and the person in which he writes, to whatever context he is trying to describe. So, in "The Sisters," Joyce uses a first-person narrative; likewise, "Araby" is written in the first person. "Eveline" is written in the third person. We might ask ourselves, then, why Joyce makes different decisions about which person to use, depending on the story. How would "Eveline" have been different if it had been written in the first person? We could argue that writing it in the third person increases the sense we have of Eveline being removed from the world, "watching the evening" rather than participating in it. If you were to write an imaginative piece yourself, would you write it in the third person or the first person? You might reflect on how Joyce changes which person he uses and how this inspires you to make such creative decisions yourself.

Another key characteristic of Joyce's Dubliners is the wealth of detail Joyce introduces to the scenes he describes, and yet without ever elaborating too much upon what he is showing. Joyce's writing is the epitome of showing rather than telling. At the beginning of "Araby," for example, the narrator says, "The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room." He does not, however, elaborate at all on how this may have made the people in the house feel, whether it was an uncommon occurrence, or anything to that effect. Instead, it is left to the reader to interpret what this means about this part of Dublin at that time and how we should feel about it. Or, in "After the Race":

The five young men strolled along Stephen’s Green in a faint cloud of aromatic smoke. They talked loudly and gaily and their cloaks dangled from their shoulders. The people made way for them.

Why do the people make way for them? How does Joyce convey, without the excessive use of elaboration or adjective, what impact these five young men have upon the crowd? And how does this inspire you, perhaps, to convey a sense of place more concisely than you might previously have done in your own writing?

You may also take inspiration from other aspects of Joyce's writing in this collection of short stories, such as his unflinching incorporation of the darker parts of Dublin into his work—he does not want to present a rose-tinted view of what he is describing. This is something that could influence your own writing choices.

Moving on to the issue of working collaboratively, I would encourage you to consider what in particular you worked on collaboratively and how this affected your thinking. Did you work together to analyse particular stories from Dubliners? Did you, for example, derive inspiration from your partner's ideas to look at the stories in different ways? Or have you been working collaboratively on writing imaginatively? In this event, you might focus upon how your partner's stylistic choices have influenced yours. Joyce himself was influenced by, and exerted his own influence upon, other writers in his circle. His style developed through his association with other Modernist writers, from whom he borrowed techniques and ideas. Have you borrowed ideas from one of your classmates? Is there anything about someone else's writing which you find particularly inspirational or effective and which you might like to incorporate into your own imaginative work?

In many ways, analysing a text and working with another writer are both forms of collaborative working. While James Joyce will never know what you have taken from his work, and the influence is a one-way system, you can derive inspiration from his writing style in the same way that, with a partner, you can each influence and inspire each other. This question is simply asking you to consider how Joyce and your classmates have influenced you: what has inspired you, what have you learned, and how will it impact your writing in the future?