Sample essay questions on Dubliners

1. What role(s) do women play in Dubliners? Choose three stories and compare/contrast different female characters.
    
2. How is death treated in Dubliners; what different roles – both metaphorical and literal – does death play? Discuss The Dead and two other stories.
    
3. What different narrative voices does Joyce use? What different effects do these have? Compare and contrast three different stories.
    
4. In what ways is The Sisters a suitable beginning to Dubliners, and in what ways is The Dead a suitable ending?
    
5. Choose three stories and explain how the theme of paralysis figures in each one.
    
6. What role(s) does religion play in Dubliners? Compare and contrast at least three different stories.
    
7. Joyce wrote Dubliners whilst he was in self-imposed exile in Europe. How do different stories deal with the theme of home and/or away? Compare and contrast at least 3 different stories.
    
8. Dubliners is often seen as paralleling the passage from childhood to maturity. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Provide evidence for your claims from at least three different stories.
    
9. Some critics argue that there are different levels of meaning in Dubliners and that everyday objects have symbolic significance. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Provide evidence for your claims from at least three different stories.
    
10. What role(s) does politics play in Dubliners? Compare and contrast at least three different stories.
     
11. How is Ireland depicted – both metaphorically and literally – in Dubliners? Compare and contrast at least three different stories.
     
12. How far can the structure of Dubliners help us to understand its meaning(s)? Look at Dubliners as a whole and also pick out two to three stories to discuss in more detail.

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