A frame story is a story that contains another story or a series of stories. In
classical story collection, it is a device to create a unity and a sense of realistic
validity for the whole stories. Though the frame story may create a general mood or
setting for the existence of the stories, it does not necessarily provide a controlling
theme to dominate the whole stories as the modernist story series do.
Examples:
Arabian Nights, or 1001 Nights (c. 9th c)
Boccacsio's Decameron (c.1349-51)
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (late 14th c)
Story series are a collection of stories which are unified by a dominant theme, mood,
and location. Many modernist novelists use such a form 1. to depict the status of
individual in a community (usually a town threatened by industrialization), 2. to critique
the inhuman life style in a city, and to muse on the tension between the pastoral
nostalgia and the urge to search for possibilities in modernization.
Examples:
James Joyce, Dubliners (1905)
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
Italo Calvino, Marcovaldo (1955)
In reading these stories, you are suggested to recognize the dominant theme, mood, and location of each story series.
In a letter to Grant Richards (publisher of Dubliners - more details in another article) written in May 1906, Joyce clearly stated his overall purpose and design in writing the stories:
My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis. I have tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. The stories are arranged in this order. I have written it for the most part in a style of scrupulous meanness and with the conviction that he is a very bold man who dares to alter in the presentment, still more to deform, whatever he has seen and heard.
Section I, Childhood, contains "The Sisters," "An
Encounter," and "Araby."
Section II, Adolescence, is made up of "Eveline," "After
the Race," "Two Gallants," and "The Boarding House."
Section III, Maturity, "A Little Cloud,"
"Counterparts," "Clay," and "A Painful Case."
Section IV, Public Life, is made up of "Ivy Day in the Committee
Room," "A Mother," "Grace,"and "The Dead."
Epiphany is the moment of revelation and recognition for the artist and the reader in apprending "the beautiful" and "the truth." As a narrative device, it is a studied juxtaposition of seeming unrelated materials (things, speeches, scenes, etc.) for the purpose of a shocking experience. Joyce writes, "by an epiphany he (Stephen Daedalus) meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself" (188). It is the flash in which the essential nature of a person, an object, or a moment is perceived, all at once. Joyce says, "its soul, its whatness leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance."
Epicleti (from the Latin, epiklesis) refers us to Joyce's
idea of the function of fiction--transforming triviality of everyday life into spiritual
enjoyment. Joyce explained to his brother Stanislaus, "there is a certain resemblance
between the mystery of the mass and what I am trying to do . . . to give people a kind of
intellectual pleasure or spiritual enjoyment by converting the bread of everyday life into
something that has a permanent artistic life of its own . . . for their mental, moral, and
spiritual uplift."
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1. What is old Cotter's opinion of Father Flynn?
2. What was the boy's relationship to Father Flynn?
3. What is the boy's reaction to the news of the priest's death and old Cotter's scrutiny?
4. What are old Cotter's and the uncle's views on the benefits of the boys relationship
with the priest?
5. What is the boy's opinion of old Cotter? How has it changed?
6. What did the priest die from? Describe the physical aspects of his illness.
7. When he realizes that Father Flynn is dead, what is the boy's reaction?
8. What lessons did the priest teach the boy?
9. Who took care of the details of Father Flynn's lying in state?
10. What was the beginning of Father Flynn's ill health?
11. What happened to let everyone know that Father Flynn had become mentally unbalanced?
1. Why does Joe Dillon always prove victorious in the mock Indian battles? Why is this
ironic in light of his chosen future?
2. Why do the pulp magazines appeal to the narrator?
3. What does the narrator plan to break up the "weariness of school-life?" What
is ironic about Leo not showing up?
4. What does the "ragged troop" calling them "swaddlers" tell you
about the religious make up of Dublin?
5. What is the lure of the docks to the boys?
6. What does the narrator's ideas about sailors with green eyes tell us about his
education?
7. How does the man try to ingratiate himself to the boys? How do their answers
demonstrate
differences in their personalities?
8. The man talks in "circles" around a few subjects. What do his speech patterns
and the subjects
he dwells on tell you about him?
9. Do you think the narrator's fear of him is justified? Why or why not?
1. Judging from the games the boys play, how old do you think the narrator is?
2. What is the mood of the story? How does Joyce establish it in the first few pages?
3. Would you describe the narrator's feelings toward Mangan's sister as realistic or
romantic?Explain.
4. Why does the word Araby contain so much meaning for the narrator? Discuss the
possibilities the word represents to him.
5. How are the results of the trip to Araby foreshadowed?
6. Why is the uncle late coming home Saturday night?
7. Why does he not buy anything at the young lady's booth?
1. What was the children's biggest worry while playing in the field?
2. Now that Eveline has decided to leave, what sort of things has she begun to notice?
Why?
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of her going away?
4. What does her father mean by, "I know these sailor chaps"?
5. How does the memory of her mother both hold her and drive her to escape?
6. Why does she not go with Frank? What holds her back?
Web Resources on Joyce's Dubliners
Charles Cave's website on Joyce, esp. the section on Dubliners
Resource
and introduction in the Penguin edition of Dubliners
Wallace Gary's Introduction
to Dubliners
James Joyce Internet Resources