Irish Literature Paper Essay

Olivia Barragree Mr. Green Irish Literature 3 17 February 2013 Irish Love In 20th Century Ireland, the practice of marri hop on remained rattling strict referable to the religious standards of the period. The majority of the Irish population remained rigorously Ro homosexual Catholic while a sm either population in the north remained Protestant. The Ro while Catholic view on sexual union carcass to be that marriage should stay within the religion and be sustenance-long, or until death due you man.With divorce re motivated as an option for the wo custody of the time, and the chance that a wo reality would subscribe to unite earlier in life, it became no surprise that valety wo workforce became un joyous with their chouse lives. James Joyces capital of Irelanders, a collection of short stories, tells the execrable chi foote stories of man Irish women of the time. These stories cut that women, whose only goal becomes to get conjoin like society told them to do so at the time, result end up ultimately stuck in a lifelong pursuit of rapture in religious love that drives them to desperation.One of the youngest love stories in the book presents itself in the bosh of Eveline. In this invoice Eveline, a teenage girl, finds herself struggling to make her next move in life. She longs for the love of Frank, her sailor, except feels conflicted somewhat what her kinship with him entails. Eveline does non crap an easy home life, which makes her decision to raiment out with her lover altogether the more(prenominal) difficult. Eveline lives and breathes the poverty stricken life of many capital of Irelanders, and for her this remains familiar and tradition. racecourse a steering with a sailor to a faraway land would non be delight ind of by any peerless in the t confess of Dublin.Her longing to get married and have a normal life drives her to make plans to leave the country and elope. At first she call ups that it will be a broad(a) topic whe n she says, Then she would be marriedshe, Eveline. People would treat her with appreciate then (21). Eveline believes that getting married will be the answer to all of her problems because traditionally marriage would be the only thing that should matter to a woman in life. In this time, getting married meant sacrificing boththing about your earlier life in the pursuit of happiness within some genius elses life.The difference in Evelines story becomes that she has so many others depending on her already, and to totally give up her previous life would be a gigantic sacrifice. Eveline has many younger siblings who rely on her as a stand in mother, due to the fact that her mother had passed a hardly a(prenominal) years before. Eveline must help also to provide for the family because her father has weensy drive and spends close of his time drinking and abusing the children. With so many masses counting on her the decision to leave and do what most women of her age would do become s so far harder.In her time of need Eveline, prayed to god to look at her, to show her what was her duty (23). Eveline holds faith in God, as most Irish did at the time, and her decision would be made by what she thinks God would most likely approve of. Although Evelines religion would approve of marriage, in this guinea pig her marriage would take her away from the mess who keep her within the religion. An elopement at the time would have been frowned upon, and although Eveline loved Frank she knew that God would not approve of what she was doing.Her pursuit of happiness was a desperate exploit to get married and escape the life she lived. Although Eveline did not follow the path that most women would have, it becomes reform that women of the time were pressured to marry and sacrifice ein truththing for the man they chose. Evelines lover would not have been the i mickle pick for typical happiness for the Dublin woman, and this bulwark set up by the church drives Eveline to stay where her beliefs and heritage ar deeply rooted. Eveline will spend her life pursuing a happiness that washstandnot exist with the restrictions set in place upon the people within Dublin.In the next story of young love, The Boarding House, we come crossways a woman raising her two young adult children in a boarding house. Ms. Mooney, the woman, went through a horrible separation aft(prenominal) being trapped in an abusive marriage with a drunkard for several years, and this very family has left her on her own to stand firm for her family with the profits from the boarding house. Ms. Mooney is ostracized by many in the society, and many believe she was wrong to leave her marriage and they criticize her attempt to run her own business. Ms.Mooneys young daughter remains young and generally happy in life, but she dealms to be very flirtatious with most the men who live in the boarding house. Her mother at first tries to perish this problem by sending Polly to work in the c ity, but as time passes she slowly lets her move guts into the boarding house. Ms. Mooney sees a relationship beginning to develop surrounded by Polly and a man who would lose his news report if people were to find out about the affair, but instead of laborious to put an end to the relationship she monitors as if she is waiting for something to happen between them.With the relationships before she had everlastingly drove Polly away from the men, but Ms. Mooney, knew that the young men were only passing the time away none of them meant business (40). She knew that this man would feel responsible for his actions, and if he tried to run away from his problems, his employer would for certain fire him because his boss of thirteen years was a great Catholic wine merchant. Due to the religion and sociable opinion of the time the man is force into his decision of marrying Polly. Ms. Mooney believed that, For her, only one reparation could make up for the loss of her daughters honour marriage (40).Even after(prenominal) Ms. Mooney had to suffer through the worst possible marriage, she still wishes for the marriage of her daughter. This may seem surprising to modern views, but at the time it was dampen to be married and miserable than single. The religious dominance of the time forced many young couples like Polly and Mr. Dorian in to marriage that would most likely result in an unhappy life. When we come across the sad story of A Painful Case this is where the social pressures of the time unfeignedly come in to play.The main character of this short story, Mr. Duffy, is a man who, wished to live as far as possible from the city of which he was a citizen and because he frame all the other suburbs of Dublin mean, modern, and grandiose (70). This man hates all that was Dublin of the time because he believes that the people keep certain ideas and were fairly mean about the way in which they judged others opinions. This man believed that, No social revolution w ould be likely to strike Dublin for some centuries (72).This statement of this one mans opinions shows that many believed that Dublin would always have the same mindset about social issues even if modernism would come to the city life. Dubliners were people attempting to move forward, but who were held back by social and religious customs. This thinking becomes challenged when Mr. Duffy meets a woman who will soon become his intellectual companion, Mrs. Sinico, whom remains a married woman. When the relationship begins they talk about things much(prenominal) as philosophy or books, but as time goes on it becomes clear that some sieve of familiarity will be involved. Mrs.Sinico lives a very sad life with her economise who works as a merchant. This man does not devote any time to his family or wife and no longer feels any sort of love to this woman. Their relationship has lost its purpose, but due to the standards of society of the time they must stay together even if she and Mr. Duffy were better suited for separately other. When Mr. Duffy and Mrs. Sinicos relationship escalates to a touch of a hand to a cheek one night they regard that what they do will exercise them social ostracism, so , They agreed to break hit their intercourse every bond, he said, is a bond to sorrowfulness (73).By breaking saturnine the connection between the two, Mr. Duffy believes he will be doing the right thing because it will eliminate the futile longing they have for one another. The break-dance that he neglects to see becomes the fact that sorrow will remain in Mrs. Sinicos relationship with her husband. Mr. Duffys speak immense truth in the life of Mrs. Sinico because every bond she tries to form with men leads her to immense sorrow. This sorrow becomes her ultimate demise as the pain becomes too much for her and she makes the choice to commit suicide by jumping in front of a newly built tram.Mr. Duffy reads about the suicide in the paper one night as he sits at the di ner alone, and at this grade he is stricken with immense distain for the woman who killed herself. Mr. Duffy, in an attempt to deal with the pain of loss begins to try to blame Mrs. Sinico and become angry at her for killing herself because she was no longer happy without him. Mr. Duffy becomes filled with immense guilt feelings and must find a way to cope. The sorrow suddenly hits him though when he says, One human being had seemed to love him and he had denied her life and happiness (77).He feels as though the death was his fault and that he should have saved her from suffering through her unhappy life, but due to the social attitude of the time he made the wrong decision. He left this woman to suffer in a life that was most likely chosen due to a younger womans desperation to get married and follow the practice of so many other women of the time. These social practices of marriage left her searching for a way to happiness that she could neer have. Her marriage that she could n ot escape trapped her from the extracurricular world which had the potential to make her happy.The story of The Dead comes at the very end of Dubliners which represents a very sorrow filled ending for the book. This story begins with a very vibrant and exciting dinner caller, but when the party ends and Gabriel, the main characters goes home with his wife, the sadness really settles in. At the party Gabriel had found his wife immensely attractive and wished greatly to rekindle the love he believed they once had for each other. At the party a guest sings a love song that leaves, Gretta, Gabriels wife frozen in theme which makes Gabriel believe that she too thinks of the two of them together once again.The truth sets in though when the couple returns to a hotel where they will be staying for the night. Gabriel, in an attempt to spark some love in their relationship asks his wife what she cerebration of the song, but to his surprise she tells a very sad story. Gretta tells the stor y of her dead person lover whom her family would not let her be with. She tells him of the great passion they dual-lane and how the young man had died a month after she had gone off to study at a convent. At a loss for words, Gabriel thinks about how, It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband had played in her life (151).Gabriel gives up on purpose love for his wife once again, and he now realizes that she does not love him either. These two people remain trapped by the bond of marriage and the fear of being socially unaccepted through divorce. This story of a love where a man had died for his love of Gretta makes Gabriel realize that, He had never felt like that himself towards any other woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love (152). When young Gretta tells the story of her lovers death she says that her leaving had killed him, and that he had died for sake of pleasing her.In response to her loss of her chance at happiness she had married Gab riel in an attempt to replace that love, but to also do the fairish thing of the time. Gabriel and Gretta were forced together, not by choice, but by the expectations people had placed on young people of the time. When they met they had felt a vernacular longing for happiness in love, and this feeling had convinced them that they had love for one another. Deep inside, Gabriel realizes this fact and as he watches the pull the wool over someones eyes fall impertinent he begins to feel a longing to escape Ireland and move westward.In the west ideas were new and people were not looked down upon for their sacrilegious actions or disbelief. At the very end of the story Gabriel talks about the snow that falls outside, and references a newspaper article that says, Snow was general all over Ireland (152). He then says, It was falling, too upon every part of the alone(predicate) churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked on the crooked cr osses (152). One of the most cold and dead things found in the story, the snow, represents the lack of life within the religious communities of Ireland. to a fault many people of the time had dedicated their lives to pleasing the church and the social standards it set for its followers. This dedication had made many of them unhappy or bereaved of meaning in life. The people within this story look for a way to find love and happiness, but in the end they realize that they cannot obtain it where they remain. Throughout the many sad stories of Dubliners the reader can see that the institution of marriage plays a major role in the gloominess of many of the characters within the short stories.The institution of marriage when ruled by a churchs strict belief system can be very harmful to a healthy relationship. The characters who marry always seem to become trapped by their marriage because they know that they can never escape it in the future. This longing to escape the social standar ds set for these couples leaves them in a pursuit of something that will never be reached. Without a trapped feeling surrounding them, the pressure to have a perfective aspect marriage would be diluted and prove much more good than a marriage kept out of fear of religious persecution.