(Little) Life's Great Feast

"He looked down the slope and, at the base, in the shadow of the wall of the Park, he saw some human figures lying. Those venal and furtive loves filled him with despair. He gnawed the rectitude of his life; he felt that he had been outcast from life's feast."

The park Mr. James Duffy refers to in James Joyce's story "A Painful Case" is none other than the ethereal, almost hauntingly beautiful St. Stephen's Green. Only twenty minutes away from Trinity College, I accidentally happened upon the park one day while out on one of my now regular afternoon quests through the city. 

As I crossed the threshold into the park, I was met by towering trees whose branches intertwined with each other creating a tapestry of greenery over my head. The sun shone only sparingly in places, through the coin-sized crevices formed when two leaves didn't quite overlap. Bits of sunlight dripped through these rifts and onto the dark stone that paved a path for wanderers to follow through the green maze. I followed these small illuminated slivers as they seemed to lead me on an adventure through the  most beautiful park I had ever laid eyes on. 

James Duffy experiences St. Stephen's Green in an entirely different way as he meanders through the trees in a fit of extreme sorrow and remorse. The tragic suicide of Emily Sinico colors Duffy's perception of the park, casting a dark shadow on its majesty. Joyce, through Duffy's eyes, describes the park's trees as "gaunt" and the alleys as "bleak,"painting the picture of a  landscape dramatically divergent from the one I explored. 

The only people Duffy discovers as he paces through the park are two lovers in the throes of romantic ecstasy. Although I didn't intrude on such a moment during my stroll through the park, I came across a group of happy children snacking on life's great feast in the form of potato crisps. These children represent to me the only similarity between my impression of the park and Joyce's in his story. Joyce's inclusion of the impassioned couple in this, one of the darkest stories in Dubliners, is deeply entrenched in symbolic meaning. The couple signify "life's great feast," the love and happiness every human being deserves. Although I only observed these children for a few moments, I could immediately feel their joyful spirits, their innocent contentment. They were, to me, as the couple was to Joyce, a living symbol of life's great feast.