READING BETWEEN THE LINES: NOTES ON FEMALE CHARACTERIZATION IN DUBLINERS

Resumo

In this article, I propose to analyze female characterization in Dubliners (1914), by James Joyce, by “reading between the lines” of this literary work and considering not only character description and the direct discourse, but especially some characters’ silences and more interior way of expressing themselves, perceived through the narration. One of the traits of James Joyce’s style is the description of these characters using only a few lines. While this trait can limit the formation of a clear picture of them, on the other hand – and maybe for this reason – it may make a more open interpretation possible. This might happen either because of the consequent ambivalence of the literary language or because of the tension that is formed when comparing our present reading of the text and the pre-conceived meanings we attribute to some of the expressions used, such as what characterizes a “lady” or a “spinster”. It is not by chance, then, that what is not said, or the blank spaces left by the text, can be so meaningful after some research about the political and sociocultural context of publication of this work. Thus, I approximate previous critics’ readings of Joyce’s writings concerning this thematic to a panoramic view of this context. Finally, I chose, as focuses of this paper, the situation of late XIX and early XX century Irish women, as well as the role of mothers taken by two female characters in Clay and A Mother, their characterization and point of view.