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Clarity and Obscurity in James Joyce and Italo Svevo: The Theme of Maturation and Development in 'The Dead' and Una vita

The paper explores the theme of maturation and development in Joyce’ s 'The Dead’ , the last and best known short story in Dubliners, and in Svevo’ s Una vita, his first novel. I argue that the 'maturation’ of Joyce's Gabriel Conroy and of Svevo's Alfonso Nitti can be perceived as a mingling of two opposing states of mind. Both protagonists experience a constant alternation of feelings of superiority and inferiority. My initial hypothesis is that the sense of superiority produces self-awareness and clarity of vision, whereas the feeling of inferiority provokes negative emotions of worthlessness which bring about a lack of perspective and obscurity of meaning. It is my contention that a comparative study of the two writers brings out this dialectic particularly acutely. The final epiphanies of the two characters indicate, however, that, in the case of both writers, clarity does not exist without obscurity.

maturation; development; clarity of vision; lack of perspective; superiority; inferiority

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