Devouring Hometowns: James Joyce’s Dublin and Dalton Trevisan’s Curitiba

Abstract

The issue of geographical escape permeates the texts of Dubliners (1914) by James Joyce and Em busca de Curitiba perdida (1992) by Dalton Trevisan. In both works we come across characters who try to run away from a reality marked by frustration, decadence and paralysis. The impossibility of being able to leave the physical space of the city invariably leads them to sublimate this need through other types of evasion, such as the dream or daydream; the idealization of exotic and distant places; the temporal flight – by valuing the past at the expense of the present time; vices – mostly, drinking; superficial and fleeting relationships and, in the extreme, death as the ultimate solution to the hardships of which they are victims. Thus, Joyce’s Dublin and Trevisan’s Curitiba are not idealized, much less understood as places of protection and warmth – characteristics generally associated with the idea of hometown. In the fictional context in which they are presented, these cities function not only as settings, but as a large and stifling persona that imprisons its inhabitants and inexorably outlines their destinies.