS

2.1 Style

In literature, writing style is the manner of expressing thought in language characteristic of an individual, period, school, or nation. Beyond the essential elements of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, writing style is the choice of words, sentence structure, and paragraph structure, used to convey the meaning effectively. (wikipedia.com)

2.1.1 Stream of Consciousness (James Joyce unique narrative perspective)

Stream of consciousness is a narrative device that attempts to give the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions.  Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative leaps in thought and lack of some or all punctuation. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are distinguished from dramatic monologue and soliloquy, where the speaker is addressing an audience or a third person, which are chiefly used in poetry or drama. In stream of consciousness the speaker's thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself); it is primarily a fictional device. (wikipedia.com)

Stream of consciousness is found in the story through Gabriel. The way Gabriel thinks of himself within the condition which makes him about to do something. He is considering many things before actually put them into actions, so that later he does not need to regret anything at all.

“ He then took from his waistcoat pocket a little paper and glanced at the headings he had made for his speech. He was undecided about the lines from Robert Browning, for he feared they would be above the heads of his hearers. Some quotation that they would recognise from Shakespeare or from the Melodies would be better. The indelicate clacking of the men's heels and the shuffling of their soles reminded him that their grade of culture differed from his. He would only make himself ridiculous by quoting poetry to them which they could not understand. They would think that he was airing his superior education.“

The quotation above is one of the example from stream of consciousness which as we may read it closely that it is clear that he is trying so hard to come out with the perfect solution for speech he is about to deliver in the middle of other guest in the annual dancing party. He is literally trying to not miss any aspect to be the consideration, start from what literary quotation he is going to choose and how the act of indelicate clacking of soles shuffling may turn out to be the very crucial factor for him to decide that he is superior in terms of education than any other guest. This makes him think so hard to adjusted his speech so that it will not sounds weird, at least it is not going to make them confuse about he is talking about.

2.1.2 Mimetic Style

Narration is written in mimetic style : this style mimics thoughts by using the character’s language, rather than reporting them through the language of an objective narrator. Joyce was one of the first to use this mimetic style of narration. (jneff.wikispaces.com)

“ LILY, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall-door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest. It was well for her she had not to attend to the ladies also. But Miss Kate and Miss Julia had thought of that and had converted the bathroom upstairs into a ladies' dressing-room. Miss Kate and Miss Julia were there, gossiping and laughing and fussing, walking after each other to the head of the stairs, peering down over the banisters and calling down to Lily to ask her who had come. ”

From the quotation, we as the readers might be tricked to think that this story is going to be delivered by the point of view of lily but the truth it is not. The story is actually according to Gabriel’s perspective, Miss Kate and Miss Julia’s favorite nephew, which come later and taking control of how the rest of story to be proceeded. This unique changing point of view is what many literary analysis believed to be James Joyce style that differ him from others.

2.1.3 Soliloquy

A soliloquy (from Latin solo "to oneself" + loquor "I talk") is a device often used in drama when a character speaks to himself or herself, relating thoughts and feelings, thereby also sharing them with the audience, giving off the illusion of being a series of unspoken reflections. If other characters are present, they keep silent and/or are disregarded by the speaker. The term soliloquy is distinct from a monologue or an aside: a monologue is a speech where one character addresses other characters; an aside is a (usually short) comment by one character towards the audience, though during the play it may seem like the character is addressing him or herself. (wikipedia)

"O, innocent Amy! I have found out that you write for The Daily Express. Now, aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"Why should I be ashamed of myself?" asked Gabriel, blinking his eyes and trying to smile.

"Well, I'm ashamed of you," said Miss Ivors frankly. "To say you'd write for a paper like that. I didn't think you were a West Briton."

(quotation of direct conversation, not example of soliloquy)

Right after the conversation between Gabriel and Miss Ivors, Gabriel is doing soliloquy about how to respond to such irritated words Miss Ivors has said to him. The body movement of Gabriel by the author description of him show us that he is about to explode by anger. But what he did later is shockingly unexpected, he chooses to stay calm over it and it is perfectly pictured by the quotation below, which categorized as soliloquy of character Gabriel.

“ A look of perplexity appeared on Gabriel's face. It was true that he wrote a literary column every Wednesday in The Daily Express, for which he was paid fifteen shillings. But that did not make him a West Briton surely. Nearly every day when his teaching in the college was ended he used to wander down the quays to the second-hand booksellers, to Hickey's on Bachelor's Walk, to Web's or Massey's on Aston's Quay, or to O'Clohissey's in the by-street. He did not know how to meet her charge. He wanted to say that literature was above politics. But they were friends of many years' standing and their careers had been parallel, first at the University and then as teachers: he could not risk a grandiose phrase with her. He continued blinking his eyes and trying to smile and murmured lamely that he saw nothing political in writing reviews of books. “

Soliloquy is different from stream of consciousness but also a little bit the same so it is hard to differ one from the other but we may actually see the difference by looking at each characteristic. In soliloquy, the speaker addresses the third person which stream of consciousness not. Gabriel almost burst in fierce he prefer not to after considering many things. He wanted to say that literature was above politics but he canceling the almost uttered words just in time.

2.1.4 Joycean Naturalism

Joyce used to boast that if Dublin were destroyed, it would be reconstructed from his books (Richard Ellman on his book The Limits of Joyce Naturalist)

Joyce is not only naturalist. He is way too interested in the way that the individual mid works, and the way that emotions and all that other fuzzy stuff influence our decisions to just focus on the facts. What would a story like “Araby” or “The Dead be like if we did not really get inside the heads of the characters and hear in great detail about feelings of self-hatred? What if the story just told us, “He did not buy anything at the bazaar, and then walked home alone in the darkness”? it would still be a powerful image, but it is nothing compared to Joyce’s revelation that the boy despised himself as a creature “driven and derided by vanity.” Joyce’s naturalism: personal, powerful and super descriptive. (shmoop.com)

“ Gabriel hardly heard what she said. Now that supper was coming near he began to think again about his speech and about the quotation. When he saw Freddy Malins coming across the room to visit his mother Gabriel left the chair free for him and retired into the embrasure of the window. The room had already cleared and from the back room came the clatter of plates and knives. Those who still remained in the drawing-room seemed tired of dancing and were conversing quietly in little groups. Gabriel's warm trembling fingers tapped the cold pane of the window. How cool it must be outside! How pleasant it would be to walk out alone, first along by the river and then through the park! The snow would be lying on the branches of the trees and forming a bright cap on the top of the Wellington Monument. How much more pleasant it would be there than at the supper-table! “

Joyce’s naturalism is pictured by persuade the readers to think about how frustrated it is for Gabriel for his upcoming speech on the supper table some minutes later. Gabriel even making irrational comparison of how more pleasant it is to walk alone in the middle of the snow near the Wellington Monument that the supper table and delivering speech that he is still worrying and hesitating about what he should fill the content with and literature he would quote later.

2.2 Theme

Theme is defined as a main idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work that may be stated directly or indirectly. writer presents themes in a literary work through several ways. A writer may express a theme through the feelings of his main character about the subject he has chosen to write about. Similarly, themes are presented through thoughts and conversations of different characters. Moreover, the experiences of the main character in the course of a literary work give us an idea about its theme. Finally, the actions and events taking place in a narrative are consequential in determining its theme. (literarydevices.net)

2.2.1 Epipheny

Characters in Dubliners experience both great and small revelations in their everyday lives, moments in Dubliners himself referred to as “epiphenies” a word with connotations of religious revelation. These epiphenies do not bring new experiences and the possibility or reform, as one might expect such moments to. Rather, these epiphenies allow character to better understanding their particular circumstances, usually rife with sadness and routine, which they then return to with resignation and frustration (sparknotes.com)

According to the explanation above, we found epiphany in The Dead. It was when Gabriel’s wife, Gretta, making her confession to Gabriel that she has romance memories in her life. At the dance, Gretta is listened a Irish song who makes she’s falling down in her mind that she is thinkking about her old love Michael Furey. Gretta told Gabriel how her young lover died for her, that’s why which makes up Gabriel in  the moment of revelation, he feels awareness of the absence of the love that has characterized his life, suddenly perceived as a living dead, while snow falls over the city is symbolize the loneliness and the human inability to communicate.

“leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully on her tangled hair and halfopen mouth, listening to her deep-drawn breath. So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He and she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul.”

That one talk with his wife, Gretta, after coming home from his aunts’ annual dance party made him drowned into the deep Epipheny. At that very moment, Gabriel stop the time that is running around him and put himself outside the regular basis world and see the brighter side he has never seen before. About how his wife, that has been living together with him, is actually had someone in the past that more valuable and precious than he is as her husband.

“Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt's supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merry-making when saying good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room, dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling him how Julia had died. He would cast about in his mind for some words that might console her, and would find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would happen very soon.”

Gabriel keep on elevate his imagination into the higher level which he is trying to fill the position of her wife or her aunt that already lost their loved one since long time ago. What would he feel about it when the time has come for his turn to experience the real thing, what would have been happened to him later when that tragic truth of death that ends someone’s life and any sort of connection with any living human back when they were alive will actually happening.

2.2.2 The death

“The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.”

The death is the major theme of this story but not the kind of death we used to see in our daily common sense as someone who is no longer alive because their heart stops beating or because their vital organs has no longer functioning as the way they were usually working. The death we are talking in this story is completely different, it is about the spiritually dead, which is experiencing by character Gabriel in the end of the story.

“Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.”

Some said that the feeling of loving someone that does not loving you back is like dying every day and this is what happens with Gabriel. And what more heart breaking is that, the one who hurt him that much is her very own wife, who is suddenly telling stories after listening to a song called The Lass of Aughrim, the song her died young lover used to sing for her, the stories she has never been shared before because the bitter and painful it is to be exposed, the stories that placed Gabriel into position he never imagine, causing him experiencing the worst feeling ever.  

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

In the very last paragraph of the story, Joyce describe how suffer Gabriel is with naturalism approach as additional element to even more dramatizing the situation. Symbolizing the white falling snow as something as pure as love and life that so soft and fragile it would falling into nothing without even need any extra effort to made it happen.  

2.2.3 Dublin in 20th century

Dublin in 20^th century is clearly represents in Joyce’s short stories collection, Dubliners. The Dead as one of the short story in the book that also the longest and most complex one. What happened in Dublin in 20^th century is that, the beginning of nationalism, in that century, Ireland finally separated from great Britain and reclaim their freedom, almost all of Ireland, because northern Ireland is remain in great Britain, somehow.

In the early 20^th century, Irish Nationalism was first introduced, new classes and cultures came together as one, and the “Dublin Lockout” came about. Ireland had been subject to British rule since the late 12^th century, but now the Irish citizens wanted a state to call their own. The city of Dublin became the first city to truly experience Irish Nationalism, which caused some people to move out of the city, because they did not want to be affected by the nationalists group. Even though some people left Dublin, the population did not suffer in the least. In 1900, the population of Dublin exceeded 400,000, but with so many living in Dublin, jobs became more and more valuable and difficult to find. In 1913, the “Dublin Lockout” happened, which is known today as the most severe industrial dispute in the history of Ireland. 25.000 workers and 300 employers protested their right to unionise. The protest, or lockout, ended in 1914, when workers agreed to go back work, due to their poverty. With all of this going on, many writers, including James Joyce, used the outside world to influence and help writing. Dublin in the early 20^th century was a city full of new ideas and major changes. Irish Nationalism and the Dublin Lockout helped transformed Dublin into the city it is today. (an anonymous blogger fan of James Joyce http://dubliners-jamesjoyce.blogspot.co.id)

“ The indelicate clacking of the men's heels and the shuffling of their soles reminded him that their grade of culture differed from his ”

The quotation explain how different gabriel’s grade of culture with other guests in the party. When Dublin became the capital city of new Irish free country there were so many people that migrant to Dublin. In 1900, the population of Dublin exceeded 400,000, the diversity level also would be instantly increasing so that the people in it will be more diverse than ever.

  

CLOSING

Conclusion

After conducting the analysis, the researchers have finally come to a conclusion that answer the questions like what has been mention above. The researchers found that the styles of the author in writing the short story of The Dead are using the stream of consciousness (or better known as James Joyce unique narrative perspective and then also Mimetic Style and Soliloquy and Joycean Naturalism. These styles of writing are the characteristic of the author in his every work.

The theme that are dominantly being exposed in this story are epiphany and the death. About how one random situation may have responsibility for the revelation the character might have. And the death theme in this story is not literal meaning but spiritually death which means the character is not actually dead but more like the feelings of already dead on the inside caused by the shocking and terrible truth that might disturbing the character’s way of thinking.

Suggestion

The interpretation of a piece of art is absolutely different between readers consider the differences on experiences and perspective on looking at something. The researchers are fully aware of the mistakes that might be found in this analysis, hopefully the readers may find this analysis useful as references for upcoming research with the same title or theme. 

Bibliography

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