little chandler

« Little Tommy Chandler, the name which Joyce chose for the father, not for the infant,...who appears to be trapped in a boring job,The end of this story, though straight-forward in terms of action and narration--we know precisely what Chandler does and thinks In JJ short story Gallahr and Little Chandler are straight opposite.

The first charachter is a successful journalist in the largest city of England , whereas Chandler is an office clerk in the capital city of Ireland, dublin.

The dubliner has just left London and arrives at homeThe contrast between the two cities might have been strong.

Indeed the main character Chandler seems to be disappointed of its own life.

This extract aims at llustrate the main character's feelings and sensations in an original way.

While respectively sitting , reading or taking care of his baby he is torn between numerous feelings.

His last one is remorse. The preponderant sensation of Chandler is that he feels trapped.

Indeed his wife seems to be everywhere.

Even if she is gone her picture stays and Chandler still feels her presence through the furniture (l.9).

JJ uses a synecdoche in order to create the atmospher of close observation : the eyes on the photograph "watching him" , to make a hint to Orwell's world.

He starts hating her eyes ("they repelled him"l.4) and he compares her to the epitome of the beautiful woman that Gallaher decribed him.

This theorical comparaison is the proof of an impossible action , that's is to say of regret. The idea of being trapped must also be linked with threat.

In that first movement of the text, the word "mean" said twice (l.2 and 8) is associated with Annie's eyes and furniture.

Chandler seems to be more than observed, he is endangered and threaten.

He is no more "looking around" but "glancing nervously" as if he was about to be attacked.

Nevertheless his feelings are quite ambigous because he recognizes at the same times that Annie has a "pretty face"(l.2).

This antithesis shed light on the fact that Chandler is a character full of different feelings. Moreover the structure itself reveals that Chandler is in a worrisome situation.

This opening lines are about his wife and the end of the extract also reports private elements including the baby's cries and the mother's arrival.

Only in betweeen those two passages Chandler is doing what he likes to do : reading a poem.

So even the structure of the text encircle and contains him and his dreams. > The portrait of Annie inspires to Chandler many feelings and the sensation of being a prisonner.

The only way for Chandler to "escape from this little house"(l.10) is to conceive a phantasmagorical his own identity.

His main desire is to be a famous poet.

He admires Bryon's verses and sees him as a model : "could he write like that?" (l.20).

Conversly to the sensation of being trapped, the stanza reflects an impression of "still" (l.15).

The second movement that deals with the poem is the only one in which Chandler does not feel anything else but "melancholy"(l.19).

This reate a huge caesura with the rest of the text : he is not in touch with the reality anymore but in a self-centered moment.

Throughout the text but particularly in this second movement the narration is a relevant element.

The free indirect discourse is used to descripe as precisly as it is possible the main caracter's thoughts.

For example the numerous questions highlight his doubts.

There is hardly any answer (l.6and 20).

That's why the fact that Chandler will not thrive can be considered. 3) His son seems to be the main obtacle to its desire of fame.

Chandler gives proeminance to its book rather than his son, as the conjonction "lest' (l.13) spot.

Here again Chandler is trap because of his family by being unwittingly confronted to the reality when the baby start to cry (l.22). > This new obstacle awake in him a new feeling : anger. »