A Little Cloud

             "A Little Cloud" by James Joyce is a story with little happiness. It follows the main character, Chandler, through a night during which he is presented with the reality of his worst fear, which is that he will never amount to more than what he already is. He feels trapped by his circumstances, and a meeting with his friend who has overcome those circumstances serves as a reminder of how trapped Chandler really is. Joyce uses settings – the city of Dublin and Chandler's own home - to reinforce the story's theme of physical and spiritual imprisonment.
             Throughout the story, the main setting of Dublin looms large over Chandler's head. He has lived in Dublin his entire life and harbors hope of escaping to London, where he can be free: "Was it too late to try to live bravely like Gallaher?" His feeling of imprisonment stems from the melancholy life he leads, and Joyce shores up that trapped feeling with Chandler's observations about the city he lives in. The first setting in which Chandler is seen is his office in the King's Inns. An office itself is a prison, with life going on outside. Chandler looks out the window from his "tiresome writing" to that life, and is still not cheered. He sees "untidy nurses and decrepit old men," screaming children and gravel paths. Once his term in his jail of an office is up, he will simply serve another term in a different jail – that which the city of Dublin provides. "He felt how useless it was to struggle against fortune, this being the burden of wisdom which the ages had bequeathed to him." Chandler can sense that the overwhelming dreariness will not end when he leaves the office. The world that is waiting outside holds no interest for him. It only contains "grimy children," "vermin-like life," and "gaunt spectral mansions." This is a city described in the way many...

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A Little Cloud. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 07:20, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/86591.html