The Life and Works of James Joyce: A Journey Between Modernism and Paralysis

What was Joyce's Childhood and Education like?

He was born in Dublin in 1882 into a middle-class catholic family, and his birth place always remained one of his obsessions. His education took place in some Jesuit schools such as Clongowes Wood College and later Belvedere College, and then he attended University college where he studied modern languages and graduated in 1902.

He also studied French and German, indeed later in his life he will be living in

Cosmopolitan Life and Marriage

Joyce lived the difficult conditions of Irish life, during the Irish revival, but he was not interested in revival, he was rather cosmopolitan indeed. He shows particular interest in European culture, at the point to define himself a European rather than an Irishman.

After receiving the degree he left for Paris to attend a medical school, but in 1903 he went back to Dublin to assist his mother who was ill. In 1904 he fell in love with Nora Barnacle, who worked as a chambermaid in a hotel and together they left Ireland to go to Trieste, where they eventually got married in 1931, after having 2 children. The two shared the same literary interests, and they went to Trieste because Joyce had to work in a language school. Here he met Svevo, with whom he shares interests and a strong friendship.

Financial Issues and Publications

He also worked for a bank in Rome but he spent more than he gained and financial problems started to emerge indeed. He also had some problems with publishers, and managed to publish one of his masterpieces, Dubliners, only in 1914, even if he had finished it in 1904. In 1915 he went to Zurich, and published one year later, A portrait of the artist as a young man, a semi-autobiographical novel. From 1920, until 1940, Joyce and his family settled in Paris, where they stayed until the German occupation of France. His fame was growing but his financial problems did not disappear, and thanks to some secret donations he was able to cure his eyesight difficulties and continue the Ulysses drafting. This text was first published in Paris by an American publisher in 1922, but was first printed in Ireland in 1918. His last work was Finnegans Wake, a very strange and difficult text written in a dream language. He eventually went back to Zurich where he died in 1941.

Characteristics of Joyce's Modernism

every work written by joyce presents some common features, that make him one of the greatest representatives of Modernism, which are:

- The setting: mostly Ireland, dublin in particular;

- the rebellion against the

- the different points of view given simultaneously of events;

- the subjective perception of time;

- The inner world of characters;

- Isolation and detachment of the artist in society;

- the stories open in medias res;

- use of free direct speach;

- use of interior monologue.

Main Themes of Dubliners

It is the 1st publication of Joyce, which appeared for the first time in 1914 in the newspaper

It consists of 15 short stories on the lives of ordinary people in Dublin, which is the centre of most of Joyce's stories and seemed to be the centre of paralysis as the author describes it.

The stories are arranged in 4 groups:

1) Childhood:

● The sisters

● An encounter

● Araby

2) Adolescence:

● Eveline

● After race

● Two gallants

● The boarding house

3) Maturity:

● A little cloud

● Counterparts

● Clay

● A painful case

4) Public life:

● Ivy day in the committee room

● A mother

● Grace

● The dead

Each story is told following the point of view of each character and they all open in medias res.

Joyce uses both free direct and indirect speech, to allow the reader to enter each character’s mind directly. The language used suits the age, social class and the role which they belong to. Symbolism is also mixed with realism because external details usually have a deeper meaning.

Two major themes of the book are

- Paralysis: is attributed to all dubliners, and it’s both physical and moral. Indeed, they all are paralysed by their culture that made them inactive, by their religion and their own past. They try to change their life but they can’t because they are paralysed.

- Epiphany: is a phenomenon of revelation of something which belongs to our id,

which we are not aware of. It is something every dubliner experiences.

Story of Eveline Hill

Eveline Hill, a 19-year-old woman who works in a Dublin shop, sits inside her family's house recalling childhood, including some happy memories as well as her father's drunken brutality to her and her siblings. Eveline thinks about people she has known who have either left Ireland (a priest who has traveled to Melbourne, for example) or died (her mother and her brother Ernest), and of her own plans to leave the country with a man named Frank. She recalls meeting Frank, an Irish sailor now living in Argentina, and dating him while he visited Dublin on vacation. Eveline also thinks about her father's disapproval of Frank, and of her promise "to keep the home together as long as she could" before her mother grew deranged and died. Later, gripped by fear of the unknown and probably guilt as well, Eveline finds herself unable to board the ferry to England, where she and Frank are scheduled to meet a ship bound for South America. He leaves without her.

Gabriel's Reflections

The protagonists of this passage are Gabriel, an Irish teacher and journalist, his wife Gretta, and, in Gabriel's thoughts, his aunts and Michael Furey.Gabriel and Gretta are in a hotel room after a Christmas party given by Gabriel's aunts.They have just come back from the party where Gretta, after listening to an old song, bursts into tears. Once at the hotel, she has told Gabriel she is crying for a boy, Michael Furey, who died for her. He was in love with her and wanted to say goodbye before she left for college. He waited for her to appear through the window all night long in the rain, fell ill and died of pneumonia.Gabriel who, while walking back to the hotel, was 'consumed with physical passion' for his wife, first feels disappointed and then his feelings turn into pity for her while he is looking at her sleeping. There is very little action, i.e., Gabriel is looking at Gretta sleeping and he starts

thinking.His thoughts wander to present, past and future; he thinks of aunt Julia and how she will soon die, of the words that might console aunt Kate; then his mind wonders to Michael Furey and how his wife has 'locked him in her heart for so many years'. He feels he has played a poor part in his wife's life and that Michael, although physically dead, is more alive in her heart than he is. Looking at the snow falling through the window and hearing its 'light taps upon the pane', he has the impression he is losing his identity and becoming one with the dead.