JAMES JOYCE1882-1941

Biography

Born into new Catholic middle class Family’s fortunes on the decline

Educated in Dublin by the Jesuits 1902-3 travels to Paris 1903 Mother dies 1904, June: Meets future wife, Nora

Barnacle 1904, October: leaves Ireland for the

continent Trieste, Rome, Zurich, Paris

Bio - continued

A war refugee: fled Paris before German occupation, arrived in Switzerland

Died on 13 January, 1941, 3 weeks after reaching Switzerland

Joyce and Modernism

Joyce’s name is synonymous with modernist literature. His fiction disrupted conventional expectations:

about narrative certainty, heroism, and religious faith declining since the late nineteenth century,

offering instead a look at human consciousness in a world where grand cultural myths and systems of belief were breaking down.

Joyce substitutes “epiphany” in place of spiritual conviction and certitude, a momentary flash of awareness,

a heightened personal experience, that revealed the ordinary in an extraordinary light.

Adapted from Christian doctrine, the secular equivalent of a spiritual experience.

Gabriel Conroy’s realization of his own insignificance, illustrate the fleeting intensity of such a moment.

Modernist Influences

World War I (1914-1918) Ezra Pound’s challenge: “Make it new” The “Great Questioners”: Marx,

Nietzsche, Darwin, Freud An era of Revolution

Tsarist Russia becomes the Soviet Union Irish “Easter Rising”

Fragmentation Finding Order: myth, art

The Dubliners

“In many ways Joyce invented Dublin, and those of us living there now have to live in it

according to his myopic lens.” - Edward BarringtonIrish Ambassador to UKopening remarks at James JoyceSymposium, London, June 24, 2000

The Dubliners

“I seriously believe that you will retard the course of civilization in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in my nicely polished looking-glass.”

“I have written it for the most part in a style of scrupulous meanness.”

Dubliners

A collection of 15 stories, written between 1903 and 1907 “My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of

my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the center of paralysis.”

“I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin, I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal.”

“I have tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. The stories are arranged in this order.”

“I have written it for the most part in a style of scrupulous meanness.”

“What’s the matter with you is that you’re afraid to live. You and people like you. This city is suffering from hemiplegia [paralysis] of the will.”

Narration

narrative point of view first-person, third person omniscient, limited stream of consciousness, interior

monologue Transparent Minds:

psycho-narration narrated monologue (indirect interior mon.) quoted monologue (direct interior mon.)

“The Dead”

Gabriel Insecurity/Awkwardness

Defensiveness and overcompensation Paralysis/“blindness”

Doesn’t immediately recognize his wife when he sees her on the stairs listening to the song.

Fear of Insignificance vs. feelings of superiority

Epiphany: The pain of self-awareness

Idealization of the Past

In his toast Possible foreshadowing of his wife’s story?

Wife’s nostalgia at hearing the old song He confronts her about it, is rebuffed and

again he gets defensive