Joyce and John Cheever were two influential writers of the late 1800's and early
1900's. James Joyce was an Irish author that wrote various short stories,
novels, and poems. In Dubliners, he is noted for his epiphanies and objective
correlatives. John Cheever, is an American short-story writer and novelist whose
work is known for his portrayals of the average middle-class American. His works
include ironic comedies and the displaying of his imagination. Both writers are
duly noted for their short stories. Their unique styles of writings are
respectably different to a point. They are similar in the way they display their
descriptions, and differ in the way they present the outcome of their story. In
the short stories of James Joyce, one is surely to notice his direct and sharp
epiphanies. In the story "An Encounter", two schoolboys of 11 or 12,
decided to skip school. There was a third but he bailed. They arranged to go
along the Wharf Road until they came to the ships. Then they were to cross with
the ferryboat and walk out to see the Pigeon House. When they reached the quay,
the boy narrating the story, looked amongst the sailors by the Norwegian Vessel
to see if any of them had green eyes, " …I came back and examined the
foreign sailors to see had any of them green eyes for I had some confused
notion…." (p. 23). He had a great interest in people with green eyes, for
he saw them as erotic, and thought they possessed great auras. He was
disappointed to find none. The boys continued on their walk, reaching the Pigeon
House, when greeted by an old man. The way he talked and the things he talked
about scared the boys, and therefore led them to conclude that he was just a
"queer" old man. While the man was talking he began to get this great
sentimentality in his voice and the one boy looked up at him, "As I did so
I met the gaze of a pair of bottle-green eyes peering at me from under a
twitching forehead" (p. 27). The epiphany shown here is rather drastic, for
the boy has a loss of innocence. He always had the perceived notion that men
with green eyes were rather amazing. This old man disproved his theory and led
the boy to disappointment. Epiphanies like these make the reader go
"oh" "ah" as they read on. A noticeable factor in Joyce's
works, are his descriptions of Dublin and its characters. In A Little Cloud,
Little Chandler gives great descriptions of the things he sees. By doing so, we
are exposed to vast imagery that helps us in getting the mood of the story,
"He turned often from his tiresome writing to gaze out of the office
window. The glow of a late autumn sunset covered the grass plots and walks. It
cast a shower of kindly golden dust on the untidy nurses and decrepit old men
who drowsed on the benches…" (p. 71). This particular scene gives a mood
of the story right away. Following this observation he shows us the condition of
the character, "A gentle melancholy took possession of him" (p. 71).
This disposition presented puts you in the character's frame of mind, which
Joyce did by exposing us to the character's feelings with a sense of reality.
John Cheever's writings are described, often through fantasy and ironic comedy,
the life, manners, and morals of middle-class, suburban America. Cheever's work
often portrays individuals who yearn for self-expression within a society whose
values make it difficult to achieve this freedom. A chief example of his ironic
comedies is O Youth and Beauty. Cash Bentley is the main character, whose
yearning for his youth and self expression. His yearning leads to the flaunting
of his track skills, by hurdling furniture during parties. This gives him a
chance to show the youth still in him. During one of his performances he injures
himself and is very disappointed. Cash recovers and begins his habit once again.
One night he begins moving the furniture in his house and tells his wife to fire
the pistol for him to begin. While telling her about the safety on the gun, his
impatience drove him to begin his hurdling before she figured it out. "He
hurdled the sofa anyhow. The pistol went off and Louise got him in midair. She
shot him dead" (p. 218). The irony in this is great because his wife was
very against violence. When giving her children Life magazines, she would scan
the articles and cut out any "mayhem, disaster, and violent death"
shown in them. This story was actually funny to some of us and it's clearly seen
why it's an ironic comedy. Cheever's descriptions like Joyce's can include
objective correlatives, although not to the extreme of which Joyce uses. For
example, in The Enormous Radio, Cheever's gives the description of one main
character in the story, "He wore his graying hair cut very short, he
dressed in the kind of clothes his class had worn at Andover, and his manner,
was earnest, vehement, and intentionally naпve" (p. 33). This like
Joyce gives you a good idea about the character but also includes a significant
point in the personality of the character. The fact that the character, Jim
Westcott, is intentionally naпve is shown specifically in the story. He
chooses to ignore his financial and family problems, and does so by telling his
wife that everything is alright, and that their family is nothing like the ones
she hears on the radio. Another big point of description Cheever always points
out is how average his characters are. Jim and Irene Westcott, previously
mentioned, are described with this tone, "Jim and Irene Westcott were the
kind of people who seem to strike that satisfactory average of income, endeavor,
and respectability that is reached by the statistical reports in college alumni
bulletins" (p. 33). He always goes into detail of how average they are by
presenting a statistic, "went to the theatre, on an average of 10.3 times a
year" (p. 33). He does this only to go on and give the prime examples of
the lives and general behaviors of the average American and their morals. When
looking at these two writers we obviously see unique writing styles, for they
are both different. They use the same skills; description, originality, and
imagination, and create two different types of writing styles. Cheever used his
imagination and created characters which may already exist in the world, for
they are average. Joyce also used his imagination to collaborate on a place,
which he already knew, Dublin. The main character usually had some
representation of himself that showed his stream of consciousness. Both writers
are similar in that they always have concrete conclusions to their stories, but
differ in the way in which they show them. Joyce shocks us with his epiphanies
and Cheever does the same with his ironies. The ways in which they present their
denouements are different and make for the differences in their writings.