JAMES JOYCE

JAMES JOYCE:MORE THAN AN AUTHOR

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A MODERNIST WRITER

MAIN WORKS

James Joyce was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century.

Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, most famously stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection like Dubliners (1914)

SUMMARY

01

02

03

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

CULTURAL BACKGROUND

LIFE AND WORK

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06

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JOYCE STYLE

DUBLINERS

EVELINE

08

THE INEPT

THE "BELLE EPOQUE"

20TH CENTURY WAR

The first decade of the 20th century is called the ''Belle epoque'', it was the heyday of the bourgeoisie from an economic, cultural and worldly point of view. In this period journalism began to spread with greater insistence and people have greater access to the means of communication such as radio, and cinema for culture.

The World War I, also called the ''Great War'' was characterized by an unparalleled destruction while, the Second, by the horrors of German concentration camps and the two atomic bombs. In this period, writers are influenced by the ideas of Freud and Einstein

CULTURAL BACKGROUND

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity discarded the concepts of time and space, which he saw as subjective dimensions. So the world view lost its solidity and the scientific revolution was complemented by verbal experimentation and the exploration of memory in literature

Freud, in his essay ''The interpretation of dreams'', explained that the human psyche was characterized by irrational forces called ''subconscious'', and for this reason, he used the new method of investigation based on psychoanalysis characterized by the interpretation of dreams

Historical time is external, linear and measured in terms of the spatial distance travelled by a pendulum or the hands of a clock, whereas psychological time is internal, subjective and measured by the relative emotional intensity of a moment.

Dublin(1882-1904)

Trieste(1905-15)

In 1905 they settled in Trieste, where Joyce made friends with Italo Svevo. Joyce and Nora had two children. The years in Trieste were difficult, in fact Joyce was in trouble with publishers because of his contents. Indeed The collection "Dubliners", which was published in 1914 was already completed in 1905.

Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882. His interest was for a broader European culture, so he established himself on the Continent and spent some time in Paris, where he started his writer career, but his mother's illness in 1903 brought him back to Dublin. There in 1904 he met Nora Barnacle, and they had their first date on 16th June, which was to become the "Bloomsday" of Ulysses

Zurich(1940-41)

Zurich(1915-1920)

Paris (1920-1940)

In 1915 Joyce moved to Zurich with his family but his difficult financial situation despite the success of his previous works doesn't improve. In 1917 he received a donation so he will be able to continue the drafting of Ulysses which in 1918 was published for the first time and then was censored in 1920 for obscenities

In 1940, when France was occupied by the Germans, Joyce returned to Zurich, the city that that had given him a refuge during World War I. After intestinal operation, he died at the age of 59 in January 1941

In 1920 Joyce moved to Paris, where he published "Ulysses" in 1922.. This period of success was also characterised by worsering of his daugther Luisa's mental illness. Although this final decade of his life was darkened by different bad problems, he continued to write on "Finnegans Wake"(1939),which was an immedinat success.

JOYCE'S STYLE

Joyce, influenced by the Symbolists, belived in the impersonality of the artist. The artist's task was to render life objectively in order to give back to the readers a true imagine of it. As his works did not have to express the author's viewpoint, Joyce used different points of view and narrative techniques appropriate to the characters portrayed.

His style developed from the realism and the disciplined prose of Dubliners, through the use of free direct speech, to the interior monologue. So language was broke down into a succession of words without grammatical connection, and reality became the place of psychological projections.

DUBLINERS: PLOT AND SETTINGS

Dubliners consists of 15 short stories; they all lack obvious action, but they disclose human situations and moments of intensity, and lead to amoral, social or spiritual revelation. The opening stories deal with childhood and youth in Dublin; the others, advancing in time and expanding in scope, concern the middle years of characters and their social, political or religious affairs. In Joyce opinion, Dublin is a place where true feeling and compassion for others do not exist, where cruelty and selfishness lie just below the surface. The last story, The Dead, was a late addition and can be considered Joyce’s first masterpiece. It summarises themes and motifs of the other 14 stories of the collection, but it functions more as an epilogue

CHARACTERS

REALISM AND SYMBOLISM

Everyone in Dublin seems to be caught up in an endless web of despair. Even when they want to escape, Joyce’s Dubliners are unable to because they are spiritually weak. The young woman in Eveline is a perfect example. Instead of choosing a new life in Buenos Aires, she decides to stay in Dublin.

The description is realistic and extremely concise. The use of realism is mixed with symbolism, since external details generally have a deeper meaning. The general ‘disharmony’ of Eveline’s family is pointed out, where the dead mother was a victim of the aggressive father and Eveline now shares the same destiny. Religious symbolism can also be found

THE USE OF EPIPHANY

Joyce thought that the function of symbolism was to take the reader beyond the usual aspects of life through the analysis of the particular. So he used "epiphany", that is, ‘the sudden spiritual manifestation’ caused by a trivial gesture, an external object or a banal situation, which reveals the character’s inner truths. So at these revelatory moments the reader’s attention focuses on the real meaning of the narrative.

DUBLINERS' STYLE

Joyce style in Dubliners is characterised by two distinct elements: the interior monologue and patterned repetition of images, that is, chiasmus. In the first three short stories, Joyce employs a first person narrator, who remains nameless and not identified. The protagonist’s pure thoughts are introduced without any reporting verbs, which implies the disappearance of the narrator from the text. This allows the reader to acquire direct knowledge of the character’s mind. The language of Dubliners appears simple, objective and neutral. It is always adapted to the characters according to their age, social class and role.

Her father used often to hunt them in out of the field with his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogh used to keep nix and call out when he saw her father coming. Still they seemed to have been rather happy then. Her father was not so bad then; and besides, her mother was alive. That was a long time ago; she and her brothers and sisters were all grown up; her mother was dead. Tizzie Dunn was dead, too, and the Waters had gone back to England. Everything changes

This is an excerpt of Eveline’s life and routine, we can start emphasise with her character and understand her thoughts. From this point on the perspective changes, the focuses of the story moves from the present, from what Eveline’s seeing at the moment, to her past experiences

She had hard work to keep the house together and to see that the two young children who had been left to hr charge went to school regularly and got their meals regularly. It was hard work—a hard life—but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life

Now that Eveline is gonna leave her life with all its perks and faults she starts wondering if it is the right thing to do, if she’s gonna do more good than harm for herself and her family and if she’s gonna be actually happy.

Of course, her father had found out the affair and had forbidden her to have anything to say to him. “I know these sailor chaps,” he said. One day he had quarrelled with Frank and after that she had to meet her lover secretly. The evening deepened in the avenue. The white of two letters in her lap grew indistinct. One was to Harry; the other was to her father. Ernest had been her favourite but she liked Harry too. Her father was becoming old lately, she noticed; he would miss her.

"He would miss her" from this particular thought that crosses Eveline’s mind just for a moment, we can understand that despite the way her father treats her she loves him profoundly, she really cares about his father feelings, emotions and sensations and wants him to be happy

Why does Eveline’ father not want her daughter to go live with her lover? He claims his daughter; in fact she is all he has left after his wife death. He treats her abruptly and disrespectfully, quite like she is his slave, who cooks for him and his sons and keeps the family going

As she mused the pitiful vision of her mother's life laid its spell on the very quick of her being—that life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness. She trembled as she heard again her mother's voice saying constantly with foolish insistence: “Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!” She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would take her in his arms, fold her in his arms. He would save her.

She now remembers the moment of her mother death. She has her words printed in her memory. She remembered the promise she made to her mother: to keep the home together as long as she could . Eveline, at this point,seems to really understand what to do; she has to leave and go with Frank to Buenos Aires because she has a right to be happy

The boat blew a long mournful whistle into the mist. If she went, tomorrow she would be on the sea with Frank, steaming towards Buenos Ayres. Their passage had been booked. Could she still draw back after all he had done for her? Her distress awoke a nausea in her body and she kept moving her lips in silent fervent prayer. A bell clanged upon her heart. She felt him seize her hand: “Come!” All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her. She gripped with both hands at the iron railing. “Come!” No!

At this point in the stream of consciousness we can see how Eveline starts to have some serious doubts about leaving her life and going with Frank. This is a real paralysis of ineptitude: the protagonist feels so many different emotions and sensations at the same time; love for Frank, passion and compassion for his family and the weight of the promise she made to her mother. Though at the end, she can’t bring herself to leave, she is forced by the solemn promise she made to stay right there where she is and take care of her family

"A man of a genius makes no mistake. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery" (J.Joyce)

The protagonist of the story, Eveline, represents a new type of character introduced for the first time in the early 1900s: the inept. This characters doesn't have the courage to make choices and change their life. The figure of the inept is also very frequent in the novels of many other authors such as his friend Italo Svevo.