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 ol
In his house, Chandler has shelves full of poetry books which he acquired in his bachelor days. He longs to "take one down from the bookshelf and read out something to his wife. But shyness had always held him back, and so the books remained on the shelf." Chandler wants to express himself artistically. An extension of that expression would be to share his love of poetry with his wife, but he does not feel free to do so. His artistic temperament must stay locked up inside himself, and the bookshelves in his house serve as a constant reminder that he is a prisoner of character, as well as circumstance. "His unfortunate timidity" keeps him firmly captive within his miserable little life, and Joyce emphasizes this with details from Chandler's own home. Later, as Chandler leaves the office and walks through the city to meet his friend, Joyce allows the conscious affirmation of the prison-like qualities of Dublin. Chandler knows that nothing can ever be done in the city he is stuck in. "There was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin." Simply put, Dublin is a city for good-for-nothings, and Chandler is trapped there. He looks upon the houses by the river as old, dirty tramps, "covered in dust and soot" - the very kind of transients that often are put in jail for loitering and doing n
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 914
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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