Raffaella Mannori –2014 -2015
JAMES JOYCE
THE LITERARY BACKGROUND
•Joyce’s work is the result of two major factors:
•1. his Irish origin;
•2.his European vocation
•Joyce reacted to the nationalistic movement of the Irish Revival which was a movement
that renewed interest in popular poetry written in Gaelic , the original language in Ireland.
Joyce was against the idea of writing in Gaelic :
because this language , being a dead language, could restrict his creativity and could reduce his readers to a
limited number of fanatic nationalists.
because he refused the idea of having to choose his contents within a cultural tradition because for him the
artist ( as stated in his The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)should have a higher duty than that to be loyal
to one’s country .
Art is beyond national borders and the only solution for him was to be become a cosmopolitan exile in order to
safeguard his independence as an artist and to avoid being trapped into a narrow provincialism .
•Joyce , the Irishman, followed his European vocation and turned to Europe for inspiration and guidance.
•REALISM
•Realism, and more systematically naturalism , had introduced the scientific method into fiction by means of an
accurate, carefully documented and impersonal description .
Joyce absorbed from the French naturalists :
his almost obsessive need for documentation ;
the idea of the impartiality of the artist ;
the almost total disappearance of the narrator as a distinct voice in his fictional work.
•SYMBOLISM
European symbolist school influenced Joyce in his idea of the artist as the only one that can
decode the mystery of the universe by means of symbols.
•Therefore the everyday reality can be interpreted ” as a forest of symbols” to be decoded by the
artist through “ epiphanies” which provide light and intuitive knowledge triggered off ( =
innescata da) by significant moments of people’s lives.
•The
Joyce’s literary background was influenced by :
•DANTEDante
remained an ideal model because of his courageous choice to challenge the papal
authority, his condition of exile and his example of allegorical writing.
•FREUDFreud’s ideas influenced Joyce in his concept of EPIPHANY , with its intuition of the existence
of something underneath the opaque appearance of the most ordinary things. Joyce , in fact, was interested
in the relationship between superficial manifestation ( the ego ) and deeply hidden motivation( the id ).
NIETZSCHE His theory o the Superman , who lives in absolute separation from the mass , “ beyond
good and evil” influenced Joyce in the idea of the artist as defined in THE PORTRAIT “ the artist, like the
God of the Creation , remains within or behind or beyond or above his handwork , invisible, out of
existence
SUBJECTIVE PERCEPTION OF TIME
Joyce’s stories and novels open in media res with the analysis of a particular moment , and the
portrait of the characters is based on introspection rather than on description.
Time is perceived as subjective not as objective so the accurate description of Dublin is not
strictly derived from external reality , but from the characters’ mind .
DUBLINERS (1914)
•WHY
DUBLIN?
1) First of all because it was the city where he had lived and of which he knew
everything , the streets , the houses , the pubs , the people;
2) secondly because Dublin was the object of his love and of his hatred;
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3) thirdly because Dublin appeared to him a perfect product of western civilisation and of modern life
;DUBLIN was not only a place on the map of Ireland but also a place of the mind , one where paralysis and corruption
could be seen .
•DUBLIN as the “centre of paralysis”
He described DUBLINERS as “ a chapter in the moral history of my country....the centre of
paralysis”
The stories are divided into 4 different categories and what holds them together is the
presence of certain themes, symbols and narrative technique.
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
 Each story is described according to the rules of NATURALISM with an abundance of external details,
even the most sordid ones.
BUT this NATURALISM , which is an accurate and scrupulous description of DUBLIN with its
streets, squares, parks etc. , doesn’t have only a descriptive function but it acquires a deeper meaning
(SYMBOLISM)
In other words Joyce describes Dublin and its inhabitants in a naturalistic way but he also tries to go
beyond the mere reproduction of a “slice of life” His theories of epiphanies suggested the search for
something existing under the surface of things and events.
Understanding the epiphany is the key to the interpretation of the story itself. It consists in the
description of a common gestures, objects or situations, suddenly acquiring the value of an intense
experience of truth .The epiphany is generally activated by a trivial gesture, an external object or a banal
situation.
FREE INDIRECT THOUGHT /SPEECH  It consists of the presentation of the protagonists’
thoughts through the limited mediation of the narrator who adopts the language style of his characters.
•The technique enables the reader to get an intimate and direct knowledge of the character, minimizing the narrator’s
interventions in the story.
•In other words, the narrator is totally in tune with the character.
•
What distinguishes free indirect speech from normal indirect speech is the lack of an introductory expression
such as "He said" or "he thought".
•Examples:
•
•Direct
speech:
•He sat down on the sofa carelessly. "Why are they asking me to contribute to the project?" he
asked.
•Indirect
speech:
•He sat down on the sofa carelessly and asked himself why they were asking him to contribute to
the project.
•Free
indirect speech:
•He sat down on the sofa carelessly. Why are they asking him to contribute to the project?
•
Using free indirect speech may convey the character's words more directly than in normal indirect, as devices
such as interjections and exclamation marks can be used that cannot be normally used with indirect speech
•Consequently the omniscient narrator and the single point of view are rejected : each story is told from the perspective
of a character. The language register is varied , since the language used in all stories suits the age, the social class
and the role of the characters.
SYMBOLS
•Although Dubliners are often associated with the principles of NATURALISM , yet this naturalism is
accompanied by a search for symbols.
•THE SEAIn Eveline is both the way towards a future of salvation from a squalid destiny but also the
symbol of the danger Evelyn imagines to exist outside her house. “ All the seas of the world tumbled over
her heart”.
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•THE EAST & THE WEST The EAST is represented as the world of magic and mystery ( see ARABY)
while the WEST implies a more complex symbolism .
It is America , the place to lay the foundations of a new existence, but it is also the West of Ireland , the
wild where the roots of real Irishness lie deep. In addition the West is the place where the sun sets and
traditionally the place of death
•THE DUST It is a symbol of deterioration and oppression , something which gives an aura of staleness
and difficulty of breathing
THEMES
•PARALYSISThe paralysis of Dublin which Joyce
wants to portray is both physical and moral, linked
to religion, politics and culture and the main theme is the failure to find out a way out of “paralysis”.
•Each story has its own climax when the main character becomes aware of his/her own form of “paralysis”
: the impossibility of hope a better life , of breaking free from the provincial Irish culture
•ESCAPEThis theme is the opposite
of paralysis and it originates from an impulse caused by a sense
of “claustrophobia” which many characters experience but none of them is destined to succeed : they live
as exiles at home , unable to cut the bonds that tie them to their own world. This desire of escaping ,
originates from an impulse activated by a sense of enclosure that many characters experience. A sense of
claustrophobia is implicit in the small , cramped , stuffy rooms where the Dubliners spend their lives.
•THE IRISH FAMILYA claustrophobic element is present also in the description of the Irish family that
tends to enclose and imprison its member, hindering the realisation of their hopes .
•
The fathers , or the men, tend to paralyse any effort of the younger members of their families.
•
IRISH PUBLIC LIFE The Irish public life in its aspects of musical life, political life and religious life. The
role of music becomes a key-element in the story of Eveline and in the Dead , where it activates a psychological
process ending in an epiphany .
Although DUBLINERS contain 15 stories dealing with individual cases and characters , there is a unity in
the collection which goes beyond the fact that their common setting is Dublin and that their protagonists
are Dubliners .
•
STORY OF CHILDHOOD The Systers, An Encounter, Araby
•
STORY OF ADOLESCENCEThe Boarding House , After the Race, Eveline, Two Gallants
•
STORIES OF MATURE LIFE A little Cloud , The Clay, Counterparts and a Painful Case
•
STORIES PUBLIC LIFEIvy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother , Grace
•
THE DEAD the final union between the living and the dead.
EVELINE
The story starts with Eveline who is sitting at the window in her room while the evening is getting
deeper.The narrator describes Eveline’s thoughts from her inside exploring Eveline’s
consciousness . Few external actions activate a great flux of thoughts in Eveline because while
she is looking out of the window she remembers her childhood and the happy moments of her
playing with the other children in the fields . At that time she used to be happy and things used to
be different because her father was not so bad and her mother was still alive .
However she is aware that things inexorably change because her mother is dead and some of
the Irish families have gone away from Dublin.
The thoughts of the other families activates her feelings about her HOME and this flux of ideas is
marked by her looking round her room.
The ROOM is described as full of dust which covers all her familiar objects ,objects she has been
dusting many times. The dust symbolises the claustrophobic atmosphere of the house and the
Irish family in general , which frustrates the aspirations of freedom of its members, suffocating
them.
Dust,infact, conveys a certain difficulty of breathing.
Then Eveline’s mind moves to analyse the positive and negative sides of her DECISION TO
LEAVE HER FAMILY and go away with Frank.
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From a certain point of view , FAMILY for her represents shelter and food, a place in which she is
emotionally surrounded by her beloved .However , she doesn’t regret leaving HER JOB because
she has always been treated badly . Perhaps her colleagues will criticise her rash behaviour of
escaping with a man to a distant and unknown country .
But she won’t certainly be sad for this because she knows that she will have a NEW HOME.
She will be married, people will treat her with respect and she will not be treated as her
mother has always been.
In her family, in fact, HER FATHER has always been a dominant and tyrannical figure
,sometimes violent towards his children .In addition he often tells her off ,accusing her of wasting
his money .She now thinks that she has really had a hard life to keep the family together after
her mother’s death.
Fortunately she is about to leave her home and explore a new life with FRANK.
FRANK stands for salvation for her . Eveline describes him as a kind, manly and open-hearted
man. The man who will save her from her miserable life . She feels happy about the idea of
having a new house in a new and distant country .
She thinks about the moment they first met , she feels proud of having a man who really loves
her,even if her father has never accepted Frank as he thinks that sailors are not reliable people .
The time is passing but Eveline continues to sit at the window, leaning her head against the
dusty cretonne curtains. She can even smells the odour of dust which seems to suffocate ( to
stifle) her .
Suddenly she hears the sound of a street organ which plays an air which reminds her of her
mother’s last night before she died.
She remembers her mother’s craziness , her sufferings and her life of “ common sacrifices “ but
also Eveline’s promise to look after the family as long as she can .
SUDDENLY she comes to understand what she must do : she must leave , she must escape ,she
doesn’t want to have the same life as her mother had.
This moment of sudden revelation is accompanied by a significant physical action: she stands
up “out of an impulse of terror”.
She understands she must go away with FRANK who represents her salvation . She thinks he
will save her , he will give her life, perhaps love ,too. She has the right to live and be happy .

In the last part of the story EVELINE is at the port with FRANK.
He is talking to her but she realises that she can’t hear anything of what he is saying.
She feels immobilised , she feels she is getting pale and cold in her face.
She starts praying silently to God in search for help , for a guide to help her direct her mind and
to show what her duty is.
She is thinking about the possibility of not going with Frank and this idea causes her great
suffering and distress , even physical nausea.
When Frank calls her, she has the sensation that “ all the seas will tumble about her heart” and
she starts seeing Frank as a dangerous man who will drown her.
Immediately she “ grips” with both hands at the iron railing, her hands “clutch” the iron in frenzy
while Frank keeps on shouting at her to go with him.She is physically and mentally paralysed;
she can’t do anything but send a “ cry of anguish”. She is “passive, like a helpless animal “.She
gives “no sign of love or farewell or recognition”.
GLOSSARY
To remind someone of something= far ricordare qualcosa a qualcuno
To activate / To set in motion = attivare /mettere in moto
To weigh the good and the bad sides=valutare i lati positivi e negative
To report thoughts =riportare I pensieri
To refer to= fare riferimento a
To prevent someone from doing something= impedire a qualcuno di fare qualcosa.
to take into account something=tenere in considerazione qualcosa
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A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN (1916)
The novel
describes the mind of the protagonist and the development of his
personality in his early life
In this novel autobiographical , political, religious and mythical elements are mingled.
THE SETTING : DUBLIN The 5 chapters of A Portrait take place in Dublin and
record the spiritual evolution of the protagonist from his child-like acceptance of
authority , to his adult revolt against it and the consequent voluntary exile.
THE PROTAGONIST is called Stephen Dedalus, who stands for Joyce himself and for
the artist in general , since like Stephen, the first Christian martyr , he is a martyr of art , and like the
mythological character DEDALUS , he must escape from the social , political labyrinth of Dublin life in
order to reach the neutrality of art.
His first attempt at exile is, however, unsuccessful . The first chapter of Ulysses shows him back in
Ireland but at the end of Ulysses he tries again , more successfully.
Stephen Dedalus rejects his family and the institutions of his country to cultivate the “ terrible neutrality
of the ARTIST “
A son without a father.
He knows many languages as his cultural background was European not a provincial one.
STEPHENthe first Christian martyr: the proto-martyr as his message of salvation is not understood by
mankind .
DEDALUSThe first craftsman who made the labyrinth for King Minus and then made wings to enable
himself to escape from the tyrannous king In the same way Stephen seeks to escape from the labyrinth
of Dublin life , from “the centre of paralysis”
THE THEME OF THE ALIENATION OF THE ARTIST ( A portrait of the artist as a young
man): he is outside the conventions of society . In this novel Joyce does not refer to a particular artist but
describes the characteristics of THE MODERN ARTIST as a type who is compared to a GOD of
creation who is beyond or above his work , invisible and indifferent ( theory of depersonalisation of the
artist).
.J’s life showed the Modernist idea of the cosmopolitan spirit of the artist who is not linked to a
particular country: the artist ( as stated in his A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) should have a higher
duty than that to be loyal to his own country .
Art is beyond national borders and the only solution for him was to be become a cosmopolitan
exile in order to safeguard his independence as an artist and to avoid being trapped into a narrow
provincialism
THE THEME OF THE QUEST In the 20th century man is no longer in harmony with his own
setting , he is searching for something , some spiritual “ Grail” But the quest is in vain as the
modern worlds is characterised by a “ desert” of spiritual values ( see T.S. Eliot THE WASTE LAND)
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUEIn A Portrait he first made use of the “stream of consciousness” ,
according to which the narrative proceeds along the flux of the character’s thoughts instead of being told by
an external voice.
Thus it can express Stephen’s consciousness at each stage of existence and the language develops from
what is appropriate to the very small child of the first chapter , to the articulate comments on art made by an
university students .
This evolution of the language which is constantly adapted to the age of the hero reflects the idea of the
neutrality of the artist ( theory of the depersonalisation of the artist ) which must reduce to a minimum his
own mediation.
In
this novel is a young artist , not mature and therefore youth is seen in a negative way by James
Joyce . According to J.J experience is important because it implies development and increase the
human and intellectual faculties , it is not a corrupting force ( ANTI-ROMANTIC IDEA)
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ULYSSES (1922)
PLOTThe central character , Leopold Bloom, is Joyce’s Common Man , a parody of the
wandering Ulysses and the wandering Jew.
He leaves his home at 8 o’clock in the morning on 16 th June 1904 to buy his breakfast and returns
finally at two o’clock the following morning.
In the hours in-between he wanders around the city, meets a contemporary version of Telemachus
, Stephen Dedalus, who is the alienated protagonist of A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ,
and who, becomes momentarily , his adopted son: the alienated common man rescues the alienated
artist who has got drunk after a visit of a brothel .
Leopold Bloom takes him home .
CHARACTERS The author places himself within the consciousness of these three people and thorough
these consciousness he builds up a Dublin which is a microcosm of the universe.
The paths of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom , the estranged artist and the ineffectual citizen, cross
and re-cross throughout the day.
MOLLY BLOOM PENELOPE
STEPHEN
DEDALUS
LEOPOLD BLOOMULYSSES
TELEMACHUS
The three main characters of the novel are more than individuals as they represent
nature
He stands for
He represents the Common Man,.
He is an Irish Jew in the Catholic Dublin , he is an pure intellect and
exile , an outcast, a father without a son- He
embodies every
doesn’t have any of Ulysses’ heroic qualities which
man seeking
allow Ulysses to overcome many difficult and
maturity .
challenging tests in order to come back home. But
He is the
quite ironically Leopold Bloom’s return home is
intellectual who
represented by an unfaithful Penelope who
has cut all links
betrays him with another man.
with home,
So Leopold Bloom comes to be the average modern
fatherland
man in a society which has lost any spiritual values .
country and
The modern hero is a man , simple and utterly
ordinary , betrayed by his wife , who has lost his child
Church , a son
and is searching for a son. Comparing Leopold
without a father,
Bloom to Ulysses is laughable , because there is
who is looking for
nothing epic in his life and in his personality -his job, a father.
talents, family relations, public relations, and private
The young artist
actions all suggest his utter ordinariness.
is seen as
It is only Bloom’s extraordinary capacity for
dominated by
compassion that allows him a sort of heroism in
pride and
the course of the novel.
bitterness and so
Bloom’s ability to be compassionate with such a
he is isolated from
wide variety of beings—cats, birds, dogs, dead
his companions
men, vicious men, blind men, old ladies, a woman
He is the same
in labor, the poor, and so on—is the modern-day
equivalent to Odysseus’s capacity to adapt to a
character we have
wide variety of challenges. His compassion is a
found in The
form of heroism in a modern society where many
portrait of the
of the spiritual values have been lost and where
artist as a young
moral aridity and emptiness dominate the lives of man – the young
modern people ( see THE WASTE LAND by T.S. Eliot)
intellectual who
presents many
There is a network of symbols in Ulysses that present
autobiographical
Bloom as Ireland’s saviour, and his message is, at a basic
references to
level, to “love.” He is juxtaposed with Stephen-the
Joyce himself.
different aspects of the human
She represents flesh and senses
as she identifies herself totally with
her sensual nature and fecundity
Molly's physicality is often
contrasted with the intellectualism of
racters, especially Stephen
The major difference between
Molly and Penelope is that while
Penelope is eternally faithful, Molly
is not, having an affair with Hugh
'Blazes' Boylan, her entrepreneur .
The modern Penelope doesn’t
possess any loyalty to her lawful
husband
Molly, whose given name is
Marion, was born in Gibraltar , the
daughter of Major Tweedy, an Irish
military, and , a Gibraltarian of
Spanish Jewish descent woman.
 In Dublin, Molly is an opera
singer of some renown.
The final, unpunctuated chapter of
Ulysses, often called "Molly Bloom's
Monologue ", is a long stream of
consciousness passage comprising
her thoughts as she lies in bed next
to Bloom.
Molly's interior monologue
consists of eight enormous
"sentences," with only two marks of
punctuation in the entire episode
The last words of Molly Bloom’s
reverie are:..” yes I said yes I will
Yes” have been interpreted as
Molly’s total physical acceptance to
life and seem to indicate a positive
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intellectual- , who would also be Ireland’s saviour but is
lacking compassion.
message in a novel characterized by
mediocrity and provincialism
THE MYTHICAL METHOD The meaningless actions of everyday life acquire some meaning as they are
compared to episode of HOMER’s storyeach episode is made to correspond to an episode in the ODYSSEY : in
this way Homer’s story provides parameters within which Joyce can plot his own vision of one Dublin dayThe
Heroic reduced to the ProsaicThe conception of the Hero as an ANTI-HERO

Homer’s myth was used by resemblance and difference from the actions and people of a Dublin day , to
give them another dimension . Joyce says he wanted “ write a modern epic in prose “

Joyce’s habit of mind is symbolic  He tends to find out connections beneath realityHe explores deeper
meanings.

The aim of the mythical method is to convey the decay and shallowness of modern civilisation by
comparing it with the mythical heroes of the past.

The contrast of the sordid present and the glorious past is based on Joyce’s idea of the historic process
borrowed from G.Vico’s theory of cycles in human history. Vico saw human history as divided into three stages of
development : the divine, the heroic and the human. According to Joyce the time he was living in represents the
human and it is the last stage of a glorious past characterised by heroic figures. But in Joyce’s time the hero is
represented by the Common Man who is questing for some values in a world of aridity of spiritual values. Even
though human life means sufferings and falling , the effort we take in the quest is still a value in itself . “ to strive
, to seek , to find and not to yield”

THEME THE QUEST FOR PATERNITY
At its most basic level, Ulysses is a book about Stephen’s search for a symbolic father and Bloom’s
search for a symbolic son.

Stephen already has a biological father, Simon Dedalus, but considers him a father only in “flesh.”
Stephen feels that his own ability to mature and become a father himself (of art or of children) is restricted
by Simon’s criticism and lack of understanding.

Thus Stephen’s search involves finding a symbolic father who will, in turn, allow Stephen himself to be
a father of art or of children.

Both men, in truth, are searching for paternity as a way to reinforce their own
identities.

ULYSSES
THE WASTE LAND
Both are the result of a spiritual crisis
The use of the MYTHICAL METHOD derives from the need to find out an order in the “immense panorama of
futility and anarchy which is contemporary history”
It was first theorised by T.S.ELIOT It is used as a reference point : mythology represents the reference point.
There is contrast ( discrepancy / dichotomy) between the heroic stature of the models and the mediocrity of
reality ( Ulysses –Leopold Bloom)
RELATIVISM of VALUESthere are no fixed values , reality changes according to which point of view is
adopted by different people or by the same person in the same moment.
THE SPIRITUAL crisis of the Modern man that couldn’t find anything fixed he could rely on.
THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE INTERIOR MONOLOGUE
The 20th-century writers understood it was impossible to reproduce the complexity of the
human mind using traditional techniques and so they found the suitable technique in the
INTERIOR MOMOLOGUE, which best represents the unspoken activity of the mind before
being ordered in speech. So the INTERIOR MONOLOGUE can also be defined as the verbal
expression of a psychic phenomenon and it is characterised by the absence of introductory
expressions like “ he said “ , “ he thought” and of a logical and chronological order.
THE INTERIOR MONOLOGUE can be realised in different ways:
a) the character stays fixed in space while her/his consciousness moves freely in time, in a
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time which is “subjective”;
b) the character stays fixed in time whereas exterior events are used to present the coexistence
of various inner reactions to them. Two kinds of points of view are used :one is impersonal ,l
inked to external physical actions, and the other is inside the mind of the character. Thus
external reality is not excluded, since it affects the inner consciousness producing a flow of
thoughts.
THE INTERIOR MONOLOGUE in Ulysses is characterised by two levels of narration:
1. The first level is objective and external to the character’s mind , and corresponds to
regular sentences with subjects , verbs and complements in the right order;
2. The second level of narration takes place within the character’s consciousness and
it is expressed by irregular statements with inversion of words and repetitions.
Molly’s famous final monologue describes her free thoughts moving backwards and forwards
in time , to mix present, past and future. This apparently chaotic flow of thoughts is
underlined by the complete absence of punctuation.
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JAMES JOYCE  Dubliners + A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
SIMULAZIONE TERZA PROVA – TIPOLOGIA B
1. Delineate the characteristics of the Modern Artist as delineated in Joyce’s A portrait of the
artist as a young man.
2. What is the meaning of the protagonist’s name in A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ?
3. What are the two main contrasting factors which influenced Joyce’s work’?
4. Give explanation of Joyce’s cosmopolitan spirit .
5. In Dubliners realism and symbolism are intertwined . Give reasons
6. Illustrate the aspects of Joyce’s love-hatred for Dublin.
7. Illustrate the characteristics of the free indirect speech/thought
8. Illustrate the main themes present in Dubliners.
9. Why can the epiphany be considered the key to the meaning of each story in Dubliners?
JAMES JOYCE  Ulysses
SIMULAZIONE TERZA PROVA – TIPOLOGIA B
1. Why did Joyce choose the title Ulysses?
2. What are the characteristics of “the steam of consciousness technique “?What changes
does this technique bring about in novel writing?
3. What do the three protagonists of Ulysses represent?
4. Although Leopold Bloom’s life is characterised by utter ordinariness, he possesses a sort
of heroism. Give reasons.
5. What is the meaning of the mythical method as used by J.Joyce?
6. Consider the final Molly Bloom’s monologue and explain why it can be considered the
extreme example of Joyce’s revolutionary experimentation in novel writing .
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