Identity Formation in James Joyces Ulysses

1. Introduction
a. Lead Story: Children cannot be born without parents; they cannot become
something new without first being made from something old. This oldness
comes from the genetics of the parents, as well as their preexisting mannerisms,
values, and traditions. The newness in the children comes from their desire to
learn and be unique, to differentiate from their parents and grow. Identity is
comprised of a culmination of uncontrollable situations and controllable
decisions; yin and yang, two sides of a coin. The struggle within the individual
arises in the task of maintaining the boundary between old and new within the self
and learning to accept that one cannot be whole without both parts.
The conflict of being torn between old and new arose within James Joyce during
his residence in his homeland of Ireland, a time when the Irish were under the
control of the English and support for Home Rule caused a major crisis of
identity (Hill, Movements). Dublin first began as a city recovering from the
Great Famine, where the Catholic Church became an important social, cultural,
and political institution, reaching [deeply] into local communities and the
Irish language was all but forgotten (Hill, Emancipation). Ireland had finally
settled down after the famine where the usual language of modern everyday
life was English and the country had assumed a unionist national identity the
Irish considered themselves as part of the English culture and willingly accepted
English rule (Hill, Emancipation). However, as Joyces time came along, a
Gaelic cultural revival occurred, directing attention to the wealth of Irish culture
and tradition, which were in danger of being swamped by the influence of her
dominant neighbor (Hill, Movements). The Gaelic cultural revival brought
with it the idea of evil most often linked with England and the battle of the
nationalists was almost always against English morals, influence, religion, and
rule (Hill, Movements). A rift between unionists and nationalists occurred,
causing a conflict within the national identity of Ireland and raising the question:
should Ireland accept the new revival and break away from England or keep to its
parental roots and remain in the union?

b. Transition Paragraph: The rift within the nation between breaking away and
retaining the past heavily influenced the writing of James Joyce, particularly in
the conflicts occurring within his novels in the minds of his characters. Both
Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, two major characters within the novel
Ulysses consider their cultural pasts and find difficulty in breaking away and
assuming new cultural identities.

c. Thesis Statement: Although James Joyce narrowly depicts the specific situations
and minds of his characters through the stream-of-consciousness technique in his
novel, Ulysses, he is able to portray the universality of the influence of culture on
identity through distinctive diction and syntactical changes between characters,
and using repetition, allusions and multi-person narrative display the struggle of
accepting these predisposed parts of identity.
2. Discussion of Literary Criticism/Literature Review
a. James Joyce was eager to challenge both logical and representational language
and the authorities (particularly those involved in English rule) and in doing so
developed a unique style of writing using narrative format with the inclusion of a
multitude of interior monologues (Birkett). In his fight against the oppression
under English rule, Joyce broke English convention in language and developed an
original form of expression. Before Joyce, few effectively used stream-of-
consciousness as a method to develop the characterization of individuals within
novels; his development and mastery of this style gave him the opportunity to
grasp a new phase of experience (Levin), in this case the shifting minds of
individuals on their journey to the establishment of identity.
In developing a stream-of-consciousness style, he built the interior monologue as
a mental tape-recording succeeding in representing the apparently random and
unpredictable movements of the mind, shifted from one course to another by
casual links (Peake). These subliminal connections between ideas enabled him to
establish a character not as a static character, but as sensitive and alert and
swept by emotions (Peake). The high level of his craft is demonstrated by his
ability to variously [modify] the interior monologue to represent the
processes of different minds and these modifications are established through
language, imagery and rhythms appropriate to the mind Joyce is trying to create
(Peake). In particular, the ability to modify the stream-of-consciousness from
character to character plays an important role in demonstrating the effect of
culture on the individual. Joyces use of imagery, diction and syntax that is
appropriate to each character allows him to display how one environment can
shape a persons thoughts in a completely different way than another.
Another characteristic of Joyces writing includes the musicality of his words and
sentences. Music was a large part of Joyces life early as a child and later as an
adult. He was largely exposed to a variety of music by his father who stressed that
music came before, during and after everything (Harvey). Later in life, Joyce
lived much of his life in varying states of semi-blindness, and with his vision
drastically declining towards low visibility, his imagination became more
auditory than visual (Levin). Joyce used music in multiple ways within his
texts, first to describe the action within the text; to sharpen situations, (Harvey)
describe movements or vividly express the scene (Peake), and secondly to set
the overall tone of the situation or feelings of the individual; to heighten moods
(Harvey) or express some passing sensation or emotion (Peake). The musicality
of the text comes into significance in Joyces depiction of different characters, as
the flow and references to songs changes with each different character that Joyce
introduces within the text.
In addition, within each characters stream-of-consciousness, symbolism and
motifs are Joyces natural and most central method to developing the characters
he introduces within his texts (Kelleher). Once Joyce has established the chief
characteristics of [one] interior monologue, he can repeat and vary them
(Peake). He uses the same words or the same basic images over and over
again to allow the reader to internalize the symbols and motifs before varying the
context in which they occur or by new combinations of these identifying words
and images to establish development within the character (Kelleher). The slight
variations within interior monologues indicates how individuals thoughts are
affected by the cultures they experience, as well as the conflicts experienced when
forced to choose between situations. Certain motifs are taught by specific cultures
and permeate individuals thoughts, and they especially reappear as individuals
attempt to leave behind past cultures and assimilate into new ones.
To tie both the mentality of the character shown through the interior dialogue and
the outside world depicted through the narrative, Joyce has a tendency to switch
between third person and first person. To depict the surroundings, Joyce uses the
past-tense, third-person form to represent simpler observations of the outside
world, but then frequently [shifts] into the present-tense, first-person
monologue (Peake). This shift without obvious transitions is a fusion of
experience of the outer and inner worlds (Peake). It demonstrates the possibility
of a language in which one might think and talk differently about certain matters
presented to the individual (Birkett). The difference between the dialogue and the
interior monologue provide clues as to the conflict occurring within the character;
the cultural clash the individual experiences will come out from the discrepancy
between thoughts and words.
Lastly, another of Joyces techniques in establishing characters is the use of
puns, parody, and irony (Birkett). In particular, there are two forms of irony:
praise and hostility, with Joyce using both; his ironic comparisons elevate as
often as they ridicule, and often do both at the same time, mocking some aspects
of a situation but discerning in it qualities of courageous and even lofty motive
and behavior (Peake). Joyce was a master of language and was deemed to have
[invented] an artificial language of innuendo and mockery (Levin); this
mockery arising from his Irish culture that instinctively chose mockery if the
alternative was tears (Kelleher). Among humorous tactics, Joyce also
incorporates numerous literary allusions and many words from other
languages, (Peake) with the references to other languages stemming from his
specialization and proficiency in Romance languages at University College
(Levin). Joyces humor, allusions, and inclusion of multiple languages within his
texts provides a sense of universality in his work. The situations experienced by
the characters are unique, but can also be applied to multiple other scenarios in
other forms of literature and stories.
Joyces belief that it was possible to extract universality from culturally-specific
detail is demonstrated from his narrow focus on the perspectives of individuals
from within the city of Dublin (Attridge). He believed his focus on the Irish city
would not impede others from connecting to his characters because a specific
location [modified] only [characters] accidently particulars, not their essences
(Peake). While a characters environment can be particular, their experiences,
thoughts and actions (the essence of the character) are universally connectable
to any individual. This idea of drawing universality from specificity is a key part
of the structuralism criticism, which looks for underlying elements in culture and
literature that can be connected so that critics can develop general conclusions
common to all human experiences (Structuralism and Semiotics).
b. Transition to Focus: A structuralism criticism will be assumed in the analysis of
James Joyces Ulysses, in relation to the development of identity based on the
influence of cultures. James Joyces Ulysses demonstrates the influence of a
predisposed environment on identity through the use of stream-of-consciousness
to reveal the individuals thoughts and the specific diction and syntax that the
culture predisposed the individual to. Joyce further explores the conflict in
separating from past influences and accepting new identities through the use of
repetition, motifs and dialogue. While the experiences of each character are
unique, Joyces incorporation of multi-person narrative and allusions allow for a
deeper connection and ultimate universality of the text.
3. Body Paragraph I
a. Topic Sentence: Throughout an individuals life, identity is constantly redefined
and the culture and environment surrounding the individual predisposes the
development of their identity towards a certain point.
b. Commentary: Within the novel Ulysses, Joyce incorporates a stream-of-
consciousness writing style to reveal how culture and the environment can
influence the thoughts of an individual and therefore bias their identity formation.
The influence of the environment is particularly revealed through specific diction
and syntax use, differing between each character introduced within the novel. The
diction and syntax reveal the separate influences on each of the main characters
and how different environmental influences cause differences in the construction
of identity between individuals.
c. Concrete Detail: First, Joyce introduces the character of Stephen Daedalus, whose
thoughts, as glimpsed through the stream-of-consciousness style, are permeated
with thoughts of the Catholic Church, religion and philosophy. These thoughts
originated from his higher education and religious upbringing by his family.
d. Commentary: As Dedalus stares at the bowl Mulligan left behind, he remembers
how he carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes and how he is another
now and yet the same. A servant too. A server of a servant (Joyce 11). Stephens
thoughts turned immediately to his religious experience as a child at the presence
of an ordinary object, indicating that without his knowledge, the first thoughts that
come into his head are a result of his childhood influence. Dedalus religious
teachings are so deeply engraved in his identity that they are the first things that
enter his mind. Also, as Dedalus is consumed within his own thoughts while he is
teaching or by the sea, his thoughts take a very poetic and philosophical form. As
he is questioning the children, he considers how they are fabled by the daughters
of memory... a phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blakes wings of excess and
how he [hears] the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and
time one livid final flame (Joyce 24). Dedalus thoughts spiral from memory to
the end of existence, but his pondering assumes a poetic form, indicating the
influence of the artistic and philosophical culture he experienced while in Paris.
e. Concrete Detail: Then, Joyce introduces the character Leopold Bloom and reveals
his thoughts in a similar manner through a stream-of-consciousness flow.
However, both diction and syntax change in comparison to Stephen Dedalus, as
Dedalus thoughts are flowing and poetic and Blooms thoughts are scientific and
choppy.
f. Commentary: The influence behind Blooms scientific and choppy thoughts is his
Jewish heritage. Bloom constantly thinks about Israel because that was the culture
he was predisposed to by his family, which is entirely different from Dedalus
constant thoughts on the Catholic Church. In addition, Blooms heritage places an
emphasis on education, explaining why he feels the need to rationalize in swift
thoughts and scientific terms. As Bloom observes his cat, his thoughts flit back
and forth of his observations. First, he listened to her licking lap but his
thoughts quickly changed to food, as he considered what to buy: Ham and eggs,
no. No good eggs with this drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good
day either for a mutton kidney at Buckleys (Joyce 56). Then, Blooms thoughts
instantly jump back to the cat as he ponders why are their tongues so rough?
and he instantly rationalizes his answer as to lap better, all porous holes (Joyce
56). In addition, while religious thoughts infiltrate Dedalus thoughts without his
awareness, thoughts about Israel seep into Blooms mind with his awareness.
When a cloud began to cover the sun, Blooms thoughts immediately turned to
a barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk
deep in the earth (Joyce, 61). Without him even trying, the first thing that came
to his mind was the dead sea in Israel, indicating that on a deep level, Blooms
past experience with the land of Israel and his childhood there has deeply
engraved itself into his identity.
g. Concrete Detail: Lastly, Joyce introduces Molly Bloom, who is different from the
others in the fact that she is a female and did not experience as high of an
education as either of the other two men. The difference in gender and education
changes the quality of her thoughts to be completely than either Dedalus or
Blooms. There is little syntactical punctuation and her thoughts flow from one
topic to another without pause. In using the stream-of-consciousness technique,
Joyce reveals that men and women think drastically different, indicating that
gender (as determined by factors outside the individuals control) also plays a
significant role in the quality of a persons thoughts.
h. Commentary: Molly is first revealed as intellectually inferior to Bloom as she
asks for the meaning of metempsychosis and impatiently shouts O, rocks! Tell
us in plain words (Joyce 64) when she does not understand his explanation to
her. In addition, in the final chapter, her thoughts are revealed to be completely
free of punctuation. She thinks about the train somewhere whistling the strength
those engines have in them like big giants and the water rolling all over and out of
them all sides like the end of Loves old sweet sonnnng Im glad I burned the
half of those old Freemans and Photo bits leaving things like that lying around
(Joyce 754). The lack of punctuation and increase of colloquial diction as
compared to the elevated diction both of the men use further lowers her
intellectual status in comparison to them, indicating that her cultural exposure did
not place as high of an emphasis on education as the others cultures did. In
comparison of all three of the characters, Joyce incorporates specific diction and
syntax for each individual: Dedalus thoughts are long, poetic and religiously
inclined, Blooms thoughts are short, straight to the point and Israeli inclined, and
Mollys thoughts are without pause and with grammatical mistakes. Joyce uses
these alterations in diction and syntax to indicate how each culture predisposed
each individual to think in their unique way, demonstrating that culture plays a
significant role in determining the identity of the individual.
4. Body Paragraph II
a. Topic Sentence: In addition to culture having a powerful influence on identity,
Joyce also demonstrates the helplessness and guilt that occurs as a result of the
collision of two identities, one arising from the past influences of family and the
other from the desire to assimilate into a new niche, through the use of repetition
and motifs.
b. Commentary: Conflict occurs within an individual when they attempt to choose
one identity over another, clearing a space for guilt to arise. Joyce allows for this
guilt to emerge in the characters minds through the repetition of certain phrases
and images.
c. Concrete Detail: As Dedalus struggles to break away from his familys Catholic
influence and fully immerse himself in his artistic identity, he experiences guilt in
the form of the repetition of his mothers ghost and his conscious phrase.
d. Commentary: Multiple times throughout Ulysses, the images of Dedalus
mothers ghost comes to haunt him, first appearing silently, in a dream after
her death, her wasted body within its loose brown graveclothes giving off an
odour of wax and rosewood and wetted ashes (Joyce 5). And then a second
time, as Dedalus conversed with Mulligan, she appeared within loose
graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood her breath bent over
him a faint odour of wetted ashes (Joyce 8). She made her reappearance again,
as he was teaching in his classroom and considering how wombed in sin
darkness [he] was too, made not begotten. By them, the man with [his] voice and
a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath (Joyce 38). Over and over again,
Dedalus must bear the haunting image of his mother bearing over him because of
his refusal to pray for her at his deathbed. His break from one culture resulted in
remorse and pain, that was not yet the pain of love (Joyce 5) fretting his heart
for the rest of the novel. In addition, when Dedalus broke away from his family to
leave for Paris, he left behind all of his brothers and sisters. In doing so, his
conscious constantly reminds him of his agenbite of inwit (Joyce 16); the bite
of his guilty conscious he feels again and again for consciously choosing to
abandon his family. It repeats much more often the more in contact he is with his
family. After meeting with his sister again, he thinks, She is drowning. Agenbite.
Save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will drown me with her, eyes and hair.
Lank coils of seaweed hair around me, my heart, my soul. Salt green death. We.
Agenbite of inwit. Inwits agenbite. Misery! Misery! (Joyce, 243). His heart
cries for salvation from the bite he feels of his conscious, constantly reminding
him of the mess he left his siblings in.
e. Concrete Detail: In addition to guilt, helplessness bubbles up as the individual is
stuck between two cultures, as is evidenced through the motif of keys throughout
Ulysses.
f. Commentary: In both Dedalus and Blooms circumstances, the keys represent the
cultures that they are attempting to become a part of. In Dedalus circumstance,
the key represents the artistic culture; he is forced to give away the key and never
gets it back. His entrance into the culture is taken away, and he realizes as he
hands [Mulligan] they key that he will not sleep in the tower tonight with the
rest of the individuals, but that home also [he] cannot go (Joyce 23). Dedalus
experiences a sense of helplessness that causes him to drink the night away
because he realizes that he has nowhere to go; no culture will fully accept him as
its own because he has now dabbled in both. In Blooms circumstance, the key
represents the Irish culture that he is trying be a member of. He is a Jew living
among a Catholic community and despite his attempts to be part of the group, he
is extremely ostracized and rejected. As he leaves home, he feels in his hip
pocket for the latchkey but realizes that it is somewhere in the trousers [he] left
off (Joyce 57) and decides to continue without it. Blooms key is different from
Dedalus key because it is right in front of him and is just waiting for him to seize
it. Dedalus mother has died and therefore he can never fully appreciate both
cultures because he will never gain forgiveness, but Bloom can accept both
cultures and create a complete identity if he strives to do so. In the end of the
novel, when Bloom and Dedalus arrive at Blooms house, Bloom realizes that
they two are a keyless couple before proceeding to [climb] over the area
railings and open the latch from the inside (Joyce 668). Bloom decides to accept
both parts of his identity, and take matters into his own hands. Bloom overcame
his helplessness, but Dedalus did not and never will. Through the motifs of the
keys and the repetition, Joyce demonstrates the helplessness an individual
encounters as they are caught between two cultures and the guilt they experience
as they attempt to choose one over another without considering the value of both.
5. Body Paragraph III
a. Topic Sentence: The influence of culture on individuals thoughts, as well as the
inner turmoil experienced when two cultures are at odds within an individual can
be universally derived to multiple scenarios and pieces of literature.
b. Commentary: In Ulysses, Joyce achieves this universality through parallelism
within his use of multi-person narratives and through allusions to The Odyssey.
c. Concrete Detail: First, Joyce establishes similar scenarios in two different
characters lives through the use of parallelism in weather.
d. Commentary: At one time, Dedalus is looking out to the sea during a time of
bright sunshine where woodshadows floated silently by through the morning
peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the
mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet (Joyce 9). At the
same time, in a different part of the city, Bloom is outside where the sun was
nearing the steeply of Georges church (Joyce 57) and thinks, Be a warm day I
fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black conducts, reflects
(refracts is it?) the heat (Joyce 57). While the parallelism in the weather and
pleasant feelings demonstrates that two different people in two entirely different
places can have the same feelings peaceful feelings, Joyce further reinforces the
idea of parallelism as the weather becomes cloudy and both Dedalus and
Blooms thoughts turn for the worst. For Dedalus, a could began to cover the sun
slowly, shadowing the bay in deeper green, ad his thoughts turned to his mother,
where her door was open she was crying in her wretched bed. For those
words, Stephen: loves bitter mystery (Joyce 9). Simultaneously, Blooms
thoughts turned to the Dead Sea and the desolation of the Israeli people. For
Bloom, a cloud began to cover the sun wholly slowly wholly. Grey. Far a
barren land, bare waste. Vulvanic lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep
in the earth a dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now the oldest
people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying,
dying, being born everywhere (Joyce 61). By paralleling the weather and the
characters reactions in the multi-person narrative, Joyce demonstrates that even
people distantly away from each other can still feel the same things, drawing
support for the universality of his text in terms of cultural influence and suffering
at the collision of two cultural identities.
e. Concrete Detail: Last but not least, Joyce incorporates multiple allusions to The
Odyssey in the ordinary lives of Bloom and Dedalus to elevate the events of
ordinary life to an extraordinary level.
f. Commentary: On Blooms journey through the streets of Dublin, he encounters a
tea shop and thinks of the garden of the world with big lazy leaves to float
about on, cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas (Joyce 71). He thinks about how
he would feel in such a place, not doing a hands turn all day sleep six months
out of twelve lethargy. Flowers of idleness Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic
gardens. Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the
air (Joyce 71-72). In this chapter, Joyce incorporates multiple references to
flowers and the feeling of being drugged, lethargic and mindless. These specific
diction choices parallel the events Odysseus encountered on the island of Lotus
Eaters, where some of his men eat the flowers and wanted to remain on the island
forever as they similarly experienced the same feeling of lethargy and
mindlessness. By connecting Blooms experience to the epic, the reader gets a
sense of the epic proportions of Blooms fantasies as well as the procrastination
and laziness he experiences in his life. Joyce indicates that the feeling of lethargy
or even the action of fantasizing can be as grand as what was encountered in the
epic, showing that even ordinary experiences can be as debilitating or grandiose
as the heroes and their circumstances within the epics.
As Bloom enters a pub, he observes the Citizen siting in the corner, on a large
boulder at the foot of a round tower a broadshouldered deepchested
stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired largenosed longheaded deepvoiced
hairylegged hero (Joyce 296). He went on to describe the man as measuring
from shoulder to shoulder several ells and his rocklike mountainous knees
were covered in hue and toughness similar to the mountain gorse (Joyce 296).
Finally, he described his eyes in which a tear and a smile were of the
dimensions or a goodsized cauliflower (Joyce 296). Joyce specifically used
combined words and hyperboles to describe the Citizen as a large, thundering
figure, with eyes much like the ones the Cyclops had that Odysseus encountered.
The parallel drawn between the Citizen and the Cyclops indicates that Joyce is
attributing common, everyday enemies to the same level as monsters. In Blooms
eyes, the Citizen was one of the most horrendous and cruel people he had ever
encountered, as evidenced by the diction used to describe him, and to Bloom,
facing the obstacle of this man was on the same level as Odysseus facing the
obstacle of the Cyclops. In addition, the parallel between the Citizen and the
Cyclops also draws a parallel between Bloom and Odysseus, indicating that
Bloom will overpower the Citizen with words and knowledge by the end of
chapter. The parallel serves to once again prove that ordinary life can be on the
same proportion as an epic, but that even ordinary men can use the same
techniques that heroes used. Bloom managed to scrap up his self-confidence not
by physically fighting, but by outsmarting the Citizen with his questions, just as
Odysseus did with the Cyclops.
6. Conclusion
a. Joyce spent his time on the details in developing each and every one of his
characters; the crafty diction with Dedalus, the choppy diction with Bloom, and
the syntactical sparseness of Molly. However, all of his characters were extremely
relatable to. Their struggle to create an identity while dealing with the
hopelessness of being stuck in between the Charybdis and Scylla of two cultures
and the guilt having to give up one for the other is a struggle universal to all,
including Joyce himself, stemming from his own personal experience during the
Gaelic revival of Irish culture during the 1900s. Joyce masterfully achieved the
universal application of the struggle of his Dublin characters through careful
diction and syntactical changes, multi-person narratives and allusions to The
Odyssey.