‘A More Spacious Age’: Reimagining the City in Dubliners

Abstract

During Little Chandler’s brisk walk to meet his friend Ignatius Gallaher at the beginning of ‘A Little Cloud’, we are confronted with a remarkable account of his emotional and perceptual experience of the cityscape that is symptomatic of the characters in these stories, and which reveals much about their relationship to the city as a lived space. Describing the wealthy customers that normally frequent the bar where Chandler will meet Gallaher, we are told:

He had always passed without turning his head to look. It was his habit to walk swiftly in the street even by day, and whenever he found himself in the city late at night he hurried on his way apprehensively and excitedly. Sometimes, however, he courted the causes of his fear. He chose the darkest and narrowest streets and, as he walked boldly forward, the silence that was spread about his footsteps troubled him; the wandering, silent figures troubled him; and at times a sound of low fugitive laughter made him tremble like a leaf. (D 72)