In "After The Race", by James
Joyce in the book "Dubliners", the main character,
Jimmy Doyle will
be an unproductive citizen, fooling around with his friends and living
off of his
father's money for the rest of his life.
In this short story he demonstrated that
he doesn't
realize the value of money, because he has never had to work for it, hence he
is
too frivolous
with it at times. Jimmy also likes to be
with his friends and to not work
hard at what he
does. Jimmy has no work ethic because
his father had a lot of money, in
fact he is
referred to as a "merchant prince" in Dublin due to his success as a
butcher, and
his father did
not want Jimmy to work for what he has, but would rather see his son
become popular
and make a lot of connections. Jimmy's
father is the reason he will
never succeed in
life on his own.
Jimmy Doyle grew in a family that was
quite well off financially due to the hard
work of his father. Mr. Doyle made a lot of money through hard
work and sacrifice as
butcher, and he
wanted nothing but the best for his son.
He did not want his son to work
as hard as he did
growing up. When Jimmy went away to
college, he spent more time
socializing than
he did studying. "Jimmy did not
study very earnestly and took to bad
courses for
awhile. He had money and he was popular;
..."(p.25). Jimmy liked better to
be in the company
of peers rather than study, and his father condoned it. When Jimmy
was not doing
well at Dublin University, his father let him go off to Cambridge where he
could "see
life a little". While there he
seemed to run the bills a little high, and his father
took care of all
the expenses because he wanted to show off the money that he had
acquired. The way Jimmy's dad just gave him money and
only wanted Jimmy to meet
people who were
"worth knowing" corrupted Jimmy's work ethic and his behavior in the
book clearly
demonstrates this.
Jimmy Doyle has no work ethic and is just
happy to be with his friends
accomplishing
nothing. Jimmy loves having
acquaintances and meeting people. He was
very proud coming
through his home town after the big race and being seen in the car
with such people
that he was with; Charles, an heir to a hotel empire and soon-to-be
business owner,
Charles' cousin Andre who was going to run Charles's new business, and
a talented
Hungarian piano player. His father was
happy to see his son in such a happy
state and was
quite proud of the fact that his son was to have dinner in such company as
he was. After dinner, the guys went out to drink and
play cards. Although Jimmy was
losing and was
actually having someone else take care of writing out I-O-U's for him, he
continued to
play, just so that he could stay in the company that he was in. At the end of
the night
(actually dawn of the next day), Jimmy found himself sitting alone and terribly
in debt, yet it
seemed as though it did not matter to him for he knew that his father would
take of him financially.
The support given to Jimmy by his father
is detrimental to success of Jimmy
because Jimmy has
become to reliant upon him. Although
Jimmy's father only wants the
best for his son,
he is actually doing a disservice to his son by paying up all of his bills,
not pushing him
to finish college, only wanting him to make friends in high places and
generally show
people that he can do all that because he has money. Essentially Jimmy's
dad is spoiling
him and because of it Jimmy will never succeed on his on.
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