Class Distinctions and Internal Struggle in the Works of James Joyce Es

Class Distinctions and Internal Struggle in the Works of James Joyce      Ã‚  Ã‚   In the early twentieth century, Ireland, and more specifically Dublin, was a place defined by class distinctions. There were the wealthy, worldly upper-class who owned large, stately townhouses in the luxurious neighborhoods and the less fortunate, uneducated poor who lived in any shack they could afford in the middle of the city. For the most part, the affluent class was Protestant, while the struggling workers were overwhelmingly Catholic. These distinctions were the result of nearly a century of disparity in income, education, language, and occupation, and in turn were the fundamental bases for the internal struggle that many of Joyce's characters feel. Torn between the life they lead and the one they dream of, these people are reflections of the harsh setting in which Joyce himself spent his life. Although Joyce never explicitly explains why his main characters in "A Little Cloud," "Eveline," "Counterparts," and "The Boarding House" are so deprived, it is clear that they are at an unfair disadvantage in some way. He uses them to spotlight and protest the hardships that so many people of Dublin were forced to endure simply because of their religion and its effects on the other aspects of their lives.    The Irish-Catholics of Dublin in this era were overwhelmingly poverty-stricken, especially when compared to the English people who controlled the government and businesses. In fact, in 1914, the same year that Dubliners was first published, "74,000 people in Dublin lived in one-room tenements, and about 56,000 more in two-room tenements; and this 130,000 people represented 42 per cent of Dublin's citizens" (Cahalan 178). Even a noted employe... ...Handbook. Ed. James R. Baker and Thomas F. Staley. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1969. 120-24. Joyce, James. "The Boarding House." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 332-37. ---. "Counterparts." Dubliners. New York: Viking Press, 1968. 86-98. ---. "Eveline." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 329-31 ---. "A Little Cloud." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. 337-45. Ledden, Patrick J. "Education and Social Class in Joyce's Dublin." Journal of Modern Literature 22.2 (1998): 329-36. Ryan, Ellen Bouchard, Howard Giles, and Richard J. Sebastian. Attitudes Toward Language Variation: Social and Applied Contexts. London: Edward Arnold, 1982. Torchiana, Donald T. Backgrounds for Joyce's Dubliners. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986. Walzl, Florence L. "Patterns of Paralysis in Joyce's Dubliners." College English XXII. (1961): 226.