“Dubliners” is a collection of fifteen short stories written by James Joyce in which the author analyses the failure of self-realisation of inhabitants of Dublin in biographical and in psychological ways. The novel was originally turned down by publishers because they considered it immoral for its portrait of the Irish city. Joyce treats in “Dubliners” the paralysis of will in four stages: childhood, youth, maturity and public life. The paralysis of will is the courage and self-knowledge that leads ordinary men and women to accept the limitations imposed by the social context they live in. In “Dubliners” the style is both realistic - to the degree of perfectly recreating characters and idioms of contemporary Dublin - and symbolic – giving the common object unforeseen depth and a new meaning in order to show a new view of reality. Joyce defines this effect “epiphany” which indicates that moment when a simple fact suddenly explodes with meaning and makes a person realise his / her condi...
When Queen Elizabeth I died without leaving a direct heir, the throne of England went to James I, who ruled at the same time Scotland as James VI. He believed in the divine right of kings to rule and in the subjection of Parliament to the king's will. Moreover, he imposed as requisite to hold public office the conformity of a person to the rites of Anglican Church. In result of it, Catholics and Puritans were excluded. For this reason, English Catholics organized the Gunpowder Plot , so-called because they tried to blow up the king and Parliament session. The plot was denounced and Catholics were executed. Meanwhile, Puritans were persecuted and a group of them, called the Pilgrim Fathers, sailed to America, where they founded New Plymouth in Massachusetts. Charles I, James I 's son and successor, continued his father's policy. He dissolved Parliament and ruled the country as an absolute monarch. Foreign difficulties obliged king to establish a Parliament in April 1640 fo...