The Dubliners Monotonous Web

If there is one thing that the characters from James Joyce's, Dubliners have in common, it is the paralyzing boredom of routine. Many of them wish to escape from this routine but find themselves trapped. While making a concentrated effort to break free from this routine, some of the characters meet with the lasting effects of their adventure, as seen in "An Encounter" when the narrator realizes that even at his attempt to escape, he will forever be trapped by routine. Because the Dubliners allow routine to rule their lives, they end up detained, like Little Chandler in A Little Cloud, who holds regret towards the somber repetition and banality of his life: this becomes his personal paralysis that he is too passive to overcome. While some of the characters try to escape their routines, others, such as Mr. Duffy in "A Painful Case", choose to embrace it. The constant normality in his life leads him to self isolation; a paralysis he consciously chooses. Mr Duffy voluntarily becomes a prisoner of his own life. Lastly, Joyce's incorporation of routine in "The Dead" is seen in Gabriel's preservation of a constant inability to desire novelty; in a way, he builds his own routine in order to exhibit his need for everyone around him to be safe. Joyce uses Gabriel as the narrator of all the Dubliner's death sentences of routine. To James Joyce, routine is the main reason why the people of Dublin are caught in their monotonous webs.

"But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad." The characters in An Encounter find themselves in the routine of expectedness. They are expected to go to school, to read the right novels, to follow the right religion and most vigorously: they are expected to be ordinary children from Dublin. Joe Dillon and the narrator of the story find the need to break free from this routine. Their concentrated effort results to their escape to Dublin for a day; they flee from what is expected of them. A failure at an attempt of escaping routine is inherent in Joyce's short story An Encounter. Even though both children wish to escape from their routine, they cease their adventure when they encounter a strange, perverted old man. The discomfort the narrator feels while discussing rather inappropriate matters that are brought up by this intruder, leads the two children to putting an end to their adventure. The man in this story is the external force of paralysis while the pressure of school and religion is the internal one. Ultimately, their failed escape symbolizes a renunciation to their routine. Joyce explores the idea that although people yearn for escape and adventure, routine is inevitable.

In A Little Cloud, Little Chandler is somewhat a character in complete opposition from the narrater in An Encounter. He does not lead a roaming life; he is the idea of the conventional character. Little Chandler is paralyzed by his inability to wander away from his ordinary life. Although his dream has always been to become a poet, he never finds the force to pick up a book on his shelf and read about his passion for poetry. "He remembered the books of poetry upon his shelves at home. He had bought them in his bachelor days and many an eventing, as he sat in the little room of the hall, he had been tempted to take one down from the bookshelf and read out something to his wife. But shyness always held him back; and so the books had remained on the shelves." The untouched books on the Little Chandler's shelves symbolize his unconquered life. They are physically present for him to discover but he prefers to