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A Little Cloud

A Little Cloud James Joyce wrote the story “A Little Cloud”; the story was published in 1905. “A Little Cloud” takes place in Dublin. Which is known to be a dirty town. Little Chandler is a thirty-two year old married man with one son who is not quite one year old in the story. He is called little Chandler because of his appearance. He is slightly under stature height, which is he, under one hundred and eighty-five centimeters. He has small white hands, childish teeth and good nail care. Little Chandler has a fragile frame, silken hair and mustache; he has a quiet voice and refined manners. Little Chandler is an abstinent man, meaning he is sparing in eating and drinking. Little Chandler blushes very easily at almost anything. He appears to have a pretty good life; he works at the Kings Inn at a desk. He likes to read poetry and someday would like to write it. Little Chandler has never been in a great deal of trouble before in his life. He often thinks about his friend Ignatius Gallaher while at work, and how he has become a brilliant man in the Press. Little Chandler often thinks of his life, which makes him sad. Little Chandler meets up with his friend for the first time in eight years at a bar and for the first time he notices that Gallaher is more vulgar then what he remembered him to be, the way he talked about things and expressed himself. Gallaher is a wild man who drinks freely; he has borrowed money from all sides and got into some trouble with money and had to leave town. Everyone of their friends admired Gallaher and no one doubted that he had talent. Gallaher always keeps a bold face. He has a heavy pale face, which he keeps shaven. He has an unhealthy pallor to him, he looks sick from fear or illness. Gallaher works for the Press and leads a vagrant life; he has no definite direction in his life, he is always wondering from place to place. Gallaher is a very vulgar man with no manners. He is not married and he only plans to marry into money, so he will be set for life. The two men in this story are not very much alike. Little Chandler is a much more decent guy then Gallaher, he had very good manners. Gallaher is more vulgar then Chandler. Chandler loses a bit of respect for Gallaher during their meeting at the bar. How Gallaher won’t marry unless he marries into money. Little Chandler married because he loved the women he married. Little Chandler wants so much to write poetry and is always thinking about it, but I think that because he is married with a child he feels that he will have no time to do it. Maybe the truth is, is that he isn’t a very good poetry writer himself and he isn’t willing to take the blame so maybe he is blaming it on his family. When he was trying to read poetry while holding his child when his wife went to the store. The baby started crying and he found he wasn’t able to read it anymore so he yelled at the child to quit crying which made the child cry more, then his wife came in and got angry with him. “Little Chandler felt his cheeks suffuse with shame and he stood back out of the lamplight. He listened while the paroxysm of the childs sobbing grew less and less; and tears of remorse started in his eyes.” Maybe this statement means that Little Chandler knows that it isn’t the childs fault for the way his life turned out. Little Chandler could have been living in a dream world about his poetry. Now Little Chandler realizes it and feels bad for what he has done to his child. The title of the story “A Little Cloud” could refer to Little Chandler. A little man living in a little cloud of a dream world. And he doesn’t realize until later that he is living in a cloud world and has punished his family for it. The saying “that there was no doubt about it, if you wanted to succeed you had to go away. You could do nothing in Dublin” Little Chandler could have just believed it because everyone else believed it. So everything Little Chandler has done was worthless in his mind, but really he had succeeded; he has a job and a family and he never realized how lucky he was until the end of the story. Bibliography I read the story From Story and Structure Word Count: 772

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