Where do you even start with Brexit these days? It’s safe to say that most of the country has spent the last three years in a state of almost complete confusion. Whatever your views, it has been incredibly divisive both in Britain and on the European continent.

James Joyce’s Dubliners was first published in 1914, when Europe was on the cusp of the first world war. Joyce would also be alive for the beginning of the second world war over twenty years later. He spent much of his life living in and travelling around Europe and used his worldliness as a crucial component in all of his writings.

Dubliners mostly revolves around life in Joyce’s city of birth and is written from a despairing point of view. But given that Joyce put so much stock in European identity and unity, there are lots of parallels to be drawn between Europe in 1914 and modern Britain.

Three stories in particular exemplify this, and reflect the disassociation and disappointment many people are feeling.

After the Race

This story, although ultimately sad, is delivered through the lens of a proud European identity, centring around four friends from different states and with different backgrounds. 

The four men represent the organic friendships that many people both in modern Britain and Europe have formed thanks to freedom of movement. Joyce clearly references wanderlust and community inclusion, as well as the alliances the European Union symbolises. 

Brexit has given voice to many people who feel certain ways about national British identity. But for many younger people in particular, the same desire to travel and indulge in foreign culture is very present in After the Race. In both 1914 and 2019, Europe represents change and exploration in the most positive way.

A Little Cloud

These days, London is considered to be one of the greatest cities in the world. When Joyce wrote A Little Cloud it was not nearly as buzzing, but it still signified freedom, art and a place where one could spread their wings and live a fulfilling life.

As a city that voted Remain in the EU referendum, it’s easy to see that the same joys and excitements that inspired Joyce still exist today. London is proudly multicultural and has a huge amount of growth and development as a result. Whereas most of England’s South-East voted to leave, London represents the continued love of multiculturalism that Joyce had.

Ivy Day in the Committee Room

Joyce was famously a proud Irish nationalist and given that Brexit has reopened old wounds resonating from the Troubles, the inspirations behind Ivy Day in the Committee Room have somewhat come full circle.

But Ivy Day also describes the perceived imbalance between the ‘metropolitan elite’ and the rest of society that informed much of the Brexit vote. There are particular references to patriotism – a word that has become just as muddied and uncertain as everything else since Brexit – that could be analogous to politicians on either side of the 2016 referendum, depending on your opinion. The independence referred to in Ivy Day exists under completely different circumstances to Brexit, but it’s profound in that the same debates about national identity were being had a hundred years ago as they are now.

James Joyce’s Dubliners is proof that history has a way of haunting the present. You can find out the other ways it does so by picking up a copy today.