City Life and Blasé attitude in James Joyce’s Dubliners

Abstract

This research paperanalyses metropolitan people’s blasé attitude and indifference in James Joyce’s Dubliners. Though these qualities do not convey positive meaning,they are necessary to survive in the metropolitan city like Dublin. Because blasé attitude and indifferent save metropolitan people’s freedom, individuality and provide liberty.Most of the characters from these selected stories areself-centered, guided by utilitarian values and lack of emotion. People are forced to be indifferent due to the outer environment, busy schedule, punctuality, money and so on. This research highlights the aspect of blasé attitude and indifference nature in light of George Simmel’s idea of blasé attitude, money economy and so on. Furthermore, italso uses Walter Benjamin’s concept of “Loss of Aura” which are appropriate for this research. The researcher with evidence, reaches the conclusion that blasé attitude is a way of life of city dwellers to save their sense of being in metropolitan city. Key Words: Blasé attitude, indifference nature, money-economy,city dwellers and self-centered, freedom and individuality.