Identity Trouble in “The Dead" (1914) and A Portrait of The Artist as A Young Man (1916) Of James Joyce

Abstract

The issue of identity has always been one of primary themes in Irish writings since the early twentieth century. In this research, I tried to takle the identity crisis in the short story “The Dead” form Dubliners and the novel: A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”. In the first fiction, the protagonist Gabriel Conroy seems to surroundings from whom he received several clashes during the party thrown by his two ants. And at the end, he felt frustrated and tried to rebuild his own identity and reconnect with others. Whereas the second fiction deals with a young Irish growing up man from the 20th Century, whose research for knowledge and understanding, then, his family’s circumstances’ decline led him to revelations of the nature of art and politics. Hence, he decided to leave his nation to persue his dreams and rebuild his own identity. Therefore, we come up to deduce from the two works that social constraints, misconnections with others and self-imposed exile may reinforce the identity formation process and represent a strong stimulus of overcoming identity trouble. Thus, James Joyce succeeded in depicting the identity trouble in his two works.