James Joyce is arguably the most talented writer of prose in the English language to ever to put ink to paper. In 1914, he published his book of short stories, Dubliners, after many hassles from various publishers. There are many common themes connecting the fifteen stories of the book, however, we would be foolish to try and even mention them all. So, one of these many themes is loneliness and isolation. From the very first, there is a deep sense of loneliness and isolation in every story. Though Joyce groups all of his characters under the general title of Dubliners, it is hard to miss the situational irony in the fact that they feel no connection with the city or their fellow Dubliners. In fact, many of the characters wish to, or envy the people who have escaped Ireland. Several times Joyce asserts through omnipotent, third person narration that their loneliness is a result of a spiritual paralysis, having been shallowly indoctrinated by a simonic Irish Catholic Church.

Maria, the main character in Clay, shows one example of this loneliness and isolation. Though she is of the same age as the other children in the story she is an

Farrington was also dreadfully alone although he had a wife and five children as well as a job and acquaintances. Farrington was alone mostly because he was a failure in all relationships, in his job, in his recreation, in his parenting, in his marriage, he could not even properly get himself schnockered to get away from it all. At one point he is with a group of men who he fancies to be his friends and he buys them a round directly after which they suddenly decide that they will go to see one of their friend's show, but that Farrington best not go along because he was a married man and they meant to meet some of the "nice girls". Farrington then "leered at the company in token that he understood he was being chafed". So he realized that he had no real friends. The omnipotent narrator later tells the reader of Farrington's relationship with his wife "his wife was a little sharp faced woman who bullied his husband when he was sober and was bullied by him when he was drunk". Therefore, Farrington clearly had no relationship in his completely empty marriage. His coworkers, at his meaningless job, thought that he was a louse because he was always running off to get drunk and sneaking out of work. The only relationship that Farrington has by the time that the reader gets to the last few paragraphs of the story the only relationship that they can imagine Farrington has not destroyed is that with his children, but the reader soon learns that when it came to isolating him self Farrington was extremely thorough. The story ends with Farrington Beating his son for no reason, effectively showing the severed nature of all of his ties to human relationships. By the end of the short story the

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1141
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)