Mapping: Dubliners

The aim of this project was to map three of the stories from James Joyce's Dubliners (Araby, Clay, and Eveline), and make observations about what is added or taken away from the stories by the mapping process. I chose these three stories because they all share a similar theme of wanting love and of self growth through a failure to find the love the protagonists of these stories seek. For the mapping process I used google maps and tried to make a point of every location mentioned in the stories to the best of my ability. Unfortunately some of the settings described in the stories are not named and are therefore not on the maps. The protagonist of these stories also traveled by tram which is not map-able with google maps so I used the train system of Dublin to the best of my abilities to compensate for this. The mapping process of these stories was often very tedious and presented some unique challenges, but looking at all three maps helps to draw conclusions from the stories that otherwise may go unnoticed.

Mapping Araby definitely aided in understanding the story because it allows you to see how far the protagonist was travelling in effort to impress the girl he was so infatuated with. When reading the story the reader doesn't really get much of a sense of how far this young boy travels alone late at night in Dublin. It was also very interesting just being able to look in street view and follow the route that  he took to get to the train and eventually go to the bazaar. Araby was probably the easiest story to map simply because the story makes a good point of using street names and train stations to describe the route the boy took on his journey. The only difficulty in mapping Araby was mapping the actual location of the bazaar. Overall, the mapping of Araby was fairly simple, but looking at the map really helps the reader to appreciate the distance traveled by the protagonist and aides in making his self reflection at the end of the story more emotional.

The mapping process for Eveline was by far the most difficult story to map, but the size of the map helps put into scope the world that Eveline is facing.Although the physical journey of Eveline is not possible to map being able to go into google maps and use street view to see the dock that the story tragically ends at really adds to the story. The visualization attainable by utilizing google street view really helps to flesh out the story and its very interesting to think about how Dublin used to look and compare that idea to what it looks like now. The mapping of the story was very difficult, however I think that being able to actually see the setting of the story makes the story more emotionally charged because it is easier to visualize.

The mapping of Clay proved to be very challenging, but it showed me of the same rewards that came with mapping Araby and Eveline. The biggest addition the map added was clarity about the physical journey that Maria took because she was a very mobile character. Being able to see the route she took made the story easier to visualize after reading it again. The mapping process did present a few challenges though; namely the fact that Maria took the tram on her journey. Because she took the tram I did my best to trace her tram route on the train tracks in Dublin. Another quirk that I encountered while mapping her Journey was her stop at the Pillar was impossible to map because the Pillar was destroyed in 1966. Despite these obstacles, mapping Clay was an overall rewarding process when it came to visualizing the story.

Looking at all of the maps helps the reader to draw conclusions that otherwise may have gone unnoticed. First of all, all of the stories follow a linear path, none of them circle back to the place they began. This parallels the growth that each character experiences as a failure to find the love that they desire. This linear path shows that the transformation that each character goes through is irreversible, the young boy in Araby realizing his search for love was in vain, the inability of Eveline to leave her "not so bad" life, and Maria's perpetual loneliness are all significant events that the characters must come to terms with. Also, every story begins and ends in the greater Dublin area. This is easy to pick up on when reading the stories, but the maps offer a better view of this. The fact that the stories all begin and end in Dublin shows an inability of the characters to leave their home despite their best efforts, with some exception for the young boy in Araby. The closest any character gets to leaving Dublin would be Eveline until her fear of the world paralyzes her and she watches her love leave without her. Maria's only escape from Dublin would be her foreshadowed death by her placing her hand in the clay when she plays the Halloween game. The significance of these facts is that they may symbolize James Joyce's own beliefs that Ireland at the time was being oppressed by Britain and by the Catholic Church making Ireland like a prison with no way out. Overall, having the ability to look at all three maps together helps to draw some in depth conclusions that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Going into this project I was very unsure of what I would find, but I think the results were very interesting. The mapping process although challenging proved to be very rewarding. I think it would be interesting to see all of the stories mapped to see if more of these maps could help support the conclusions I drew from these maps as well as maybe revealing some that could not be observed with only these three maps.