JAMES JOYCE

JAMES JOYCE

Life he was born in Dublin in 1882. The writers he admired more were Dante, considered his 'spiritual food', D'Annunzio and Ibsen. The interest in Euripean literatures led him to begin to think himself as an European rather than an Irishman. His attitude contrasted with that of his literary contemporaries, like Yeats, who where supporting the struggle for Irish indipendence. In 1904, fearing of not being totally immmune from the 'paralysis', he decided to leave Ireland and he moved to Italy, in particular Trieste. There he known Italo Svevo, whose 'La coscienza di Zeno', shows Joyce's influence.

Main features: he wrote in the XX century, so he was influenced by the french naturalism and the decadence. Thus he used in his works new tecniques such as the impersonality of the author, the symbolism, the psycological analysis and the epiphany.

As regard impersonality, Joice abandons the omniscient narrator of the 19^th century and the story is told through differents points of view, that are those of the characters and the language changes adapting to the protagonist. In particular in the 'Dubliners' the language develops itself, becoming more complex in the later stories where the protagonists are adults. Moreover in a 'Portrayt of an Artist as a Young Man' there are several differences between the language of the first chapter, in which the protagonist is a child, and the fourth chapter, where he had became an adult.

Symbolism: it derives from Baudelaire, Verlaine and Mallarmè and consists in a double vision of reality. Poetry is now associated to the intuitive power of the artist and the poet is the one, which can find misterious associations. For example the final part of the 'Dubliners', 'The Dead', is a combination of realism and symbolism. Whereas Misses Morkan house, the people and the dinner are described through an accumulation of realistic details, the same details become symbols of a deeper reality (for example the roast goose served at the dinner becomes symbol of Gabriel need for escape; the same name Gabriel, which, according to the Hebrew mythology, is both the prince of fire and the angel of death, means that Gabriel is spiritually dead; instead Michael Furey, whose name means the highest angel, will live for ever in Gretta's memory). Moreover symbolism is present in a 'Portrayt of an artist . 'when the protagonist, Steven Dedalus, associates the girl appeared to a bird. This meant that the girl is a symbol of flight, escape, safety and freedom.

The psycological analysis: in the XX century the writer's interests are no more directed to the relationship between the individual and society, but to the mind of the characters. For this new aim of literature was indispensable the influence of Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. To analyze the character's interiority Joyce uses the stream of consciousness, that is the casual association of thoughts, impressions and emotions of a person who is not thinking intentionally, but is letting his mind flow freely. The external aspect of the stream of consciousness is the absence of paragraph, division into sentences and use of punctuation.

Moreover, depending on the psycology of the characters, the time is no more objective category, but relative one and therefore there is often the contemporarity of past, present and future. The best example of the stream of consiousness is in 'Ulysses' the monologue of Molly Bloom. It's an unlogical speech, which is based on the association of different thoughts or impressions, through similarity of sound or meaning. In particular she passes from the image of flowers to her youth in Gibraltar, to Leopold's proposal and to God's existence.

The epiphany: the original meaning of the term epiphany is, of course, the showing of the Christ child to the Magi, but Joyce adopts this expression to mean a sudden revelation through a gesture, a word, which involves the spiritual awakening of the protagonist. An example of epiphany is present in the 'Dead' when Gretta reveals to Gabriel Conroy her past experience when a man died for her. This revelation involves a changement in Gabriel, in fact he understands that his wife has a private life and, looking at himself, he discovers how he is, not what he would like to be. Another epiphany is in 'A Portrayt of an artist' when Steven Dedalus, after the sight of the girl, understands that his mission in life is not to become a priest, but to be free from all the bounds of sociey.

In 1914 he wrote the 'Dubliners', made up of fifteen stories, divided into four groups: childhood, adolescence, mature life and public life. The final part of the 'Dubliners' is 'The Dead', which can be read as the moral growth of Gabriel from his initial egotism to his consciousness of being part of the vast community of the living and of the dead, united by the assimilating power of the snow.

Dublin thought Joice left Dublin at the age of twenty two, he set all his works in Ireland and mostly in the city of Dublin. While London had been made literary famous by Dickens and other writers, Dublin had never been represented and probably Joyce considered it his mission to give his home town a literary importance.

The paralysis, is the typical condition of modern men in the modern metropolis and consists in the impossibility to escape from a well-known world. Therefore in the 'Dubliners' even if Eveline is in Dublin exploited and offended, she can't leave her town to follow her lover Frank in an unknown country.