So, what if the Dubliners had instagram? Do you think it would be dark, dirty and depressing like Joyce’s book depicts? Or is there some way that it could possibly be bright, clean and cheery?
Even though Dublin is depicted to us as being a place where there are never happy endings and it is always dark and nobody is happy, I don’t think that is what they would be posting on instagram. So, I would like to make the case that if they did have instagram it might not be too much different than instagram is today in our culture.
Think about it, do you always get what you want? Are you always happy? Is life always sunny? Most of us would probably answer no to most, if not all of those questions. So are we really that different from the people that live in Dublin?
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that even though we are so used to reading stories with encouraging story lines and happy endings, I don’t think that is actually how life is all of the time.
Maybe we really aren’t always as happy as our instagrams make us look. Maybe we are just getting one persons biased perspective of Dublin. Or maybe I’m wrong.
What do you think?
3 Comments
Ellie · September 20, 2022 at 5:43 am
This is such an interesting concept! I agree that the characters would probably act like most of us do on social media, painting our lives to appear better than they really are. It’s so true that real life often doesn’t have happy endings or even happy middles, but we certainly want everyone to anticipate our happy ending.
Maura · September 20, 2022 at 3:29 pm
This is a cool thought! It’s something to think about. I think we are used to reading happy stories with happy endings, and maybe it’s because of this that we are disapointed by life when it isn’t happy. Maybe Joyce is onto something.
Brian Croxall · September 20, 2022 at 6:58 pm
An interesting idea, Kaden. What strikes me as potentially apropos is that Instagram tends to be about ourselves whereas Dubliners tends to be about other people. We aren’t really seeing Joyce in these stories, and perhaps that’s one reason why he’s willing to paint the pictures that he does.