JAMES JOYCE’S DUBLINERS: “ALL MAY NOT BE AS IT SEEMS” IN “CLAY” AND “EVELINE”

James Joyce’s Dubliners (1914) presents a comprehensive picture of the city and its inhabitants from a multi-dimensional perspective and throws light on the aspirations, fears and anxieties of the characters. For the aim of this paper, the short stories “Clay” and “Eveline” are chosen since they complement each other in terms of following a chronological scheme – while “Clay” is one of Joyce’s stories of maturity, “Eveline” is placed among those of adolescence. Maria in “Clay” is an elderly woman who longs for an ideal family that she has long missed, on the other hand Eveline is a young woman who longs for an escape from the oppressive atmosphere of her home – yet they both fail. Accordingly, by juxtaposing Maria and Eveline against each other, it is attempted to illustrate the way in which Joyce delves into the inner world of these two women figures and shows how they both suffer from not being able to choose life. Moreover, it is also intended to analyse the link between what Joyce constructs on a simple basis, and what he insinuates through various ambivalences, gaps and ironies in both stories