Dubliners
James Joyce's Dubliners was written in 1914 right at the onset of World War I breaking out in Europe. It is a journey through the stages of life itself: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, public life and finally death. Each one of the stories in the novel fall into one of these stages. "After the Race" falls into the adolescence aspect of the book. It does this because the characters have not yet grown up. Although they are adults they are still immature. Jimmy is easily fooled into gambling away all of his money. He never regretted it. He was actually happy that Routh won the game and took everyone's money. Because of actions like this they are very carefree about how they go about with life. The only thing that they want to do is be happy. They were very free, moving about doing whatever they wanted, but a cloud was settling over them. This cloud was entrapment. Most of the story is about how the characters struggled to keep their freedoms over the entrapments. It also touches upon other characters from other stories by paralleling Jimmy to Eveline. "After the Race" is a story in which the ideas of freedom and entrapment are tested and joined
He helps support the contradiction of freedom versus entrapment throughout "After the Race. They were extremely happy in the event of losing this race. Villona is also entrapped by a certain feeling and that is hunger. He wants to fit in with the rest of his upper class. Joyce writes, "Villona played a waltz for Farley and Riviere, Farley acting as cavalier and Riviere as lady. "They knew that they would probably not win this race, but continued to go about their merry ways. The other that they were already drinking on top of that. The roads that the race is run on are always shut down. Therefore, hunger was entrapping Villona and this was not the only time in the story. Jimmy felt obscurely the lack on an audience: the wit was flashing. Jimmy mad a speech, a long speech, Villona saying Hear! hear! whenever there was a pause. Now comes the figurative aspect of this passage. He was most likely going to make a fool out of himself. In what style they had come careering along the country roads! The journey laid a magical finger on the genuine pulse of life and gallantly the machinery of human nerves strove to answer the bounding courses of the swift blue animal.
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