World Lit _ Dubliners by James Joyce

         At first glance, James Joyce’s “Boarding House” might appear as yet another one of those love stories written purely for entertainment. After all, when Polly “made a clean breast of [her relationship with Mr. Doran] to her mother,” it is clear that Mr. Doran must make a choice, probably the biggest one in his life, to either “marry her or run away.” His whole life—his reputation, his job, his future—depends on that one choice, and the readers are anxious to see how the story unravels. However, on the other hand, there apparently is a bigger scheme behind this situation, deliberately laid out by Mrs. Mooney and, as it turns out, Polly herself too: they intentionally “did not intervene” with the problem so that Mr. Doran, a man of higher class than Polly, would be left with no choice but to marry Polly. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that “Boarding House” is written not for entertainment but to raise awareness of the reality where marriage is not anymore (has it ever been?) the result of true affections and feelings for each other but is used as a means to satisfy secular goals. In this sense, Mr. Doran was manipulated by Polly and Mrs. Mooney (with her own set of marriage problems) through how “everyone [knew] everyone else’s business” in Dublin. And however true his feelings for Polly might have been, he was in the end bound to an affectionless marriage.
         It seems that in James Joyce’s “Clay,” nothing much happens; it depicts Maria’s visit to Joe’s house for Halloween. Maria buys some cake to share with Joe’s family on her way, arrives at Joe’s house, and has fun with the people there. To us, this is only a series of ordinary, everyday things that can happen anytime, even if it isn’t Halloween. But in fact, this is a very special occasion for Maria, a big deviation from her routine life. Thus, she dresses not casually but as “she [had] used to dress for mass on Sunday morning when she was a young girl;” at Downes’s cake shop, she “wanted to buy something really nice,” and spends a long time pondering which ones to buy. When she found that she lost the cake, she “nearly cried outright.” From such behavior of regarding trivial events as very special, it is more plausible to conclude that this story pokes at how people are so immersed in routine lives. Joyce probably preferred to have more dynamic lives; to that end, he writes that when Maria—the symbol of people of routine—laughed, “the tip of her nose nearly met the tip of her chin.” This is impossible; it almost is a deformation of the face rather than a laugh. This conveys that when one goes through the same cycle of events over and over, part of him or her is already dead, and thus it is hard to properly appreciate life.

World Lit Reading Journal 1_"The Student" by Anton Chekhov

From time to time, students, stressed out at having to memorize years and names for history tests, pose the question: history’s all about what’s already passed; why do we learn it? As an answer to this, many people say that we do because we can look back on the past to make wise choices in the future. This thought apparently seems to be exactly what is portrayed in “The Student” (1894) by Anton Chekhov.

In the story, Ivan—the student—talks about a scene from the Twelve Gospels to the two widows: Jesus is taken to the high priest’s yard for questioning and is beaten, but Apostle Peter, although knowing what is happening to Jesus, denies his connection with Him despite his intense love for Him. Although not explicitly shown by the author, we can draw a parallel between this scene and the widows’ situation. It is mentioned that the daughter, Lukerya, had constantly been beaten by her husband in the past. And towards the end of the story, it is Vasilisa, the mother, who sheds tears just as Peter did, and Lukerya seems to be “enduring intense pain.” With Vasilisa as Peter and Lukerya as Jesus, it can be inferred that Vasilisa, who should be in a place to protect and love her daughter the most as her mother, had failed to protect Lukerya from the beating and thus is feeling responsible at listening to Ivan talking about the scene from the Twelve Gospels.

Ivan learns from this that the similar things happen over and over, even over an interval of multiple centuries, governed by the same human instincts and needs. This explains why the same poverty, hunger and desolation have persisted through the times of Rurik and Ivan the Terrible as they are now, as mentioned in the beginning. However, Ivan in the end returns home full of expectations of the future—“the inexpressible sweet expectation of happiness.” This can only be because Ivan has also realized that as long as he does not become another Vasilisa—that is, as long as he looks to the past and take care not to make the same mistakes other people have made before—he could expect a new future, one totally different from what has happened in the past as a part of the chain of events repeating itself.

Written during the hard times, “The Student” tells people to look to the past precedents for a way to grow out of poverty and hunger. It works just the same today. Knowing which choices others made before, along with their outcomes, in similar situations, we can either choose to make the same choice or a different choice. History is not just a bunch of numbers and names to memorize—it is ironic that I, who was never really interested in history, am saying this—but a valuable database from which we can get advice on how to act for a better future.