Ulysses by James Joyce: A Modern Epic in Prose, Temi di Inglese

Scarica Ulysses by James Joyce: A Modern Epic in Prose e più Temi in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! James Joyce ULYSSES Ulysses is a novel written by Joyce, published in 1922. It's divided into 3 parts for a total of 18 chapters: - 1st part takes up the first 3 chapters and it's called Telemachiad - 2nd part, called Odyssey, from chapter 4-15 - 3rd part has chapter 16-18, named Nostos All the chapters are named after elements of the Greek mythology and are organized based on: a different hour, a colour, an organ of the body, a sense, a symbol, a suitable narrative technique. The overall novel takes inspiration from the Greek epic Odyssey by Homer, that narrates Ulysses’ arduous journey back to his homeland Ithaca after the Trojan war. Joyce’s novel is based on Odyssey’ structure with its events and characters, that remind us of the main characters from the Odyssey: - Leopold Bloom (a middle-aged Jewish man working as an agent in an advertisement company) → Ulysses - Molly Bloom (an opera singer that has many lovers and is currently having an affair with her boss, the music director)→ Penelope (ironic as they have a very different personality) - Stephen Dedalus (who the author has introduced in his previous novel “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” as a 22 year old history teacher, here he's an aspiring writer that really likes Shakespeare's works, especially the Hamlet) → Telemachus Like most of his other works, it is set in the city of Dublin and takes place in one day, June 16th 1904, Thursday, a symbolic date as it was the day his wife, Nora Barnacle, confessed her love to him. It narrates the daily life of 3 common people, starting at 8 o'clock and ending at 2 am. Plot At the start of these 18 hours Leopold Bloom leaves his home at 8 o’clock Joyce wrote the Ulysses with the most detailed description of the common life in Dublin, he writes and sets the characters in places that actually exist, connecting the characters and the city; so Dublin itself becomes a character in the novel. The lasting fame of the Ulysses can still be seen today in the Bloomsday, an unofficial holiday used to celebrate Joyce's life and work Ulysses. Celebrated on the 16th June, the festivities last for a week as the participants follow the steps taken by Leopold in the novel, accompanied by readings of excerpts and dressed up in Edwardian clothes. Characters All 3 of the main characters are more than what they seem at first glance as they represent human nature: - Stephen Dedalus → intellect, he embodies how every young man seeking maturity, and in his stream of consciousness, usually triggered by he associates things based on resemblance - Molly Bloom → sensual instinct, fecundity, flesh, during her stream of consciousness she remembers memories of past lovers by literal association, so the thought of one man reminds her of another man in her past - Leopold Bloom → the common everyday man, in his stream of consciousness he connects things by cause and effect or by space and time Themes The novel has a moral theme where human life is suffering and struggling to stay afloat while seeking the good. There’s also the unhappy marriage between Leopold and Molly and the difficult relationship with Molly and her daughter Milly, that reminds us of Freud's Electra complex, where the daughter has desires for the father and feels jealous of the mother. Prose, monologue and language What makes this work so revolutionary is the use of the collage technique, in which Joyce uses various methods to replicate the inner working of the characters’ minds: the stream of consciousness, the cinematic technique (close-ups, flashbacks, tracking shots, suspension of speech), question and answer, dramatic dialogue, juxtaposition (comparing or positioning things side by side) of events. The Ulysses’ prose is based on the mythical method, by using the progress made by psychology, ethnology and anthropology rather than the narrative method, the author