Ulisse, James Joyce

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Categoria:	Lingue
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Data:	02.06.2000
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INTRODUCTION

Joyce took seven years from 1915 to 1922, to write his masterpiece, which gave him fame and fortune. Omero’s Odyssey is the primary source Joyce took as a starting point1, in plain words2: Ulysses is inspired by an epic poem of about ninth century before Christ.
About his publication, we have to remember that Ulysses appear the first time on an American magazine called “Little Review” (we are in 1918). But, when this magazine was judged as obscene, the publication was stopped. The whole Ulysses was printed in 1822, by a French publishing3.

CHARACTERS, SETTING AND TIME

The book, a novel of about thousand pages, tells only a single day story (16th June 1904), which is set in Dublin. There’re only three main characters involved in that story: Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus and Molly Bloom, Leopold’s wife. The number of the characters is identical to the number of the main part we can divide James Joyce’s work.

➢ The first one is called Telemachia and it’s about Stephen Dedalus (Stephen represents, in fact, Telemacus, in a modern key). We can subdivide it into three parts.
➢ The second one is called Odyssey, twelve parts, and it deals with Leopold Bloom (he represents Ulysses).
➢ The third one is called Nostos or Homecoming, known as Penelope. It’s about Molly Bloom and it’s, in fact, a long Molly’s monologue.

THE PLOT OF “TELEMACHIA” AND “ULYSSES”

The novel, in place of Ulysses pilgrimages, tells a story about Leopold bloom, an Irish canvasser4 of Jewish origin, and, in parallel, the same day experienced by Stephen Dedalus, a young Latin teacher. The first important event is the meeting of these two characters. By this meeting, a reader knows that Bloom is searching for a symbol figure of a son and, in parallel, Dedalus is looking for a paternal figure who could be as a landmark5 for his intellectual worries.
These two characters have got another point in common: Leopold Bloom, in fact, has rejected the Jewish faith as Stephen has done with Catholic one. So, both of them feel themselves guilty, for them actions, and exiled in their own country.
Stephen, who can’t live anymore with his family, plans to escape from Dublin. Instead, Bloom, who is betrayed6 by his wife, Molly, after the meeting with Dedalus, becomes more and more bossy in family.

LEOPOLD BLOOM AND STEPHEN DEDALUS

There are a lot of difference between Bloom and Dedalus. For example, while Leopold Bloom is the symbol of the citizen, Dedalus is the artist. The theme artist-citizen of middle class, is one of Joyce’s favourite one.
MOLLY BLOOM, PENELOPE AND THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The third part is about Molly Bloom, Leopold’s wife. This is the most complex passage of the book. In fact, here James Joyce introduces a new literary feature called stream of consciousness.
This technique, really theorised by William James in his “Elements of psychology”, is a psychological category, and it indicates the casual association of thoughts, impressions and emotions of a person who isn’t thinking intentionally but is letting his mind flow, freely.
After Freud, in fact, everybody knew that human mind is very complex, formed of many layers, some hidden. For James Joyce, the only way to understand how human mind is is by the use of the so-called stream of consciousness.
The result was very complex piece, difficult to read and to understand, without punctuation marks, without direct speech or verbs like “To say”, “To think”, “To reply”.

The stream of consciousness has got two purposes:
➢ It allowed the reader to have an insight into the mind of a character
➢ It liberated the novel from the cumbersome presence of the narrator

NOSTOS

It has nothing to do with Chronological order or cause-effect links. The only order is the association of thought, sensations and impressions. There aren’t any punctuation marks and there’s the repetition of some words, especially in the end, as yes.

Some associations:
➢ Striking of a bell → Chinese combs their pigtails → Nuns recite the Angelus,
➢ The flowered wall-paper → The dirty house → Stephen’s visits

There is, also, the use of different tenses. The first part, in present tense, from 1st verse to 33rd one. The second one, from 33rd to 65th, in past tense. The last one, in future tense.

JAMES JOYCE

In the end of this speech we can say that James Joyce was, certainly, one of the most important English modern writer. If William Butler Yeats was great in poetry, James Joyce was able to introduce in prose modern philosophy, modern advices and so on.
In the world, a lot of writers try to imitate Joyce, for example the Italian Italo Svevo (La coscienza di Zeno) or the French Edouard Dujardin (Les lauriers sont coupes).
1 Prendere spunto
2 In parole povere
3 Editore
4 Piazzista, venditore
5 Punto di riferimento
6 Tradito
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