Social Symbolism In James Joyce's The Encounters

It is undeniable that, in Dubliners, the theme of the dream of evasion and of the impossibility of escaping Dublin is present in the cycle of stories. Yet, due to the simple fact that Dubliners is meant to be a work of social protest against the city’s society, its intended audience are the Dubliners. This aspect of the work makes its understanding, by a non-Dubliner (even if Irish) impossible, due to the fact that Joyce extensively uses geography both to convey and enhance the themes of each story. The misunderstanding of the geographic scenario of the work, both when it is implicit and explicit, does not only prevent the understanding of the themes, but also the erroneous perception of unintended themes. The three main features that inhibit

The portrayal of landmarks in order to convey a particular idea is particularly prominent in the story “An Encounter”. As the boys walk through the city, they pass a number of landmarks such as Gardiner Street and Belvedere college, which denote social ambition, help creating the tone and the mood of the story. This literary technique is not limited to streets and buildings, as even the topographic features of Dublin are used to the aforementioned end (such as the Liffey river, which is used to enforce the comparison between the boy’s travel and Odysseus’s). Just like the movement of the characters, this feature of the stories can be not understood and completely disregarded by a non-Dubliner. Yet, due to the fact that the description of the panorama is so prominent in most stories, a non-Dubliner could understand the importance of such landmarks as symbols, yet misinterpret their meaning. For instance, Belvedere college could be seen as an example of the Catholic church’s power in Ireland, which is a plausible interpretation of the landmark, but not the one that Joyce meant to install in the