Garry Leonard's Dubliners Analysis
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Garry Leonard’s “Dubliners” is a critique of James Joyce’s Dubliners. Leonard uses his critique is used as a mean to both inform any potential readers and thoroughly analyze Joyce’s style of writing in his book. Some important points that Leonard address to his audience is that Joyce’s stories never give a reader the happily ever after ending. Most of the time, the reader ends up with more questions than answers after finishing a James Joyce writing. For the common person, that would make a story seem undesirable to read but Leonard points out that this is the norm for any Joyce reading and it is what helps him become such a successful writer. Additionally, Leonard talks about the complexity of Dubliners and how it takes several readings to fully understand the big picture. In Leonard’s critique, he explains that Dubliners has a subtle intent to install Irish nationalism onto readers. At first glance, any short story from Dubliners would seem like any ordinary story with an empty ending. However, Leonard stated that after multiple readings, one can start to recognize hints of Joyce’s regard for Ireland as an incredible country that is being tied down by British colonization. For example, Leonard stated that in Araby, “…the shop girl is English, implying the goods themselves are yet another way for England to profit from the chronically dissatisfied citizens of colonial Ireland.” (Leonard, 91). For a story that appears to have minimal political agenda, Araby, uses subtle