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
A different, but highly related sense of freedom comes about from the passengers themselves. An example of this comes when Villona is singing in the car; "Decidedly Villona was in excellent spirits; he kept up a deep bass hum of melody for miles of the road."8 He was just enjoying the ride and trying to amuse himself at the same times. The two Frenchmen also experienced this too; "The Frenchmen flung their laughter and light words over their shoulders and often Jimmy had to strain forward to catch the quick phrase."9 They were having great fun while they were driving. Jimmy was trying to become a part of all of this, but was unable to keep up with the Frenchmen in their conversation. Freedom can be seen throughout this story. Each character presents their own struggle with freedom. The aspect of freedom can also be seen in the setting that is used in "After the Race." Even the aspect of a race can be thought of as freedom. The drivers are speeding along down windy roads toward an endpoint where there is a reward. While driving the driver can become one with nature. He sees his surroundings and must make split second decisions about what to do. One can see freedom in this. It is the freedom of choice. In Dubliners as a whole many characters struggle with this freedom. It is no different in the story of "After the Race."
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2937
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)
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