Ellipses and Fragments: linguistic means of decolonization in Joyce’s Dubliners

Abstract

This paper traces Joyce’s linguistic techniques of void and gaps as he went about when writing Dubliners, and reveals what is implied in some of the stories and most importantly shows how through ellipses and fragments, his characters’ attempt to achieve decolonization. The main issue of explicit communication in colonial societies is replaced by such linguistic aspects where postcolonial writers like James Joyce tend to express their ideas of decolonization through the implicitness of language to deliver political messages. Hence, and in order to solve the problem of the explicit limitations of language, this paper attempts to reveal the covert messages of the stories by studying ellipses and fragments. While void and gaps portray negative connotations, the methodology used here to fill in the blanks of ellipses and fragments focuses on the information investigated, explored and then implemented by the reader to complete the unfinished thoughts and solve Joyce’s mysteries. Filling out ellipses are investigated mainly in the stories of “The Sisters” and “A Little Cloud” where characters are helped by the reader, who fills out these ellipses, to escape their colonial ordeals into a more hopeful world. Similarly, fragments show the characters’ struggle to achieve linguistic decolonization by completing the unfinished thoughts and utterances especially in the stories of “Eveline” and “Clay”. By analysing the discourse that takes place between the characters in these stories, the reader may reveal what has been left implied and will show how by filling out ellipses and completing fragments, characters may achieve decolonization. Additionally, the role of annexes in this article gives a more concrete proof of the use of ellipses and fragments as decolonial tools by presenting statistics of their usage in the stories and thoroughly analysing their implicit interpretations. Ultimately, findings will prove that those who struggle with the explicitness of censoredl anguage in politically disturbed environments will find other means to express their thoughts of freedom through the analysis of what language implies and not what is overtly expressed. Thus, the readers are allowed to reconstruct ellipses and fragments to come up with more comprehensible ideas of what is linguistically required to achieve decolonization.