Main Themes: Dubliners

The Stages of Life: Dubliners is roughly organized into a framework chronicling a human life: we begin with younger protagonists, and then move forward into stories with increasingly aged men and women. Although this is a broad generalization, the stories also tend to increase in complexity. "Araby," "An Encounter," and "Eveline," for example, are fairly simple and short tales. "The Dead," the final tale of the collection, is nearly three times as long as the …

…the only ones to deal with mortality. Dubliners begins with "The Sisters," a story about a young child's first intimate experience with death. Thus the collection begins and ends with the theme of mortality. The preoccupation with mortality puts a bleak spin on the themes of stasis and paralysis: although it often feels in Dublin like time isn't moving, Joyce reminds us that the steady crawl toward death is one movement we can count on.