Download CENTRAL THEMES Joyce`s main theme is the human condition and

James
Joyce
Dublin 1882 - Zürich 1941
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Born in Dublin 1882;
educated at Jesuit schools in Dublin, including the University College
studied Italian, German and French Literatures and Languages and,
obviously, English literature.
thought of himself as a European , and, in this regard, ...
he contrasted greatly with other Irish artists, his contemporaries, who tried
to rediscover the Celtic identity by ...
referring back to the past, to the world of Irish mythology,
In this way they believed it was possible to create a national conscience
that would support the struggle for the independence of Ireland.
Joyce, instead , thought that the only way to develop Ireland’s awareness
was by ...
offering a realistic portray of its life from a European point of view.
For this reason he left Ireland and went to France first and then to Italy
where he settled and worked in Trieste and Rome.
Even if he went into a voluntary exile at the age of twenty-two,
his works are all set in Ireland and mostly in Dublin of which
he tries to give a realistic portrayal presenting the life of ordinary people,
who do ordinary things and live ordinary lives.
POOR EYE-SIGHT
• He was almost blind , but this physical problem was compensated by his keen
sense of hearing and ...
• the sound of words was very important to him, consequently....
• to fully appreciate his literary production and the particular sound devices he
uses, his works should be read aloud.
• In this respect, one of Joyce’s greatest talents is in …
• his linguistic resourcefulness/inventiveness, i.e. his capacity to render in writing
the rhythm, tone of a large variety of speaking voices.
• He is able to imitate musical forms in words or to invent a new language as he
did in ‘Finnegans Wake’, written in a language which is the result of the
borrowing from other languages.
Joyce and the tradition
• As a young student Joyce was an enthusiastic admirer of
Walter Pater.
• It was from aestheticism that he derived his interest in form
which is central to his approach to novel writing.
• He didn’t share the aesthetes’ belief in “Art for Art’ sake”
because for him literature was a means to promote
awareness, but like them…
• he maintained that art should be independent of other
disciplines and of any moral aim.
• The formal aspect of fiction was therefore very important
for him.
• Particularly important was the problem of the point of
view.
IMPERSONALITY OF THE ARTIST
• Joyce believed in the impersonality of the artist , whose task was to render life
objectively.
• According to him ...
• the artist did not have to express his own point of view, he did not have to
teach or convince but ...
• he simply had to make people become aware of reality through their own
perception of it.
• This necessarily led to the isolation and detachment of the artist from society.
• Consequently, Joyce used in his works ...
• different points of view and different narrative techniques appropriate to the
characters portrayed and to the different situations.
• That’s why he used ...
• flashbacks,
• third person narrator from the character’s point of view,
• interior monologue,
• point of view shifting from external narration to inside the character’s mind
SUBJECTIVE PERCEPTION OF TIME
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Joyce’s stories and novels open ...
“in medias res”, i.e. in the middle of things,
with the analysis of a particular moment, and ....
the portrait of the character is based on introspection
rather than description.
In the same way the accurate description of Dublin is
derived from the character’s mind floating.
STYLE
• In conclusion,
• his style, technique, and language pass from
• the realism and disciplined prose of the Dubliners
• through the use of free indirect speech and the Epiphany
• to the interior monologue with two levels of narration,
• to the extreme interior monologue where language breaks
down into a succession of words with no punctuation or
grammar connections.
• In this way he tries to solve the problem of how to represent
the multifaceted (=complex) nature of reality .
CENTRAL THEMES
• Joyce’s main theme is the human condition and the
subjectivity of experience.
• In particular he is interested in how the different
stages in human life: i.e.
• youth,
• adolescence,
• adulthood and ...
• maturity
influence the identity of each character.
The mythical method
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Literary device used by Joyce in his “Ulysses” based on :
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THE JUXTAPOSITION OF AN ANCIENT MYTH UPON CONTEMPORARY EXPERIENCE.
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In other words, ...
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the MYTHS OF THE PAST ARE USED TO HIGHLIGHT AND EMPHASIZE THE SQUALOR,THE
EMPTINESS, THE MEANINGLESSNESS OF MODERN LIFE.
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MYTHS ARE ALSO USED AS SUBSTITUTE FOR THE PLOT: THEY GIVE THE STORY A SENSE
OF NARRATIVE AND ALLOW THE WRITER TO CONCENTRATE ON THE CHARACTER’S
INNER LIFE: TO ANALYZE THEIR MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL WORLDS.
The “mythical method” is “a way of controlling, ordering, of giving
shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy
which is contemporary history” (T.S. Eliot)
Free indirect thought/style/speech
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Device by which a character’s own voice is intertwined with the writer’s.
It combines features of indirect speech:
third-person pronouns,
past tenses,
no quotation marks,
with features of direct speech:
generally, no introductory verb,
direct questions forms,
question/exclamation marks,
tag questions,
vocabulary and syntax of direct speech,
colloquialism etc.
− ‛Home! She looked round the room’, (line 20)
− ‛She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her’,
(line110)
− ‛No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy’. (line 131)
• In the above examples it is the narrator speaking, but it is the character who is thinking, and
his/her thoughts are presented in the language that the character would use if he/she were
speaking. The Free indirect thought reflects the character’s education, age and social position.
Thus, the reader is in close contact with the character’s thoughts, and tends to accept his/her
point of view.