Фильо Ксения, а31н

The text under analysis is entitled “The Boarding House” by James Joyce. According to Wikipedia (www. wikipedia. org), James Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century.

First of all, I suggest focusing on the title of the story. According to the Oxford Dictionary (2017, p. 34) “The Boarding House” means “a house where paying guests are provided with meals and lodging”. This type of house can be a good shelter for wandering people, but if we take a look at it from the other side, the boarding house can also be a place for lonely people who don’t have their own home. It’s like a small country with its own laws and rules which must be followed by the people who live there. Houses of this type are built on a cyclic recurrence: guests come and go, time flies but the rules remain the same. Also, the boarding house symbolizes the power and strength of the main character who is the owner of the place.

The introduction of the story begins with Mrs Mooney. “Mooney” is the author’s neologism which looks like the word “money”. Symbolic meaning of money deals with power, so the reader can think that finance is a highly important thing for her. From this point we can track the formation of the main lexical-semantic field connected with money. This seme can also include such words as: “customer” which means “someone who buys goods or services, especially from a shop” (Collins Dictionary, 2015, p. 55), “to buy” which is “to get something by paying money for it” (Cambridge English Dictionary, 2017, p. 29), “butcher business” – “a dealer in meat” (Collins Dictionary, 2015, p. 53) and “an organization or economic system where goods and services are exchanged for one another or for money” (Business Dictionary, 2014, p. 65) “to pay” is “to give money that is due for work done, goods received, or a debt incurred” (Oxford Dictionary, 2017, p. 112), “shilling” which means “a unit of money used in the past in the UK” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2017, p. 97), “a sum of money” – “an amount of money” (Collins Dictionary, 2015, p. 124).

In the introduction of the story we can learn that Mrs Mooney’s life in marriage wasn’t happy. The author emphasizes this fact with the help of numerous alliteration of the sound [b], which symbolizes aggression and, perhaps, creates an association with the sounds of hits, when Mrs Mooney’s drunk husband was “fighting her in the presence of customers”.

In the setting the reader can see the description of Mr Mooney after his wife has left him. Joyce caricaturally describes him as a “shabby stooped little drunkard” who “ruined his business” which is a metaphor. Multiple inversions and modality makes us understand that now his wife is free and independent, and her husband is weak-willed and helpless in comparison with her. For example: “she would give neither money nor food nor house-room”, “he was obliged…”, “he was waiting to be put on a job” etc. He’s like a will-less puppet whose actions often depend on Mrs Mooney.

She may have endured a difficult marriage and separation, but she now she owns the boarding house. It is worth to mention that Mrs Mooney symbolizes England in this story. She rules in her own “small country”, disposing its inhabitants as her servants and carries the dubious title of The Madam, a term suggestive of her scrupulous managing of the boarding house, but also of the head of a whorehouse. Mrs Mooney does, in fact, prostitute her daughter to some degree. She insists that Polly leave her office job and stay at home at the boarding house, in part so she might entertain, however innocently, the male lodgers. Nonetheless, Polly is not like her mother, and, on the other hand, is similar a lot.

Describing Polly, Joyce uses the alliteration of sound [l]: “ l ight soft hair and a sma ll fu ll mouth”, “... which made her l ook l ike a l itt l e perverse madonna” to show how much life is in this young girl. As we can see, the author also compares her with Madonna but calls her perverse at the same time. According to Wikipedia (www. wikipedia. org) Madonna is rooted from medieval Italian “ma donna”, meaning “my lady” and most commonly refers to Mary, mother of Jesus, a religious figure in Christianity and Islam. Thus, we can say that the expression “perverse madonna” is an oxymoron.

Mrs Mooney does not intervene in Polly’s relationship until the most profitable moment, until she is sure Mr Doran, a successful clerk, must propose to Polly out of social propriety. The name Doran is of Irish origin meaning “stranger, exile”, so we can guess that he represents Ireland. To Mrs Mooney, who represents England, he is a stranger, nonetheless, she insists that men should carry the same responsibility as women in the casual love affairs, and at the same time she prides herself on the ability to rid herself of a dependent daughter so easily.

From the description of Mr. Doran it becomes clear that he may be an educated and successful man. He wears glasses, which is often an indicator of intelligence in literature. But now he is treated as a sinner and he has to make a reparation.

The final scene of the story focuses on Polly daydreaming in her lover’s bedroom, as her mother speaks with him downstairs, but the reader is not privy to their crucial conversation. Thus, we can trace the very cyclic recurrence, which is mentioned in the beginning: Polly is about to repeat the fate of her mother and, perhaps, to marry Mr. Doran. But will this family be happy? The boarding house becomes a trap and Ireland, represented by Doran, follows Madam England’s rules.

⇐ Предыдущая 12