My take on "A Little Cloud"

"A Little Cloud" was my favorite story in James Joyce's Dubliners. I think that Little Chandler is one of the most moving characters I've ever encountered.


In James Joyce’s own words, Dubliners is a collection of stories about paralysis, and the story of Little Chandler is no exception. In A Little Cloud, Joyce criticizes poor Chandler’s inability to pursue his self-proclaimed fate as a poet. The passage in which Chandler “tries to weight his soul to see if it was a poet’s soul,” is an example of the contradiction and indecision that paralyzes Chandler and keeps him deeply rooted in Dublin. The juxtaposition of Gallaher with Little Chandler later in the story only exemplifies how immobilized in his familiar lifestyle Little Chandler really is. From his idolization of Gallaher, to his thinking him a show off, Little Chandler is another character of Dublin stuck in a life they wish to escape.

One of the first implications of Dublin as an old, dusty, inescapable island where dreams perish is when Little Chandler thinks to himself, “There was no doubt about it: if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin.” It is very contradictory for Little Chandler to think such a thing, as he thinks himself a great potential poet yet as we are reminded later he has never left Ireland. As Little Chandler continues to fantasize about his melancholy poet’s soul, he even makes up the raving reviews he will someday receive from his critics: “Mr. Chandler has the gift of ease and graceful verse…A wistful sadness pervades these poems…The Celtic note.” Joyce has Chandler clearly outline for us exactly what he considers a poet, and yet his actions completely counteract his standard. As his supposed critic, Little Chandler has made reference to the “ease” of writing, the value of “sadness,” and an overall “grace.” Unfortunately, in weighting his soul, Little Chandler robotically lists off the attributes he believes Mr. Chandler the poet would have. “Melancholy was the dominant note of his temperament…He would never be popular, he saw that…The English critics perhaps would recognize him as one of the Celtic school by reason of his melancholy tone…besides that he would put in allusions.” This is a very empirical, and hypocritical, path of logic for a poet’s soul to pursue.

As soon as Joyce pulls Little Chandler out of his day dream, the conclusion of his poetic ponderings is that, “He would speak to Gallaher about it.” This consideration is a mere hint of the idolization Chandler has for Gallaher, which is presented more prominently later. Little Chandler greets his friend as “old hero,” perhaps because Gallaher embodies all that Little Chandler admires in an artist’s soul. This story is told through free indirect discourse, so as Joyce’s narrative progresses, the reader is taken along with every sway of Little Chandler’s temperament. This form enhances the fluctuating forces that are working within Little Chandler, paralyzing him. Prior to meeting Gallaher, Chandler had revered him as sort of idol and mentor, yet upon meeting the old friend in a bar Little Chandler seems to react to the rendezvous with defensiveness and a feeling of being looked down upon. At the bar Gallaher says, “I’m deuced glad, I can tell you, to be back in the old country,” and goes on to describe his trip as a “holiday” to “dear dirty Dublin.” This, coupled with a nonchalant reprimand to Chandler for watering down his alcohol, leads us to feel the blows that these actions are to Chandler’s pride.

As the two gentlemen reminisce about old times and the old crew a man called O’Hara comes up. When Gallaher asks what their old friend was up to, Little Chandler replies, with an air of superiority, “Nothing…He’s gone to the dogs.” This, once again, is a demonstration of Chandler’s hypocrisy, as he is a law clerk who has never once bothered picking up a book or writing a poem to achieve his dream, he feels it is acceptable to speak of others’ wasted lives. As Gallaher mentions Chandler’s never having left Ireland, he goes on to explain the excitement of different cities, like London and Paris. As Gallaher brags of his exotic encounters and bohemian lifestyle, “Little Chandler was astonished.”This astonishment could quite stem from his utter lack of worldly experience, and he defends his inexperience to Gallaher with accusations of immorality and sin in most foreign countries. Not only is Chandler trapped in “dear dirty Dublin,” by his inability to pursue his fantasies, but also by his moral qualms with all other, unknown lands. This is Joyce’s subtle reference to the paralyzing effects of the Catholic Church. Gallaher, a man who does not fear retribution for immortality, is also the man who is free to live his life, and explore his world, while Little Chandler amounts to nothing in Dublin.

Throughout their conversation, Chandler and Gallaher seem to be going back and forth with subtle evaluations of the other’s life situation. Gallaher dismisses the possibility that he, like Little Chandler, will one day settle down with a wife. Gallaher claims that being with one woman “must get a bit stale,” after just congratulating Chandler on his recent marriage. Upon his departure, Gallaher mentions that he might “take a little skip over here,” referring to a future visit to Dublin. Little Chandler replies with language of certainty: “the next time you come.” The language Joyce chose for Chandler to say expressed his assumption that Gallaher would in fact return, and not be free of Dublin. Gallaher’s next remark, “yes…next year if I come,” is made to reinforce his true freedom of Dublin. The “if” represents a possibility of escape that is not present in Little Chandler’s life. Little Chandler has never left Ireland, so there is absolutely no uncertainty in the reader’s mind that he will remain paralyzed in Dublin. Chandler, once more, says to Gallaher, “When you come back next year,” for the only world Gallaher can exist in to Chandler is the one world he has ever know, Dublin.

Little Chandler goes right back to reality when he leaves the bar. Joyce jumps completely in his narrative from the old friends’ last exchange in the bar right to Chandler in his home with his sleeping child in his arms. This precise form evokes in the reader the huge gap that exists for Little Chandler between the natures of these two antithetical situations. From the “adventure of meeting Gallaher after eight years,” Little Chandler’s home life is anything but adventure. He stares into his wife’s eyes in a photograph, and interprets her look, coldly, as “having something mean in it.” He turns to a volume of Lord Byron’s poems for comfort, and in straining to turn the page he awakes the child in his arms. Thus, the telling summation of the entire underlying issue in Little Chandler’s life crosses his mind: “He was a prisoner of life.” His uncontrollable shout of “Stop!” and then the numbness he seems to be feeling when his wife takes a hysterical baby from his arms seem to make Little Chandler one on Joyce’s most pitiful characters ever. “Little Chandler felt his cheeks suffused with shame…and tears of remorse started to his eyes.” Little Chandler was, indeed, a prisoner of his own life, and would remain trapped forever by the paralyzing forces of Dublin.