Irish National Culture As A Redemptive Means In Joyce’s Dubliners

James Joyce’s Dubliners is a work both intensely local and broadly cosmopolitan. Joyce began to write in 1905 and got it published in 1914 after several frustrating delays, Dubliners is a realistic work of "a moral history of Ireland" representing "dear dirty Dublin" with its "scrupulous meanness". The 15 stories demonstrate the paralysis and degeneration of the spiritual life of middle-class Irish people. Yet besides the critique, we can also see Joyce’s love of his homeland.This paper attempts to look at music, drink and literature in Dubliners as the return of Irish native culture. The frequent mention of the three representatives and their key roles for the characters in text and Irish people in context can justify Joyce’s steadfast love of homeland and keen call on the return of domestic culture.In the first chapter, the music in Dubliners is analyzed through two aspects:Joyce’s love towards music and the positive function of music. Joyce’s style owes a great deal to his ideas about music. Musical allusions in Joyce’s writings may be listed under two headings:allusions through citation and allusions through parody or pastiche. We can have a glance at the characters of Irish people and culture through the music in these stories. Ireland is endowed with a long and brilliant history of music which, in many cases, inspires a spiritual epiphany for the protagonists of Dubliners.In the second chapter, the varieties of drink and its function---stimulating epiphany are discussed. The consumption of alcoholic beverages has a long history in Europe. There were multiple kinds of drink in Ireland in the 19th century, including stout, whiskey and so forth. In Joyce’s eyes, drinks become the bond of maintaining social relation and catalyst of inspiration besides the function of thirst-quenching and anesthesia. Secondly, the pub, as a public place gathering citizens, exists as a set union of mass activities and gathering of stories. In Dubliners, epiphany occurs along with drink in many cases just like inspiration along with Joyce resorts into the characters in stories.In the third chapter, the aesthetics of literary works under the historical tradition and background in Dubliners is explained. According to Joyce, the literary art, "offered the division most clearly", thus it was the most excellent art. The Celtic Goddess is the archetype of some figures in Dubliners in spite of some distinctions. And Joyce depicts Dublin in a realistic and sarcastic way against the ideas of Irish Literary Revivalists at that time.In conclusion, it can never be ignored that the history of Irish music, drink and literature has vital importance in the country. Judged from Joyce’s devotion to these elements, their significance brings to the characters in Dubliners is obvious:they revoke the passion and inspiration of "paralyzed" Dubliners, which is their self-redemptive means. Furthermore, Joyce’s conservative approval of domestic culture is implied. Dubliner, as numbers of critics have shown, establishes a frame of the life, a sketch of the society and a vision of the country.