Analysis of the short stories clay and counterparts by James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (1882 – 1941) was one of the most influential and innovative writers of the 20th century. James Joyce was noted for his experimental use of structure and language in the novels, representing the Irish reality in a very peculiar way (Deane 1990: 38-39). He is famous for his masterpiece Ulysses, the collection of short stories Dubliners, as well as the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and its polemic successor Finnegans Wake (see: http://bookstove.com).
Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories which was published in 1914. The stories are placed in four chronological groups: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life (Drabble 2000: 303). Each of the 15 stories presents the paralyzed society of Dublin, as James Joyce wrote, “For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal” (see: http://www.ireland101.com). Every story in Dubliners is significant according to the use of themes: paralysis, religion and death which will be revealed in this paper.