Dubliners: A Little Cloud

"There was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin."

Throughout the story, Joyce uses the motif of British oppression. The whole motif, and idea is encompassed the passage above. The protagonist is the vehicle that conveys the motif. He desires more out of life; he wishes to be a poet. This dream to be, is echoed in the passage "When his hour had struck he stood up and took leave of his desk and of his fellow-clerks punctiliously. He emerged from under the feudal arch of the King's Inns". While he's day dreaming of being a poet, "he emerged from under the feudal arch", which is a metaphor for his dreams; the dreams are tangible ideas in his head, similar to the physical "arch", but they won't be pursued in Dublin, evident in the above passage; they're futile like the arch itself. The main focus, other than the protagonist, is his friend, Ignatius Gallaher, a successful Dubliner. Gallaher, characterized in the passage "You could tell that at once by his travelled air, his well-cut tweed suit, and fearless accent." He is the first Dubliner to be characterized in such a successful and respecting manner, which is why, when the reader discovers Gallaher found success in England, that the motif of British oppression is continuing throughout the stories, and that the above passage is the true focal point of the story. The dreams of the protagonist slowly digress as the story progresses. Gallaher contributes to the digression, as a symbol of British oppression. He degrades the protagonist- going off on tangents in French, referring to him like a child, until the protagonist relizes, and states, "Gallaher was only patronising him by his friendliness just as he was paronising Ireland by his visit." The passage initiates Gallaher as the symbol of British oppression, and Little Chandler as the symbol of the oppressed Irish. The story ends with his dreams, that once seemed possible, being dessicated- when he comes home to his wife and child. The end of the story is appropriate and anticipated by the reader in the forshadowing conversation of marriage between Gallaher and Little Chandler, ending with the bitter remark by Gallaher, saying "Must get a bit stale, I should think." Little Chandler has a wife and child, which Gallaher does not, which heightens the contrast between the Brtish and the Irish. It is because of Little Chandler's family, and his unhappiness with his wife that neither of them address, or choose to fix, that he cannot progress, that he continues to live in Ireland, and continues to be oppressed by the British.


Joyce puts a great amount of rhetoric into the syntax of the sentence. With the use of a colon, he puts syntactical definition, and focus on the most important part of the sentence, "if you wanted..." The syntax of the sentence in the paragraph, helps the reader to acknoledge its meaning. The paragraph begins with an uplifting, less morbid tone to the paragraph, beginning "Little Chandler quickened his pace" which is neither negative nor dark sounding. The uplifting tone flows through to the prodound above passage. The sentence is, however, not uplifting to a Dubliner, clearly stating that you cannot progress in Dublin. The tone of the paragraph diverts the reader's attention away from it's importance. It helps to foreshadow the protagonist's the lack of seriousness in the idea, and how the protagonist isn't going to leave Dublin.