A Postcolonial Perspective On Irish Male Characters’Self-Identity In James Joyce’s Dubliners

James Joyce is a literary giant and one of the most important and influential novelists of the20th century. His experimentation with language and form, particularly the stream of consciousness technique, has exerted profound influence on the world literature. Joyce left his beloved country at a young age and spent almost all his life in foreign countries. His exile provides him with a critical distance from which he sees Ireland more closely and clearly. He expresses his strong and mixed feeling toward Ireland and Irish people in his novels, including the short story collection Dubliners.Previous studies of Dubliners mainly focus on Irish people’s paralysis under the colonial system, and have neglected the possibility of their awakening of self-consciousness and their reconstruction of self-identities. Accordingly, they have also neglected Joyce’s positive attitude toward Ireland. Previous post-colonial studies of this story collection focus mainly on the female characters of the stories, analyzing women’s "Other" position and their oppressed condition, and have neglected the pathetic existence of Irish men in Dublin.Adopting the postcolonial perspective, the thesis focuses its study on the issue of self-identity of the Irish men in Dubliners, trying to delineate the process of Irish men’s loss of self-identity, awakening to self-identity and search for self-identity, thus revealing the apocalyptic significance of the story collection to Irish salvation.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One briefly introduces James Joyce and his Dubliners, summarizes the previous studies of Dubliners both at home and abroad, and explains the structure and focus of the thesis.Chapter Two analyzes Irish men’s loss of self-identity under the colonial rule. It first exhibits the "Other" position of the Irish men in Dubliners in aspects of economy, ethnicity and culture, and then reveals Irish men’s pathetic existence characterized by aphasia and castration.Chapter Three traces Irish men’s awakening to self-identity. Through the glass of Orientalism, and their own retrospection and epiphany, the Irish men in Dublin become aware of the falsity of their identity constructed by the colonizers, which in turn helps them recognize their national identity.Chapter Four discusses the various ways of Irish men’s search for self-identity, and points out the changes that are taking place in the Irish men. They change from "the Other" to the disrupter of the hegemonic discourse. In the collision of the British and Irish cultures, they try to find a new identity, a hybrid identity.Chapter Five is the conclusion. It summarizes the previous discussions and restates that, though the Irish men in Dubliners are put into "the Other" position, they still attempt to disrupt the hegemonic discourse and to find and rebuild their Irish identity. Though their awakening and search are still in the budding stage and Dublin men have not enjoyed a complete success in rebuild their self-identity, the story collection has indeed shown Joyce’s positive attitude toward and reflection on the Irish nation and culture.