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Joyce: "The Dead"

Because St. Patrick's Day would be incomplete without some James Joyce!

Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall-door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest. It was well for her she had not to attend to the ladies also. But Miss Kate and Miss Julia had thought of that and had converted the bathroom upstairs into a ladies' dressing-room. Miss Kate and Miss Julia were there, gossiping and laughing and fussing, walking after each other to the head of the stairs, peering down over the banisters and calling down to Lily to ask her who had come.

A few thoughts on this famous opening paragraph. One thing that leaps out: Lily is actually not a main character in this story. But James Joyce seems to want to be God-like, and to dip in and out of several perspectives. Also, starting in Lily's frame of mind allows Joyce to call attention to details that other party participants might miss: "the wheezy hall-door bell," "the bare hallway," "the little pantry behind the office."

Joyce slips into Lily's frame of mind so fully that he makes a deliberate error: Of course Lily is *not* "literally" run off her feet. But an excitable girl might make that error--the misuse of "literally"--and the narrator has entered the girl's perspective. You see this also in the relentless syntax: The omission of commas makes you feel as if someone is "running you off your feet." "Gossiping and laughing and fussing." "Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office...and helped him....than the bell clanged again and...." Also, "scamper" adds to the drama. If Lily were not a kid, perhaps she would not feel compelled to "scamper."

Joyce doesn't bother to introduce us to the caretaker--and the caretaker isn't important, except as a prop. By tagging Lily as "the caretaker's daughter," Joyce is suggesting that people maybe don't see Lily as a full person yet; she is known simply by her relation to someone else, someone older. "But I'm not conventional," Joyce seems to say. "I empathize with and pay attention to everyone--even the caretaker's daughter."

This is an exciting opening, despite the fact that it's just describing a party. Joyce makes you *feel* Lily's breathlessness. The world becomes new again. We feel a weird sort of deference toward "Miss Kate" and "Miss Julia," simply because that's what Lily feels. Let the festivities begin....
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