The stories in Joyce's Dubliners seem quite simple, yet there are something more hiding behind this seemingly innocent description of his countrymen's spiritual squalor. These hidden meanings are achieved through a more complex narrative, which takes either the form of a litany of place names or the pattern of an analogy between his characters and Irish historical figures. The simple stories are actually quite loaded texts that juxtapose reality and history so as to reveal the ultimate reason of Dubliners spiritual paralysis. The effect is a good illustration of what Joyce termed "epiphany". T...
