A Little Cloud: Loosely Based on Prisoner of Chillon

"A Little Cloud:" Loosely Based on "Prisoner of Chillon"

Although it is important to note the similarities between James Joyce's "A Little Cloud" and Lord Byron's "Prisoner of Chillon," the stories are also largely different from one another. Explicit references are made to Lord Byron's poetry in "A Little Cloud," but the linguistic and literary parallels between it and "Prisoner of Chillon" are numbered, and are ultimately overshadowed by their differences. The primary theme that persists through both works of literature is imprisonment.

As Clarice Short points out in "Joyce's ‘A Little Cloud'," "During the dungeon days of both Byron's and Joyce's characters they came to some sort of terms with the smaller life about them". "Little Chandler [sees] the children that [squat] like mice," just as the Prisoner of Chillon "[makes] friends with spiders and [watches] the mice playing in the streaks of moonlight" (276). Both characters find ways of passing the time that are hardly mentally stimulating. Each develops a means of coping with the sad reality that their lives have inevitably become.

Another similarity that becomes evident after reading both works is the idea of epiphany, an element that is consistently employed by Joyce in all of his compositions. "Both characters were brought to consciousness, or heightened awareness, by the advent of a visitant from the outside world" (Short 276). As Little Chandler walks to meet Gallaher, "A light [begins] to tremble on the horizon of his mind" (Joyce 46) just as the Prisoner of Chillon hears a bird singing and describes compares it to "A light [breaking] in upon [his] brain" (Byron 251). Little Chandler and the Prisoner of Chillon are broken out of their repetitive and routine daily lives by outside influences – in Little Chandler's case, it is Gallaher, and a bird does it for the Prisoner of Chillon. Nevertheless, "the pleasure of both was short-lived." Similar to going on a spectacular vacation and returning more depressed than before departing because the sad realization that one is home sets in, both men were even more upset following their "epiphanies." The recognition of their limited existences leaves both men in a more depressed state than before (Short 277).

The "epiphanies" that both characters experience "[cause] each to make an effort to establish contact with the outer or freer world" (Short 277). Little Chandler begins to resent the quiet life he leads after seeing what Gallaher has become, and "A Little Cloud" ends with a grim confrontation between Little Chandler and his wife as the reader recognizes the absence of love of Little Chandler towards his child (Joyce 53-54). The Prisoner of Chillon