Dubliners, a collection of James Joyce's fifteen short stories, was first published in 1914. It provides a realistic portrayal of Irish middle-class life in Dublin and the surrounding area in the early 20th century. When the stories were written, Irish nationalism was at its peak, and there was a huge desire for a sense of national identity and mission. Standing at a nexus of history and culture, Ireland was being jolted by numerous converging ideas and forces. They focus on the paralysis theme and Joyce's concept of an epiphany, which is a character's transformational self-understanding or illumination (Joyce felt Irish nationalism stagnated cultural progression, placing Dublin at the heart of a regressive movement). Following Joyce's categorization of the collection into childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life, the following stories are written in the third person and deal with the lives and concerns of progressively older individuals. The first three stories in the book are narrated by children. Many of the Dubliner's characters later made cameos in Ulysses by James Joyce.