Raffaella Mannori –2016
JAMES JOYCE
THE LITERARY BACKGROUND
Joyce’s work is the result of two major factors:
•1. his Irish origin;
•2.his European vocation Joyce reacted to the nationalistic movement of the Irish Revivalwhich was a movement that renewed interest in popular poetry written in Gaelic , the original language in Ireland.
Joyce was against the idea of writing in Gaelic :
because this language , being a dead language, could restrict his creativity and could reduce his readers to a limited number of fanatic nationalists.
because he refused the idea of having to choose his contents within a cultural tradition because for him the artist ( as stated in his A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)should have a higher duty than that to be loyal to one’s country .
Art is beyond national borders and the only solution for him was to be become a cosmopolitan exile in order to safeguard his independence as an artist and to avoid being trapped into a narrow provincialism .
•Joyce , the Irishman, followed his European vocation and turned to Europe for inspiration and guidance.
•REALISM
•Realism, and more systematically naturalism , had introduced the scientific method into fiction by means of an accurate, carefully documented and impersonal description .
Joyce absorbed from the French naturalists :
his almost obsessive need for documentation ;
the idea of the impartiality of the artist ;
the almost total disappearance of the narrator as a distinct voice in his fictional work.
•SYMBOLISM
•The European symbolist school influenced Joyce in his idea of the artist as the only one that can decode the mystery of the universe by means of symbols.
•Therefore the everyday reality can be interpreted ” as a forest of symbols” to be decoded by the artist through “ epiphanies” which provide light and intuitive knowledgetriggered off ( = innescata da) by significant moments of people’s lives.
Joyce’s literary background was influenced by :
•DANTEDante remained an ideal model because of his courageous choice to challenge the papal authority, his condition of exile and his example of allegorical writing.
•
•FREUDFreud’s ideas influenced Joyce in his concept of EPIPHANY , with its intuition of the existence of something underneath the opaque appearance of the most ordinary things. Joyce , in fact, was interested in the relationship between superficial manifestation ( the ego ) and deeply hidden motivation( the id ).
NIETZSCHE His theory o the Superman , who lives in absolute separation from the mass , “ beyond good and evil” influenced Joyce in the idea of the artist as defined in A PORTRAIT “ the artist, like the God of the Creation , remains within or behind or beyond or above his handwork , invisible, out of existence
SUBJECTIVE PERCEPTION OF TIME
Joyce’s stories and novels open in media res with the analysis of a particular moment , and the portrait of the characters is based on introspection rather than on description.
Time is perceived as subjective not as objective so the accurate description of Dublin is not strictly derived from external reality , but from the characters’ mind .
DUBLINERS (1914)
•WHY DUBLIN?
1) First of all because it was the city where he had lived and of which he knew everything , the streets , the houses , the pubs , the people;
2) secondly because Dublin was the object of his love and of his hatred;
3) thirdly because Dublin appeared to him a perfect product of western civilisation and of modern life ;DUBLIN was not only a place on the map of Ireland but also a place of the mind , one where paralysis and corruption could be seen .
•DUBLIN as the “centre of paralysis”
He described DUBLINERS as “ a chapter in the moral history of my country....the centre of paralysis”
The stories are divided into 4 different categories and what holds them together is the presence of certain themes, symbols and narrative technique.
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
Each story is described according to the rules of NATURALISM with an abundance of external details, even the most sordid ones.
BUT this NATURALISM , which is an accurate and scrupulous description of DUBLIN with its streets, squares, parks etc. , doesn’t have only a descriptive function but it acquires a deeper meaning (SYMBOLISM)
In other words Joyce describes Dublin and its inhabitants in a naturalistic way but he also tries to go beyond the mere reproduction of a “slice of life” His theories of epiphanies suggested the search for something existing under the surface of things and events.
Understanding the epiphany is the key to the interpretation of the story itself. It consists in the description of a common gestures, objects or situations, suddenly acquiring the value of an intense experience of truth .The epiphany is generally activated by a trivial gesture, an external object or a banal situation.
• FREE INDIRECT THOUGHT /SPEECH It consists of the presentation of the protagonists’ thoughts through the limited mediation of the narrator who adopts the language style of his characters.
•The technique enables the reader to get an intimate and direct knowledge of the character, minimizing the narrator’s interventions in the story.
•In other words, the narrator is totally in tune with the character.
•What distinguishes free indirect speech from normal indirect speech is the lack of an introductory expression such as "He said" or "he thought".
Examples:
•Direct speech:
•He sat down on the sofa carelessly. "Why are they asking me to contribute to the project?" he asked.
•Indirect speech:
•He sat down on the sofa carelessly and asked himself why they were asking him to contribute to the project.
•Free indirect speech:
•He sat down on the sofa carelessly. Why are they asking him to contribute to the project?
•Using free indirect speech may convey the character's words more directly than in normal indirect, as devices such as interjections and exclamation marks can be used that cannot be normally used with indirect speech
•Consequently the omniscient narrator and the single point of view are rejected : each story is told from the perspective of a character. The language register is varied , since the language used in all stories suits the age, the social class and the role of the characters.
SYMBOLS
•Although Dubliners are often associated with the principles of NATURALISM , yet this naturalism is accompanied by a search for symbols.
•THE SEAIn Eveline is both the way towards a future of salvation from a squalid destiny but also the symbol of the danger Evelyn imagines to exist outside her house. “ All the seas of the world tumbled over her heart”.
•THE EAST & THE WEST The EAST is represented as the world of magic and mystery ( see ARABY) while the WEST implies a more complex symbolism .
It is America , the place to lay the foundations of a new existence, but it is also the West of Ireland , the wild where the roots of real Irishness lie deep. In addition the West is the place where the sun sets and traditionally the place of death
•THE DUST It is a symbol of deterioration and oppression , something which gives an aura of staleness and difficulty of breathing
THEMES
•PARALYSISThe paralysis of Dublin which Joyce wants to portray is both physical and moral, linked to religion, politics and culture and the main theme is the failure to find out a way out of “paralysis”.
•Each story has its own climax when the main character becomes aware of his/her own form of “paralysis”: the impossibility of hope a better life , of breaking free from the provincial Irish culture
•ESCAPEThis theme is the opposite of paralysis and it originates from an impulse caused by a sense of“claustrophobia” which many characters experience but none of them is destined to succeed : they live as exiles at home, unable to cut the bonds that tie them to their own world. This desire of escaping , originates from an impulse activated by a sense of enclosure that many characters experience. A sense of claustrophobia is implicit in the small , cramped , stuffy rooms where the Dubliners spend their lives.
•THE IRISH FAMILYA claustrophobic element is present also in the description of the Irish family that tends to enclose and imprison its member, hindering the realisation of their hopes.
•The fathers , or the men, tend to paralyse any effort of the younger members of their families.
•IRISH PUBLIC LIFEThe Irish public life in its aspects of musical life, political life and religious life. The role of music becomes a key-element in the story of Eveline and in the Dead , where it activates a psychological process ending in an epiphany .
Although DUBLINERS contain 15 stories dealing with individual cases and characters , there is a unity in the collection which goes beyond the fact that their common setting is Dublin and that their protagonists are Dubliners .
•STORY OF CHILDHOOD The Systers, An Encounter, Araby
•STORY OF ADOLESCENCEThe Boarding House , After the Race, Eveline, Two Gallants
•STORIES OF MATURE LIFE A little Cloud , The Clay, Counterparts and a Painful Case
•STORIES PUBLIC LIFEIvy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother , Grace
•THE DEAD the final union between the living and the dead.
EVELINE
The story starts with Eveline who is sitting at the window in her room while the evening is getting deeper.The narrator describes Eveline’s thoughts from her insideexploring Eveline’s consciousness . Few external actions activate a great flux of thoughts in Eveline because while she is looking out of the window she remembers her childhood and the happy moments of her playing with the other children in the fields . At that time she used to be happy and things used to be different because her father was not so bad and her mother was still alive .
However she is aware that things inexorably change because her mother is dead and some of the Irish families have gone away from Dublin.
The thoughts of the other families activates her feelings about her HOME and this flux of ideas is marked by her looking round her room.
The ROOM is described as full of dust which covers all her familiar objects ,objects she has been dusting many times. The dust symbolises the claustrophobic atmosphere of the house and the Irish family in general , which frustrates the aspirations of freedom of its members, suffocating them.
Dust,infact, conveys a certain difficulty of breathing.
Then Eveline’s mind moves to analyse the positive and negative sides of her DECISION TO LEAVE HER FAMILY and go away with Frank.
From a certain point of view , FAMILY for her represents shelter and food, a place in which she is emotionally surrounded by her beloved .However , she doesn’t regret leaving HER JOB because she has always been treated badly . Perhaps her colleagues will criticise her rash behaviour of escaping with a man to a distant and unknown country .
But she won’t certainly be sad for this because she knows that she will have a NEW HOME.
She will be married, people will treat her with respect and she will not be treated as her mother has always been.
In her family, in fact, HER FATHER has always been a dominant and tyrannical figure ,sometimes violent towards his children .In addition he often tells her off ,accusing her of wasting his money .She now thinks that she has really had a hard life to keep the family together after her mother’s death.
Fortunately she is about to leave her home and explore a new life with FRANK.
FRANK stands for salvation for her . Eveline describes him as a kind, manly and open-hearted man. The man who will save her from her miserable life . She feels happy about the idea of having a new house in a new and distant country .
She thinks about the moment they first met , she feels proud of having a man who really loves her,even if her father has never accepted Frank as he thinks that sailors are not reliable people .
The time is passing but Eveline continues to sit at the window, leaning her head against the dusty cretonne curtains. She can even smells the odour of dust which seems to suffocate ( to stifle) her .
Suddenly she hears the sound of a street organ which plays an air which reminds her of her mother’s last night before she died.
She remembers her mother’s craziness , her sufferings and her life of “ common sacrifices “ but also Eveline’s promise to look after the family as long as she can .
SUDDENLY she comes to understand what she must do : she must leave , she must escape ,she doesn’t want to have the same life as her mother had.
This moment of sudden revelation is accompanied by a significant physical action: she stands up “out of an impulse of terror”.
She understands she must go away with FRANK who represents her salvation . She thinks he will save her , he will give her life, perhaps love ,too. She has the right to live and be happy .
In the last part of the story EVELINE is at the port with FRANK.
He is talking to her but she realises that she can’t hear anything of what he is saying.
She feels immobilised , she feels she is getting pale and cold in her face.
She starts praying silently to God in search for help , for a guide to help her direct her mind and to show what her duty is.
She is thinking about the possibility of not going with Frank and this idea causes her great suffering and distress , even physical nausea.
When Frank calls her, she has the sensation that “ all the seas will tumble about her heart” and she starts seeing Frank as a dangerous man who will drown her.
Immediately she “ grips” with both hands at the iron railing, her hands “clutch” the iron in frenzy while Frank keeps on shouting at her to go with him.She is physically and mentally paralysed; she can’t do anything but send a “ cry of anguish”. She is “passive, like a helpless animal “.She gives “no sign of love or farewell or recognition”.
GLOSSARY
To remind someone of something= far ricordare qualcosa a qualcuno
To activate / To set in motion = attivare /mettere in moto
To weigh the good and the bad sides=valutare i lati positivi e negative
To report thoughts =riportare I pensieri
To refer to= fare riferimento a
To prevent someone from doing something= impedire a qualcuno di fare qualcosa.
to take into account something=tenere in considerazione qualcosa
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Raffaella Mannori classi 5 °
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN (1916)
The novel describes the mind of the protagonist and the development of his personality in his early life
In this novel autobiographical , political, religious and mythical elements are mingled.
THE SETTING : DUBLINThe 5 chapters of A Portrait take place in Dublin and record the spiritual evolution of the protagonist from his child-like acceptance of authority , to his adult revolt against it and the consequent voluntary exile.
THE PROTAGONISTis called Stephen Dedalus, who stands for Joyce himself and for the artist in general , since like Stephen, the first Christian martyr , he is a martyr of art , and like the mythological character DEDALUS , he must escape from the social , political labyrinth of Dublin life in order to reach the neutrality of art.
His first attempt at exile is, however, unsuccessful . The first chapter of Ulysses shows him back in Ireland but at the end of Ulysses he tries again , more successfully.
Stephen Dedalus rejects his family and the institutions of his country to cultivate the “ terrible neutrality of the ARTIST “
A son without a father.
He knows many languages as his cultural background was European not a provincial one.
STEPHENthe first Christian martyr: the proto-martyr as his message of salvation is not understood by mankind .
DEDALUSThe first craftsman who made the labyrinth for King Minus and then made wings to enable himself to escape from the tyrannous king In the same way Stephen seeks to escape from the labyrinth of Dublin life , from “the centre of paralysis”
THE THEME OF THE ALIENATION OF THE ARTIST ( A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man): he is outside the conventions of society .In this novel Joyce does not refer to a particular artist but describes the characteristics of THE MODERN ARTIST as a type who is compared to a GOD of creation who is beyond or above his work , invisible and indifferent ( theory of depersonalisation of the artist).
.J’s life showed the Modernist idea of the cosmopolitan spirit of the artist who is not linked to a particular country: the artist ( as stated in his A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) should have a higher duty than that to be loyal to his own country .
Art is beyond national borders and the only solution for him was to be become a cosmopolitan exile in order to safeguard his independence as an artist and to avoid being trapped into a narrow provincialism
THE THEME OF THE QUESTIn the 20th century man is no longer in harmony with his own setting , he is searching for something , some spiritual “ Grail”But the quest is in vain as the modern worlds is characterised by a “ desert” of spiritual values ( see T.S. Eliot THE WASTE LAND)
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUEIn A Portraithe first made use of the “stream of consciousness” ,
according to which the narrative proceeds along the flux of the character’s thoughts instead of being told by an external voice.