A Little Cloud: Review

A Little Cloud

Context in Dubliners: This is the first section in Maturity

A brief synopsis

It has been eight years that Little Chandler and his friend, Gallaher have seen each other. While Little Chandler walks to the bar to meet up with his friend, he wonders how much he is impressed with Gallaher’s writing career. He loves poetry; nonetheless, he gave it all up when he got married. While they are sitting at the bar, drinking whiskey and smoking cigars, both Gallaher and Little Chandler talks about foreign cities, marriages and their future.

Little Chandler is amazed how bad Gallaher looks. Galleher blames its on stress. Gallaher states that he rather has bunch of women rather than being bored with one. After the long conversation, Gallaher have to leave. Later that night, Little Chandler watches his son while waiting for his wife to come home. He sits and wonders; questioning his marriage. When his wife finally arrives home, she scream at Little Chandler, which made Little Chandler realize that what he was thinking was reckless.

Character List

• Gallaher: An old friend of Little Chandler.A man that Little Chandler is jealous because of his successful in pursing his dream in a writing career and foreign traveler.
• Little Chandler: A married man who gave up his dream as a writer for the woman he married. After seeing his old friend Gallaher, Little Chandler thinks and wonders that if he hasn’t got married. He would have followed his dream. His epiphany that made him realize that he like the way he is right now and he will never change his life.

Religious Connotations/symbols

• “Little Chandler allowed his whisky to be very much diluted” (60). . Shows that he have very high expectation
• “‘You’re the very same serious person that used to lecture me on Sunday mornings when I had a sore…’” (61). i. Sunday signify as the day people would go to church.

Example of Figurative Language

• “The light and noise of the bar held him at the doorways for a few moments” (60).
•  “He looked coldly into the eyes of the photograph and they answered coldly. Certainly they were pretty and the face itself was pretty…. those dark oriental eyes, he thought, how full they are od passion, of voluptuous longing!… hy had he married the eyes in the photograph” (66). This lead him to question himself to why did he marry his wife.

Significant Quotes

• “He remembered the books of poetry upon his shelves at home. He had bought them in his bachelor days and many an evening, as he sat in the little room of the hall, he had been tempted to take one down from the bookshelf and read out something to his wife. But shyness always held him back, and so the books had remained on their shelves” (58). The passion for becoming a poet has disappeared because he left it all behind for his wife. He would always daydream about having a life as a poet, which in turn led him to question about his marriage. Nonetheless, he felt remorse about this.
• “Little Chandler felt his cheeks suffused with shame and he stood back out of the lamplight. He listened while the paroxysm of the child’s sobbing grew less and less, and tears of remorse started to his eyes” (67). This is when Little Chandler has his epiphany.

Theme

Love over passion 8. Tone: envious a. The tone is envious because after Little Chandler saw his old friend. He wishes he was able to do what he has a passion for. Moreover, it made him to think nonsense about his marriage.