A Little Cloud
From Dubliners by James Joyce
A Little Cloud is the next short story in James Joyces’s collection, Dubliners, published in 1914.
It is written in the third person, point of view of Little Chandler, who works as a clerk in the city of Dublin. The epithet to his name reveals how he is perceived by others and himself.
Little Chandler has arranged to meet his old friend, Ignatius Gallaher, who is returning to his home city for a fleeting visit after leaving eight years ago to pursue a career in journalism in London. As Chandler’s walk through Dublin’s streets are detailed on his way to their meeting, he contrasts Gallaher’s success to his own blighted writing aspirations as a wannabe poet and the small life he has inhabited, characterised by feelings of paralysis and entrapment. The restraints on fulfilling his own ambitions he blames on the city, compared to the immoral yet passion-filled vibrancy of Paris and London, and his domestic situation as defined by his wife and small child. Yet he still has fantasies of writing his own book of poems. However, he never seems to write anything and his introverted nature makes him even unable to read aloud a book of poems to his wife.
During his meeting with Gallaher we start to question the nature of his friend’s success. The conversation reveals Gallaher to be a shallow braggart who…
