JAMES JOYCE
Was born in Dublin in 1882 into a middle-class catholic family.
He studied modern languages at University College in Dublin, where he graduated in 1902.
His interest was for a broader European culture.
He believed that the only way to increase Ireland's awareness was to offer a realistic portrait
of its life from a European, cosmopolitan viewpoint.
Joyce spent some time in Paris, but in 1903 he returned to Dublin because of his mother's
fatal illness.
In 1904 he fell in love with Nora Barnacle and they left Dublin together. They had two
children and married in 1931.
He found work in a language school in Trieste, where he met ITALO SVEVO.
The years in Trieste were filled with disappointment and financial problems. Joyce had
problems with publishers because of supposedly obscene elements in his works.
The first of his works to appear in book form was a collection of short poems, Chamber
Music (1907).
Dubliners, a collection of short stories about Dublin and its life was completed in 1905 but
published in 1914.
In 1915 Joyce moved to Zurich with his family.
in 1916 A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, his semi-autobiographical novel, was
published.
In 1920 Joyce and his family settled in Paris, where they lived until France was occupied by
the Germans in 1940, then they went back to Zurich.
Joyce's reputation was growing but his financial difficulties increased. He also had problems
with his eyesight.
In 1917 he received an anonymous donation which enabled his to continue writing his novel
Ulysses. It was first published in Paris in 1922.
His final work was Finnegans Wake (1939).
He died in Zurich in 1941.
DUBLIN
He set all his works in Ireland and mostly Dublin.
He offered a sense of what life in the city was like using historical juxtapositions and varied
styles.
Joyce's effort was to give a realistic portrait of the life of ordinary people doing ordinary
things and living ordinary lives.
A MODERNIST WRITER
Joyce is considered one of the greatest representatives of Modernism. For him, the artist's
task is to render life objectively to give readers a true image of it.
Facts are presented through different points of view simultaneously and not through the
voice of an omniscient narrator. He goes beyond realism: he collects and analyses the
impressions and thoughts that and outer event causes in the inner world of a character.
His stories and novels open in media res, and the portrait of a character is based on
introspection. Thus time is perceived as subjective.
Joyce's style and language develops from the realism of Dubliners, through an analysis of
the characters impressions and points of views, through the use of free direct speech to the
interior monologue with two levels of narration, up to the extreme interior monologue.
His language breaks down into a succession of words without punctuation or grammatical
connections. (molly's monologue in ulysses, which uses no punctuation, its an extreme form
of interior monologue)
DUBLINERS
STRUCTURE
Dubliners consists of fifteen short stories about the lives of ordinary people in Dublin.
They disclose human situations and moments of intensity, that lead to a moral, social or
spiritual revelation.
The stories are arranged in four groups:
CHILDHOOD
ADOLESCENCE
Eveline
MATURITY
PUBLIC LIFE
The Dead, can be considered Joyce's first masterpiece. It's both the summary and
climax of the whole collection.
STYLE
The omniscient narrator and the single point of view are rejected: each story is told from the
perspective of a particular character.
Free indirect speech is used: the protagonist's thoughts are presented directly.
Free direct speech is also employed.
These techniques allow the reader to acquire direct knowledge of the character's mind.
The linguistic register is varied, the language suits the age, social class and role of the
characters.
The description in each story is realistic and concise.
The use of realism is mixed with symbolism.
PARALYSIS
The paralysis of Dublin which Joyce wants to portrait is both physical, resulting from external
forces, and moral, linked to religion, politics and culture.
The moral centre of Dubliners is not paralysis alone but the revelation of this to its victims.
The main theme is the failure to find a way out of paralysis. Coming to awareness or self-
realisation marks the climax of these stories.
The opposite paralysis is "escape" and its consequent failure.
The desire fo escape originates from an impulse caused by a sense of confinement; they
live as exiles at home.
EPIPHANY
An epiphany is the sudden spiritual manifestation caused by an external object or a banal
situation, which leads the character to a sudden revelation about themselves or the reality
surrounding them. This revelation drives the stories.
