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JAMES JOYCE (VIDEO)

James Joyce was an Irish modernist novelist and poet. He is regarded as one of the most influential and
important authors of the twentieth century (and of the modernist movement).
He was born in Dublin in 1882. He was educated at a Jesuit school, and then studied modern languages
in Dublin. In 1904 he married Nora Barnacle, and together they emigrated permanently to continental
Europe. They moved to Zurich, then to Trieste, an important cultural capital, where Joyce got a job as
an English teacher. Here he made friends with Italo Svevo. They moved to Zurich again, when the
WW1 [World War the First] broke out. He died in Zurich in 1941.

Ireland was the centre of paralysis: Joyce accused Irish people to be weak, passive, unable or unwilling
to rebel against the British domination. Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories about people
living in Dublin: mainly, lower middle class Dubliners, who witnessed economic problems, moral
constraints caused by religion, and political, economic and cultural domination by the British.
Like Jonathan Swift had done 150 years before in his novel “Gulliver’s travels”, Joyce also accused Irish
people to be weak and passive (although Joyce deeply loved his motherland Ireland).
The dominant theme of the fifteen short stories is the failure to find a way out of this paralysis: the
main characters of each short story know that the life they are leading is unsatisfying and frustrating,
but they cannot (or maybe don’t want to) do something to change it. Their free will is paralyzed (like in
Italo Svevo’s “inetti”).
Each short story opens in medias res, when a turning point is going to occur in the life of the
protagonist. This critical moment is called “epiphany”: an epiphany is the sudden manifestation of a
hidden or removed truth (for example: a fear, or a secret wish). It is a spiritual revelation, a sudden
recognition of meaning, caused by an external object or an unexpected situation, a song, a scent, an
image. After the epiphany, the character changes his understating of himself and the reality around
him, for he realizes his or her miserable condition.

EVELINE (Dubl.)
“Eveline” is the story of a young woman abused by her alcoholic father. She has the chance to leave to
Buenos Aires with her boyfriend Frank, but she hears a song that reminds her of the melody she heard
on the day of her mother’s death. Eveline promised her mother to look after the house and keep the
family together. At the dock, where she and Frank are about to embark, Eveline decides not to leave:
Eveline is paralyzed in her horrible life. The name “Eveline” is symbolical/allegorical: Eveline means
“Little Eve”. So, unlike Eve in the Bible (who chose to eat the Forbidden Apple), she is unable to choose,
her will is paralyzed.

THE DEAD (Dubl.)

Gabriel Conroy is a college professor and a literary critic; he embodies what Joyce would have been if
he had not escaped Dublin. Gabriel and Gretta (his wife) are at a Christmas party at Gabriel’s aunts (3
unmarried women); on that night, Gretta hears a song that reminds her about a guy, Michael Fury,
who used to sing it, and who died for her love, when he was seventeen. Gretta seems to be very distant
and sad: she is still thinking about that song and that boy.
Gabriel asked her: “What did he die of?”, and Gretta answered: “I think he died for me”. Gretta’s
answer is a real epiphany for Gabriel: he has never had anything or anyone to live or to die for. His life
suddenly appears to him for what it is: empty, meaningless, purposeless.
Michael is the only character who dies in the story, but he proves to be the only person who has truly
lived.
The final scene (the snow falling), proves that it is impossible to distinguish the town from the
graveyard, that is the living from the dead: both are motionless and emotionless, trapped in their own
lifeless existence, which they are unable to change.
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A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

“A Portrait of the artist as a young man” is Joyce’s first novel. It is a semi-autobiographical novel. The
main character is Stephen Dedalus, a young Irish writer (Joyce’s fictional double/alter ego). He is a
rebel against his family, his religion, his nation: “Non serviam” (that is “I will not serve”) is his motto
and his fundamental belief (this is the same phrase that Lucifer said to God when he rejected him).
Stephen is the first Christian martyr, stoned to death for preaching; in this case, Stephen is a martyr for
art: he goes on a voluntary exile to France to break the rules and live his life freely as an artist.
Dedalus is a character of the Greek Mythology, who escaped the labyrinth of the Minotaur using wax
wings: therefore the surname “Dedalus” is associated to Stephen’s (and thus Joyce’s) will of freedom
and rebellion against a passive existence.

ULYSSES
In “Ulysses”, Joyce’s masterpiece, Stephen Dedalus returns to Dublin. He has failed as an artist, now he
is only a simple teacher. The story is set in Dublin on a single day: June [the] 16th, 1904. Stephen has
lost his father (Simon Dedalus has cut him out of his life). Another Dubliner, Leopold Bloom, a 38-year
advertising canvasser, son of a Hungarian Jew, suffers from two emotional crises: the loss of his father
and of his son, and the infidelity of his wife, Molly Bloom. Stephen, Leopold and Molly correspond to
Telemachus, Ulysses and his faithful wife Penelope. According to the mythical method, the twentieth
century versions of Homer’s characters reveal the clash between a mythical, meaningful, ordered past
and a meaningless, chaotic present. Joyce made a constant parallel between antiquity and present
time. Every character and every episode is linked to the Odissey: Joyce shared Eliot’s idea that using
myth is “the only way of giving shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility which is
contemporary history” (quotation from T. S. Eliot’s “Ulysses, order and myth”)

STYLE AND TECHNIQUES

Joyce widely used the stream of consciousness technique, employed by many other modernist writers.
The stream of consciousness is the interior monologue of a character, a stream of memories, thoughts,
ideas, fears, feelings, emotions which freely flow at a pre-speech level, that is before they are
translated into words and speech.
The features of the stream of consciousness technique/interior monologue are:
1) It is in first person;
2) There are sudden shifts from thought to thought, with no logical connections;
3) There is no intervention of the ordering mind of the narrator: we are given direct access to the
mind of the character.
4) Thoughts and feelings are described at a pre-speech level, therefore often with poor punctuation
and syntax, because the free association of ideas (typical of the interior monologue) is an irrational
and spontaneous process.
The stream of consciousness technique was influenced by Freud’s psychoanalysis and by Bergson’s
theory of the subjective perception of time.

Joyce and the other modernist writers wanted their writing to be the mirror of their chaotic world:
modern society witnessed a disordered lack of meaning, which no omniscient and absolute point of
view could solve. That’s why there are many narrative point of views in modernists works.

Another technique used by Joyce is the mythical method, theorized by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot:
the writer makes a continuous comparison between an ordered and meaningful mythical past and
the chaotic and meaningless present, in order to “give shape and order to the immense panorama of
futility” which is modern time, and to show the breakdown of European culture. (example: Molly
Bloom-Penelope in the “Ulysses”)
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DETTATO
Joyce is the pioneer of the modern novel, he broke the heritage with the tradition of realistic novel of
the previous century. Joyce wrote “Dubliners”, “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” and “Ulysses”.

“Dubliners” is a collection of 15 short stories; each story covers a crucial moment of the life of the main
character. The story opens in medias res, we are not given a complete report of the life of the
protagonist; the reader gets in immediate contact with the main character, who is first described in his
quotidian life in Dublin; the protagonist knows that the life he is leading is unsatisfactory but he
cannot (or maybe he does not want to) do something to change it. He is paralyzed and his free will is
ill, like Italo Svevo’s “inetti” (unfit).
None of the protagonists of the 15 short stories of “Dubliners” can say “no” to their frustrating life;
unlike Joyce, Eveline and Gabriel know that their life is unsatisfying, but they remain trapped,
paralyzed. Gabriel, the main character of “The Dead”, is a teacher and a literary critic. Gabriel cannot
make art, he is sterile, he is spiritually dead. His wife Gretta is touched when a song reminds her of her
first love, Michael, a singer, a young man who was able to make art, who was spiritually alive. Michael
died: he was seriously ill but he wanted to see his love Gretta before he died. When Gabriel asked
Gretta “Why did he die?”, she answered: “I think he died for me”. This is an epiphany to Gabriel: not
because he becomes aware that his wife still loves Michael, but because he realizes for the first time
that he has nobody and nothing to live or die for: his life seems to be empty to him, without sense,
without purpose.
An epiphany is an unexpected spiritual revelation of a removed truth; this revelation happens
because an external object, a song, a scent reminds the protagonist of some hidden or removed
secret of the past. After an epiphany, everything changes in the life of the protagonist: he starts to
see himself and the world around him with a new awareness.

Joyce deeply loved Dublin: in his masterpiece “Ulysses” the streets and the places of Dublin are
described to the smallest detail; despite his love for Dublin, for Ireland, Joyce was aware that Dublin
was the centre of paralysis: Dubliners were passive people, unable to say “no” to the economic,
political and cultural domination of England. Like Swift had done 150 years before, when in “Gulliver’s
travels” he mocked the superiority of English people and wanted to push Irish people to rebellion,
Joyce also accused Irish people to be weak.

Joyce chose a voluntary exile before in Paris, then in Trieste. Trieste was an influent cultural capital
during the first decades of the XX century. In Trieste Joyce made friends with Italo Svevo, he
encouraged him when his first novels seemed to be a failure.

Joyce knew Freud’s psychoanalysis: he was completely aware that the traditional novel was not
appropriate for the modern literature anymore. A new writing technique was necessary: the interior
monologue, a stream of memories [=of consciousness], ideas, fears, emotions which freely flow at a
pre-speech level, that is before they are translated into words to share with others. Joyce used the
stream of consciousness technique in his masterpiece “Ulysses”. The best example of interior
monologue can be found in the last chapter of “Ulysses”, titled “Penelope”. One of the main characters,
Molly Bloom, after she urinates, a stream of physical liquids, is about to fall asleep, when a stream of
memories, desires, sensations, begins to flow in her consciousness. She remembers her youth in
Gibraltar, her first loves, when she met her husband Leopold, in an accumulation which reaches the
climax when she thinks “And I said <<yes, I want it, yes…>”. Molly Bloom is the XX century version of
Homer’s Penelope: Joyce employed the mythical method, theorized by Eliot, to contrast the mythical
past to the squalid present.
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DA WHATSAPP (SCRITTO CON I PIEDI PORCA PUTTANA)

The story centers on Gabriel Conroy, a university professor, on the night of the Morkan sisters' annual
dance and dinner in the first week of January 1904, a celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany. Gabriel,
favorite nephew of the sisters, arrives late to the party with his wife Gretta. Gabriel is worried about
the speech he has to give, especially because it contains too many academic references for his
audience.
At the party, Gabriel is confronted by Miss Ivors, an Irish nationalist, about his publishing a weekly
literary column in a newspaper with unionist sympathies, and she teases him as a "West Briton," that is,
a supporter of English political control of Ireland. Gabriel thinks this charge is highly unfair, but fails to
offer a satisfactory answer. The music and party continues, but Gabriel retreats into himself, thinking of
the snow outside and his impending speech.
Dinner begins, with Gabriel seated at the head of the table. Gabriel thinks once more about the snow
and begins his speech observing that "we are living in a sceptical… thought-tormented age," and
referring to Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane as the Three Graces. The speech ends with a toast, and
the guests sing "For they are jolly gay fellows."
Preparing to leave, he finds his wife standing, apparently lost in thought, at the top of the stairs. From
another room, a song, "The Lass of Aughrim" can be heard. The Conroys leave, walking through the
snow. Gabriel is excited, it has been a long time since he and Gretta have had a night in a hotel to
themselves, and is overcome with love for his wife. Gretta is cool, reserved, and contemplative. When
they arrive at the hotel, Gabriel's aspirations of passionate night of sex are shattered by Gretta's lack of
interest. He asks her about what is bothering her, and she admits that she is "thinking about that song,
The Lass of Aughrim." She admits that it reminds her of someone, a young man named Michael Furey,
whom she had courted in her youth in Galway. He used to sing The Lass of Aughrim for her. Furey died
at seventeen, early in their relationship, and she had been very much in love with him. “What did he die
of”, asks Gabriel: “I think he died for me” is Gretta's answer; Gretta believes that it was his insistence
on coming to meet her in the winter and the rain, while he was already sick, that killed him. After
telling these things to Gabriel, Gretta falls asleep. At first, Gabriel is shocked that there was something
of such significance in his wife's life that he never knew about. But later on, his thoughts range more
widely, and his emotions become less clear. He thinks about the role of the dead in living people's lives,
and observes that everyone he knows, himself included, will one day only be a memory, as Michael
Furey now is to Gretta. Gabriel stands at the window, watching the snow fall: "His soul swooned slowly
as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last
end, upon all the living and the dead."
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MODERN FICTION/STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS (VIDEO)

FORM
 Free indirect [indirect] speech and free association of ideas
 Stream of consciousness technique and interior monologue
 Discontinuous narrative and multiple narrative points of view
 Quotation and wide use of classical allusions

THEMES
 Life is viewed as incoherent, experience as fragmented, reality as a matter of perception.
 Alienation and spiritual loneliness
 Objection to traditional thoughts and moralities
 Disillusionment and despair of the individual

SOME FAMOUS MODERNIST WORKS

 Ulysses, a novel by James Joyce
 Mrs. Dalloway, a novel by Virginia Woolf
 Waiting for Godot, a play by Samuel Beckett
 In Search of Lost Time, a novel by Marcel Proust
 Six characters in Search of an Author, a play by Luigi Pirandello
 The Waste Land, a poem by T. S. Eliot
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EVELINE (VIDEO)
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THE DEAD (VIDEO)

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A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN / ULYSSES (VIDEO)

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