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Success can be an illusion.
Little Chandler is very impressed by his friend Gallaher. So much so that he feels inadequate when he measures himself against his friend’s success. However, over the course of the story, readers can determine that Gallaher is not as impressive as Little Chandler makes him out to be. Gallaher has a prominent career but the fast-paced nature of his work has left him exhausted and caused him to age prematurely. He has the freedom to travel to various foreign cities but he consistently visits seedy locations when he is abroad. He has enough money to make a name for himself but his financial freedom seems to exacerbate his existing faults such as his promiscuity, his drinking, and his vulgar manners. Finally, he became a prominent journalist but appears to resent the profession because it “pulls [him] down.” This last point is perhaps the most jarring to Little Chandler (and the reader) because Little Chandler is particularly sensitive about the fact that his friend has managed to launch a successful writing career which he was never able to do. Through Gallaher, Joyce comments on the elusive nature of accomplishments and reminds his readers that success is often an illusion that covers up a much darker reality.
An obsession with the past can ruin the present.
Like many characters in Dubliners, Little Chandler is unhappy with his life. And, like many characters in Dubliners, he is the one to blame. Little Chandler has a clerical job that he finds dull and uninspiring. His real passion in life is literature, specifically poetry, and he resents himself for not pursuing a writing career. The narrator explains that Little Chandler used to study poetry in his youth but that he gave it up when he got married. In a revealing moment at the start of the text, Little Chandler reflects that he is often “tempted to take [a poetry book] down from the bookshelf and read out something to his wife” but he never does. This deceptively insignificant moment reveals the depth to which Little Chandler has caused his own unhappiness. Little Chandler had lofty dreams of becoming a famous poet, something that is statistically unlikely. So, instead of simply enjoying poetry as a hobby and sharing it with his loved ones, he cuts it out of his life completely in an unsuccessful attempt to cure his inferiority complex. Like many Dubliners protagonists, Little Chandler has the tools at his disposal to improve his life but he is too caught up in his own problems to do so. Instead, he fixates on the past to such a degree that it ruins the present.
Money is divisive.
Joyce wrote Dubliners to offer a realistic depiction of what life was like for the Irish middle-class in the early 20th century. It is no surprise, then, that many of his short stories include class commentaries. For example, “A Little Cloud” emphasizes the divisive nature of money. Little Chandler is envious of Dublin’s wealthy elite. They make him feel self-conscious because he feels that they look down on middle-class Dubliners like himself. One would assume, then, that Little Chandler’s resentment towards Dublin’s upper class would make him empathetic towards Dublin’s lower class. This is not the case. At the beginning of the short story, Little Chandler leaves his desk and walks down a bustling Dublin street on his way to meet Gallaher. On his journey, he passes “decrepit old men” sleeping on benches and hordes of “grimy” children playing in the street. Based on Little Chandler’s characterizations, one can determine that these people are meant to represent Dublin’s poorer population. Little Chandler does not have any sympathy for the poverty stricken Dubliners, however, and judgmentally refers to them as “vermin.” Through Little Chandler, Joyce comments on the divisive nature of money and the lack of empathy and connection between the different financial classes.
