Written under the supervision of doc. Ondřej Pilný, PhD, and submitted on 14 January 2011, this essay was part of my total coursework at the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts. The essay is published with the kind permission of the faculty.

Music in James Joyce’s Dubliners

In spite of sometimes being rather imperceptible, it is undoubtedly there. Music in James Joyce’s „Dubliners“. A character may mention a name of a song or a singer during their speech, a couple might pass a street performer on their way home, or a person may overhear a few notes of a tune long forgotten and relive a memory they thought to be lost. Even though these mentions of music are, for the most part, very scarce in this collection of stories, they are present and, under close examination, they tell us so much. This essay focuses on the functions of music in Joyce’s “Dubliners”, and discusses what possible conclusions may be drawn from it about the state of contemporary society.

Music has been present in the human society since its very beginning, it is a heritage of nations and as such it is an indisputable part of everyone’s life. In its very essence it belongs to our reality, and because “Dubliners” may partially be taken for “a simple honoring of the creed of faithful realism” (Beck, 4) it plays a vital part in creating or completing the overall tone of most of the stories. Music is a part of our world experience we all have in common, which is a fact Joyce uses to touch and affect his whole readership. Joyce himself had a very close relationship to music, and being an active amateur singer throughout his life, he often spoke about it (Nestrovski, 6). Therefore, in “Dubliners”, he could utilize what we knew very well, songs he intimately remembered from his boyhood (Joyce, 13), tunes which have had in their powers to say much more than words themselves ever could.

As we have already established, music connects us all, but what functions does it have in the collection, and for what purposes is it used? Most predominantly, “Dubliners” show us that music is an ordinary and ever-present part of our every-day lives. Countless players and singers perform on the streets of Dublin, a young boy in “Araby” sings to himself in order to fill the silence while waiting for his uncle to arrive home. Music is in this sense presented as something we do not even have to think about, something which is here for us whenever we need it to calm ourselves down or entertain us. Entertainment is another reason to enjoy the sounds of music. In “The Clay”, for example, “Mrs. Donnelly played the piano for the children and they danced and sang” (Joyce, 100). Right in front of us, almost hearing the melody of the piano ourselves, we witness a scene of a great merriment, in which music stands in the epicenter as a paramount cause of all the joy. The drunken singing in “After the Race” is somewhat different way of being entertained by music, yet another possibility it is. Playing music, we may not only entertain ourselves or the people closest to us, but even strangers or whole parties, as we see in “The Dead” and “Little Cloud”. In the latter, Little Chandler invites Ignatius to visit him and his wife to “have a little music and –“ (Joyce, 74)Having music is presented as an important and inseparable part of cultural life. That is not to say that people who did not have music on their parties were uncivilized savages. The fact is, though, that music brings along a certain sense of grace, extraordinariness and a sense of high social status. As far as entertaining the guests in “The Dead” is concerned, we are from the very start made to understand that “the music figures prominently in the Morkan household” (Scholes, 409). The parties the sisters annually organize are popular among their attendees not only for the food and free drink, but also for their music and dance. Music is simply an invariable part of a good social meeting. However, as “Dubliners” show, it may also be a much more intimate experience.

Music is in many stories not only an indisputable part of the characters’ epiphanies or realizations of some important, yet long forgotten of ignored facts, but it also functions as their personal means of escaping the reality. The most dominant scene in which music helps a character to remember or realize something, and through almost a hypnotic state brings them to the final moment of epiphany, is arguably Gretta’s staircase scene in “The Dead”. A still female figure, standing on the top of the stairs, hearing just “a few chords struck on the piano and a few notes of a man’s voice singing” (Joyce, 211) and all of the sudden remembering her tragically-fated friend. It is the music only that brought her to “thinking about a person long ago who used to sing that song” (Joyce, 220). The melody and the lyrics imprinted themselves into her mind, and though the memory was put away for years, only a short listening to the tune brought it all back. The very same pattern is to be seen in “Eveline”. A young woman, sitting alone and quiet in a darkened room, suddenly hearing “down far in the avenue a street organ playing” (Joyce, 32) and remembering the day her mother died, eventually making a decision to obey her last wish and stay home, instead of leaving for Buenos Ayres. The distant music here “marks the modulation of feeling in the story” (Nestrovski, 13). It is only the silent tones that push the character towards making her decision. It is only logical to use music, or more generally sound, as a means of sudden remembering, for acoustic memory is much better than, let us say, the visual. It often occurs to us that we hear a note or two and immediately realize we have already heard the song before. However, very often we cannot recall where exactly the memory comes from, desperately trying to reach for words to describe what we think we know, but failing to do so. In case we do recall the memory, we often feel a sudden rush of emotions – relief, joy, satisfaction. Even though a sudden realization via listening to the music is not particularly dramatic action, therefore perhaps slightly unsuitable for the mainstream readership, it makes much more sense because we can imagine this really happening, for it may have already happened to us all.

As it was already mentioned, music is also used as a means of escaping reality, and fleeing into one’s own inner world, which is what we can observe in “After the Race”. In this story, Villona starts playing the piano for the group of his friends who dance and have fun. After that, however, the young men decided to go and play cards and Villona, instead of joining them, “returned quietly to his piano and played voluntaries for them” (Joyce, 41). We thus get the picture of a quiet figure, sitting by the piano, not really following what is happening in the room, only playing the piano, lost in his own thoughts. We can only guess what was the reason for the piano stopping abruptly, why exactly “Villona must have gone up on deck” (Joyce, 41). What did he remember, what came to his mind? Joyce scarcely gives direct answers on questions like this, thus letting his readers guess and decide for themselves instead.

Additionally, music is in “Dubliners” also used to capture a certain uniqueness of a moment. For instance, in “The Dead” right before Gabriel starts his speech, he leans on the table, and listens to the music for a brief while, enjoying the moment and breathing in the atmosphere. “The piano was playing a waltz tune” and Gabriel could imagine people “standing in the snow on the quay outside, gazing up at the lighted windows and listening to the waltz music” (Joyce, 203). It almost seems as if the scene deliberately paused for a while, made a step back, took a deep breath, and only then finally plunged into the monologue itself. Joyce uses the music here to prolong the moment, and to put not only the scene of the speech, but the whole party suddenly into a perspective. Even though we might be wholly consumed by reading this particular story, we inevitably have to realize that this is only a single party, and that in the whole city of Dublin, in the whole Ireland, there are countless other stories left untold, stories which may be connected to one another by nothing but music.

Generally speaking, in this collection, music is depicted as something good, even as something ennobling the human nature. First of all, as Freddy Malins explains in “The Dead”, since nothing matters in proper singing but the voice, the realm of music thus becomes the ultimate democracy. In music, any differences in the tone of one’s skin or their physical proportions are made irrelevant. Of course, judging from the reaction of Freddy’s listeners, it takes some time and effort to come to this sort of understanding, but as it was proved by time, it is not impossible.

Secondly, Joyce depicts music, or adoration for it, as a perfect means of meeting people and sharing common ideas. In “Eveline”, the main character is taken on a date to see an opera, and from what we can guess it seems that the fondness towards music was what attracted the couple to each other in the first place. Mr. Duffy in “A Painful Case” also meets his short-term girlfriend thanks to their mutual attendance to a series of classical concerts. Even the pair of men in “Two Gallants” talks about having taken their dates “to the band” (Joyce, 46). It seems that music has always been an indisputable part of courting, a perfect opportunity to enjoy what two different people have in common. As for the meeting of completely new friends or future partners, however, it is questionable whether one may find them because of the common interest, or merely because going to various concerts one inevitably comes into contact with much greater number of people. Mrs. Kearney in “A Mother” provides us with a slightly different point of view on this subject. Being highly educated, having mastered playing the piano perfectly, and being generally admired by men, “she sat amid the chilly circle of her accomplishments, waiting for some suitor to brave it and offer her a brilliant life” (Joyce, 134). Although she refused all of the men’s proposals because they all seemed ordinary to her, we have to realize that, as far as the powers of the music are concerned, everything worked as it should. Her musical skills, the lovely tones of her piano, certainly attracted many a man to her.

Thirdly, a good knowledge of the world of music, not to mention the ability to play any instrument, is in “Dubliners” a sign of good taste and high social status. This is exactly the reason why the Morkan sisters from “The Dead” keep their piano for their niece, even though they have absolutely no place for it in their tiny apartment. Playing the piano simply belonged to the proper young lady’s education by which she could, in case of necessity, even support herself. Being able to talk about music, or more particularly opera, alludes here not only to a good education, but also to an excellent taste in music. That is also the reason of the presence of the sometimes enthusiastic and admiring, other times disrespectful and scornful talks on the contemporary or past music styles and instruments in “After the Race”, and the juxtaposition of Irish and Italian opera and opera singers in “The Dead”. Talking music simply appears to be in and fashionable.

Most importantly, however, the use of music in “Dubliners” both directly and indirectly alludes to the great Irish musical tradition. Dublin itself was at the time the stories take place, and still is, “an extraordinarily active musical city, and the signs and effects of music are accordingly chronicled in virtually every story of ‘Dubliners’” (Nestrovski, 14). In many a story, the characters walk through the streets, every now and then going past a street player of singer. In “Araby”, a young boy follows a girl whom he likes, and hears the “nasal chanting of street-singers who sang ‘come-all-you’ or a ballad about the troubles in our land” (Joyce, 23). Since “come-all-you” was a “topical song sung on streets” (Gifford, 45), we may understand the scene as a general depiction of an ordinary rush on the streets. Street performers belonged to Dublin, so in order to depict the reality of the every-day life, there would be absolutely no reason for omitting them from the picture. This may have also been the reason for Joyce to mention these street performers so frequently – they were simply a part of the Dublin experience, part of the reality that could not be left out. The second part of the sentence additionally alludes to the fact that Ireland had a “vast repository of songs and ballads which recounted the wrongs suffered by the nation and the daring deeds of her patriots” (Joyce, 252). Similar hints to the Irish nationalism are to be found in numerous places in the book, predominantly in the presence of traditional Irish tunes. For instance, “The Lass of Aughrim” from “The Dead” is described as being “of old Irish tonality” (Joyce, 211) even in the story itself. It surely is a traditional Irish song, one that “Joyce may have heard from his mom as a young boy” (Gifford, 123). Also, the songs that Eveline hears at the concert, and the one that Maria plays on the piano in “The Clay” are both from the same opera – “The Bohemian Girl” written by a Dublin musician and composer M. W. Balfe (Joyce, 225). We may find numerous other examples of Joyce, more or less surreptitiously inserting hints to traditional Irish song in the text. Saying that he thusly made “Dubliners” a part of the national cultural treasure may sound pompous to a fault, but it might be argued that it certainly did tie the stories closer to Ireland, closer to their home.

Although the symphony of “Dubliners” is largely harmonious, there are quite a few false notes to be found. First of all, only very few musicians in the whole collection appear to be flawless. We can see that most prominently in “The Dead”. During the after-dinner talk about opera singers, the general consensus appears to be that none of them are perfect. If a man has a good singing voice, he has a rather “vulgar style of production” (Joyce, 199). Even if both the singing and the production of the next singer are good, we discover that he is black, which makes all his qualities not count in the eyes of the people at the party. Additionally, even such a brilliant singer as Mr. D’Arcy is unable to comply with his reputation, because he unfortunately suffers from a sore throat. Finally, even if the singing is so exquisite that everyone who listened seems to be smitten by it, as it is in case of Aunt Julia’s solo by the piano, the characters are so surprised by this unexpected excellence that the readers may wonder, whether it was really a beginning of a superb singing carrier, or rather a swan song (Benstock, 209).

This all inevitably raises a question: Where are all the good singers, then? Certainly nowhere near Ireland. Mr. Duffy from “A Painful Case” has a “liking for Mozart’s music” (Joyce, 104) not for the Irish one, Ignatius recommends in “A Little Cloud” that “if you want to enjoy yourself properly you must go to Paris” (Joyce, 72), but the readers might draw the most information from “The Dead”. A whole part of the company’s conversation deals with the fact that there are no accomplished singers anymore, and if there are, then certainly not in Ireland. Gabriel consequently recalls this conversation when he says during his speech: “Listening to-night to the names of all those great singers of the past it seemed to me, I must confess, that we were living in a less spacious age” (Joyce, 204).

Joyce must have at least partly believed that himself, for he depicts the decline of music also by the people’s lack of interest for it. In “Eveline”, the organ player is eventually “told to go away and given a sixpence” (Joyce, 33), in “A Painful Case” a lady attending a concert complains what a pity it is that “there is such a poor house to-night” (Joyce, 105), and Gabriel, just as most of the listeners of Mary Jane’s piano solo in “The Dead”, finds himself not being able to listen to the song due to its lack of melody and general difficulty. In “A Mother” this lack of interest is led to its extreme. The first concert in this short story attracts only few listeners, even the men in charge of running the concert series have no motivation whatsoever, and the portrayal of the final concert itself is “a slashing attack on Dublin’s claims to musical excellence” (French, 464). Perhaps, by depicting this musical and social degradation, Joyce was attempting to make his readers realize their mistakes and flaws, perhaps he was merely trying to make them understand, make them better. He, however, might as well only depict the reality of that time. Perhaps, what we read is not a scornful critique of the society, but an objective depiction of its state.

Whatever conclusion we decide for, we have to realize that the balance between all the good about the music in “Dubliners” and all the bad is much more in favour of the good. Even then, however, it is essential not to forget that music in itself is only a single theme the collection deals with, and not even particularly prominent one at that. Music here merely enriches the already given atmosphere of the stories, but even though it has many functions, creating it wholly by itself is not one of them. When we notice it, we realize that it provides the stories with an additional level, that it slightly alters their shades of meaning, and that it intensifies our experience from reading. The music of “Dubliners”, whether we want it or not, simply resonates in us long after the book is closed.

Bibliography:

Primary text:

Joyce, James. Dubliners. London: Penguin Books, 2000.

 

Secondary sources:

Beck, Warren. Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’. Durham: Duke University Press, 1969.

Benstock, Berni. “The £ S. d. of ‘Dubliners’.“ Twentieth Century Literature. Vol. 34, No. 2. Summer, 1988. Accessed by <www.jstor.org>

Gifford, Don. Joyce Annotated. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982.

French, Marilyn. Missing Pieces in Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’.” Twentieth Century Literature. Vol. 24, No. 4. Winter, 1978. Accessed by <www.jstor.org>

Friedrich, Gerhard. “The Perspective of Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’.” College English. Vol. 26, No. 6. March, 1965. Accessed by <www.jstor.org>

Joyce, James. Dubliners: Text, Criticism, and Notes. Ed. Robert Scholes and A. Walton Litz. London: Penguin Books, 1996.

Nestrovski, Arthur. “Joyce’s Critique of Music.” Perspectives of New Music. Vol. 29, No. 1. Winter, 1991. Accessed by <www.jstor.org>