ABSTRACT
The extensive study of Joyce’s exceptional moments has generated differing and conflicting views; are his epiphanies symbols pointing to a transcendent truth, or just a false scholarly lead? This chapter brings together some of these sources to explore how Joyce’s concept of epiphany can enrich our reading of Dubliners. It explores the much-discussed aesthetic theory of epiphany in Stephen Hero and offers a reading of selected stories to substantiate its final claim: epiphanies in Dubliners are instances that aim to manifest the full complexity of reality. The stories considered (‘The Sisters’, 1904–1912; ‘Clay’, 1905; ‘A Little Cloud’, 1906; and ‘The Dead’, 1907) revolve around ambiguous significant moments that do not give the stories a key but rather allow them to lay bare for the reader the enigmatic multifaceted nature of reality. Taking epiphanies as acts of horizontal transcendence thus illuminates Joyce’s interest in concrete reality, his aim to confront it pitilessly, and his respect for it as a mysterious and sacred thing.
