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.