"The Boarding House" by James Joyce Analysis

"The Boarding House" by James Joyce Analysis

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  By: Windah NoraAvelina Pasaribu
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  ABSTRACT In this paper,the writer tries to analyze a prose, entitled The Boarding House written by James Joyce. The purpose of this writing is to appreciate and analyze the intrinsic element, character, and the extrinsic element, social class in the story. Theories which are used are textual, contextual, and hyper textual by close reading method. The writer found that the all the figures in this story have their own character. The writer also found that social class influenced the marriage and how someone acts. Keywords: Character, social class, the boarding house
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  1. Introduction The BoardingHouse by James Joyce showing the effort of a single mother raising her children and a love story which is obstructed by the different status. 2. Theory and Method 2.1 Theory A character is a person in a narrative work of art (such as a novel, play, television series or film. In literature, characters guide readers through their stories, helping them to understand plots and ponder themes. Social class is a set of concepts in the social-sciences and political history centered on models of social stratification in which people are grouped into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle, and lower class. 2.2 Methodology The writer analyzes the characters and the social class issue in the novel with close reading method.
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  3. Author’s Biography JamesAugustine Aloysius Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, just south of Dublin in a wealthy suburb called Rathgar. The Joyce family was initially well off as Dublin merchants with bloodlines that connected them to old Irish nobility in the country. James' father, John Joyce, was a fierce Irish Catholic patriot and his political and religious influences are most evident in Joyce's two key works A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man and Ulysses. In 1905, Joyce completed a collection of eight stories, entitled Dubliners, though it was not until 1913 that the volume was actually printed. On January 13, 1941, James Joyce died of a stomach ulcer at the age of 58, and was buried in Zurich's Fluntern Cemetery.
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  4. The Summary Aftera difficult marriage with a drunken husband that ends in separation, Mrs. Mooney opens a boarding house to make a living. Her son, Jack, and daughter, Polly, live with her in the house, which is filled with clerks from the city, as well as occasional tourists and musicians. Mrs. Mooney runs a strict and tight business and is known by the lodgers as “The Madam.” Polly, who used to work in an office, now stays at home at her mother’s request, to amuse the lodgers and help with the cleaning. Surrounded by so many young men, Polly inevitably develops a relationship with one of them, Mr. Doran. Mrs. Mooney knows about the relationship, but instead of sending Polly back to work in the city, she monitors its developments. Polly becomes increasingly uncomfortable with her mother’s lack of intervention, but Mrs. Mooney waits until “the right moment” to intercede. First she speaks awkwardly with Polly, then arranges to speak with Mr. Doran on a Sunday morning. Mrs. Mooney looks forward to her confrontation, which she intends to “win” by defending her daughter’s honor and convincing Mr. Doran to offer his hand in marriage. Waiting for the time to pass, Mrs. Mooney figures the odds are in her favor, considering that Mr. Doran, who has worked for a wine merchant for thirteen years and garnered much respect, will choose the option that least harms his career.
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  Meanwhile, Mr. Dorananguishes over the impending meeting with Mrs. Mooney. As he clumsily grooms himself for the appointment, he reviews the difficult confession to his priest that he made on Saturday evening, in which he was harshly reproved for his romantic affair. He knows he can either marry Polly or run away, the latter an option that would ruin his sound reputation. Convincing himself that he has been duped, Mr. Doran bemoans Polly’s unimpressive family, her ill manners, and her poor grammar, and wonders how he can remain free and unmarried. In this vexed moment Polly enters the room and threatens to end her life out of unhappiness. In her presence, Mr. Doran begins to remember how he was bewitched by Polly’s beauty and kindness, but he still wavers about his decision. Uneasy, Mr. Doran comforts Polly and departs for the meeting, leaving her to wait in the room. She rests on the bed crying for a while, neatens her appearance, and then nestles back in the bed, dreaming of her possible future with Mr. Doran. Finally, Mrs. Mooney interrupts the reverie by calling to her daughter. Mr. Doran, according to Mrs. Mooney, wants to speak with Polly.
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  5. DISCUSSION 5. 1Character a. Mrs. Mooney Mrs. Mooney was a butcher’s daughter. She had divorced with her husband. She was a protagonist in this story. She was a very ambitious mother. She really wanted to make Mr. Doran married her daughter because Mr. Doran had higher status. In fact Mr. Doran did not love her daughter. She let her daughter had an affair with Mr. Doran. And she was also a selfish mom. She asked Polly to stop working as a typist because she knew Mr. Mooney still kept in touch with her. And actually she was the one who asked Polly to work as a typist. Then she asked her to work in their boarding house. Besides it, she actually loved her daughter. We can see it from her way to make Mr. Doran married Polly even though with cunning
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  c. Mr. Doran Hewas a thirty four or thirty five man who stayed in the boarding house. He worked as an employee for thirteen years in a great Catholic wine-merchant’s office. He was a smart man. He knew that Mrs. Mooney was trying to trap him in a marriage just to get Polly to a better position in life. And in fact, he did not love Polly too. He came from higher status, so when Mrs. Mooney asked him to marry Polly, he refused it because he knew that his parents would not agree because Polly was from lower class. And he worried if his friends talking of the affair and laughing. But on the other hand, he was a loving man. In the middle of the story he tried to comfort Polly when she was crying.
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  b. Polly Molly Pollywas the daughter of Mrs. Mooney. She was a slim girl of nineteen. She worked in their boarding house. She loved to flirt with the young men but Mrs. Mooney did not care about it because she knew they only passed for business. And it was more like working for her mother. She was an obedient daughter. When her mom asked her to stop working as a typist she did it. She did everything which was asked by her mom.
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  d. Mr. Mooney Thereis only a little information about Mr. Mooney. At the beginning of the story, it was told that Mr. Mooney was a terrible husband to Mrs. Mooney, especially after her father died and he felt like he could start drinking, embezzling money from the butcher shop, and accruing debts. He tried to keep in touch with his daughter, and as soon as Mrs. Mooney catches wind of it, she brings her daughter back home and far from his influence. It shows that Mr. Mooney still loved his daughter. e. Jack Jack is the son of Mrs. Mooney. Jack was clerk to a commission agent in Fleet Street, had reputation of being a hard case. Usually he came home in the small hours. When he met his friends he had always a good one to tell them and he was always sure to be on to a good thing-that is to say, a likely horse or a likely artiste. He was also handy with the mitts and sang comic songs. There is only a little information about Jack in the story.
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  6. 2 SocialClass From this story we can find how important is social class in the daily life. Our social class will determine how we act or talk. In this story there is part when Mr. Doran worried about how Polly talk if he introduced her to her family or friends. He said Polly was a little vulgar sometimes. Also there is moment when Polly sang on one Sunday night. The lyric is “I’m a naughty girl; you didn’t sham: You know I am”. A high class girl will not sing such that bad song. The high class girl will talk more carefully and the grammar is good too. But the low class girl, such as Polly, she talked carelessly and her grammar is not really good. Social class also influenced the love story in this story. Mr. Doran did not want to marry Polly because he worried if he introduced her to her family or friends. Polly was from low class and he was from high class. So his parents would not accept Polly. We also see how Mrs. Mooney tried to make Mr. Doran marry Polly with her
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  This story tellsabout how a single mother raised her children after divorcing with her husband and make a boarding house. She also took role in her daughter’s love story. The figures in the story have their own character. Their different character makes the story more interested. James Joyce brings the problem of difference social class in this story. After reading the story, the readers will find how the social class influenced how we talk or act. It also influenced the marriage.
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  REFERENCES http://www.gradesaver.com/author/james-joyce (accessed onJune 1, 2016) http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/955/ (accessed on June 1, 2016) http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/d/dubliners/summary-and-analysis/the boarding-house (accessed on June 1, 2016) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_%28arts%29 (accessed on June 5, 2016) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class (accessed on June 5, 2016)