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Dublinersby James Joyce |
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A Little CloudAn Outline CommentaryBob Williams - © 1999This is the first story in the set devoted to mature life and it is notably longer than any story so far. There is a golden sunset in this story as in "The Sisters". It is another comment on family life to put beside those in "An Encounter" (the Dillon family of whom Joyce seems to approve) and those other more dysfunctional families in "Araby" and "Eveline." Beside the families in "The Boarding House," luridly dysfunctional past, present and future, the Chandler family is perhaps pale by comparison but, as it proves, no less desperate.Tindall sees little Chandler and Gallaher as another Shem and Shaun pair. He explains the title and the source (Biblical) is easy enough but the meaning is another matter and Joyce"s cleverness may have overreached itself. Ellmann identifies Ignatius Gallaher as Fred Gallaher (Joyce had little finesse in this matter of renaming his characters) but also as any burly, insensitive man that Joyce disliked, such as Gogarty to whom on one occasion he referred to as Ignatius Gallaher. Both Bloom and Earwicker, however, are burly types so it may be wise not to build too much on this. Bloom, however, may not be particularly burly. Ideas of his burliness are based on Joyce"s caricature of him but this agrees very little with the description of him in Ulysses. . He, who as later will become clear, is Thomas, or Little (so-called from something fragile or childlike in his appearance), Chandler, remembers how eight years before he had seen his friend, Ignatius Gallaher, off from Ireland. Gallaher has been on his mind this afternoon since the two men met and arranged to meet again later. Chandler will later have reason to reflect upon this original meeting and will perceive in its accidental nature Gallaher"s real indifference to his old friend. Chandler"s thoughts involve the contrast between the Gallaher"s present prosperity and his penury at the time that he left Ireland. Chandler is melancholy by nature, perhaps even more so as he compares his life with that of his friend. Joyce quickly establishes that he has at least a wistful attachment to poetry. Shyness prevents him from sharing his appreciation of poetry with his wife, Annie. Chandler leaves the office where he works as a copyist (cf. Farrington in "Counterparts") and picks his way through grimy children at play. In his thoughts he perceives them as vermin-like. His destination is an elegant pub and he imagines the splendor of its exclusive patrons. The narrator describes the stiff and self-conscious manner with which Chandler walks the Dublin streets and how he sometimes puts himself to the mild test of walking deliberately in all sorts of neighborhoods and how a strange laugh could make him tremble. His thoughts tell us that there was more involved than the usual success story about Gallaher"s departure from Ireland. He left to seek his fortune but also to escape an unsavory reputation. . Chandler, as he crosses a bridge, looks down on some distressed houses, sees them as huddled tramps fearful of dismissal. He has, in fact, a moment of genuine poetic inspiration and it becomes immediately obvious that he has no idea what to do with it. He debases it by his instant willingness to exploit it as he phrases to himself imaginary reviews in praise of his work. He decides how his name should appear on his (unwritten) poetry. He is so involved in this game that he passes his destination and has to double back. He enters the pub self-consciously and puts on a dumb show that reminds one of similar antics on the part of Leopold Bloom when he wished to withdraw from a restaurant of dirty eaters. Chandler finds his friend and they settle in to drink and visit. Gallaher, in his symbolically orange tie, is glib so the conversation does not lag but it confirms differences, not unity. It is plain that Gallaher thinks Chandler is a stick and that Chandler thinks Gallaher is vulgar and patronizing. Gallaher entertains Chandler with tales of the fast and wicked life of Paris and London. The crucial topic for them is marriage. Chandler has a wife and child. Gallaher congratulates him but rejects these ties for himself. Chandler insists strongly that Gallaher will not be immune to marriage under the right circumstances. His firmness about this implies to both of them that Chandler has experienced something valuable that Gallaher has not. The latter, however, vows that, if he marries, it will (like Lenehan in "Two Gallants") be for money and it will, he claims, be to a rich Jewess. He deflates Chandler with the thought that monogamy must get rather stale. Joyce inserts the separation symbol, a line of dots, and on the other side of the dots we find Chandler at home holding his infant son. His wife, originally willing to do without the tea that Chandler was to bring home with him, changes her mind and leaves him to tend the baby while she goes to the store for tea. Chandler thinks realistically of Gallaher and sees how little he was sincere in his professions of friendship. Still in a realistic mood, he thinks of Annie and sees that she is the opposite of the passionate, opulent Jewess. She is prissy and mean and she affects everything in his life so that it is all prim and mean. He needs escape and tries to find it by reading a poem by Byron. The poem, significantly, involves the death of a woman and, ironically in view of his present state of mind, resignation to that death. The child wakes up and cries. He tries to soothe it but continues stubbornly to read and the child's continued crying angers him. He shouts at the child who begins to cry hysterically and this frightens him very much. Annie returns, takes the child, brushes him aside with brutal dismissal and comforts the child herself. Chandler has tears of remorse in his eyes. And, of course, Joyce's silences are as important as his statements. He withholds from us the vital information, the cause of Chandler's remorse. The abusive treatment of the child carries us over into the next story where the abuse of a child is even more pronounced and another dysfunctional family emerges for our consideration. A Little Cloud: Characters (*mentioned)
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