MODERNISM

The death of Queen Victoria and thirteen years later the first World War marked the
end of the Victorian Age. At the turn of the century, many intellectuals were
dissatisfied of the values of the society they lived in; particularly They were against
the values of middle class that was based on business and money. The increasing
process of industrialization was considered a form of human alienation and death of
spirit therefore were born new literary movements like the aestheticism. The first War
World were swept away totally the values of the Victorian society as patriotism,
courage and trust in progress. Modernism is an international movement originated at
the beginning of the first part of the 20th century, it started in a world where religion,
social stability and ethics had begun to lose their place. At the beginning of 20th
century modernism broke away with tradition in painting, art, music and literature.
The modern novel was originated by the new notion of time of Bergson, by the new
Freudian theories about psychoanalysis and by the technique of fiction. Freud
transformed the way individuals were perceived. He advanced a three-part model of
the psyche, consisting of the id; the ego and the super-ego. The id is the unconscious
portion of the psyche, governed by basic impulses and drives. The Ego is the rational
component of the psyche, which attempts to balance the primary instincts of the id
and the moralism of the super-ego. The Super-Ego is the moral component of the
psyche, and it consist of the codes of behavior we are taught when we were children
by our parents. The writers put their attention on the mind and not on the story of
characters. Modern novel is not in a chronological order, because the writers often
choose a short pace of character’s life and analyze them using flashbacks,
anticipations and random association of mind. The best method to explain this new
form of literature is the stream of consciousness, it disregards the conventional plot
which becomes a series of inner association, feelings, and inner impressions.
Experimentalism is the key word to define the essential spirit of modernist art and
culture, in order to eliminate past conventions and create something original.

JAMES JOYCE

James Joyce is one of the most revered writers in the English literature and a central
figure in the history of the novel. He is still hugely important to us because of his
determination to some crucial themes such as the idea of the grandeur of Ordinary
Life in order to portray what actually goes on through our head’s moment by
moment. He was born into a middle-class, Catholic family in Rathgar, a suburb of
Dublin, on February 2nd, 1882. The family’s prosperity dwindled (diminished) soon
after Joyce’s birth, forcing them to move from their comfortable home to the
unfashionable and impoverished area of North Dublin.

Nevertheless, Joyce attended a prestigious Jesuit school and went on studying

Philosophy and Foreign Languages at Trinity University College, Dublin. Worth of
mentioned is that Joyce spent the first twenty years of his life in and around Dublin,
but the rest wandering in and between the European cities of Trieste, Zurich and
Paris, because he considered Ireland a narrow-minded country for the strong
influence of the Church on people’s mind and behavior. Joyce strongly opposed to
the Church as, according to him artists were not free to express themselves due to
censorship.

Firstly, he moved to Paris after graduation in 1902 to study medicine, but after
realized that studying medicine in French was too difficult, he turned his attention to
writing.

In 1903 he returned to Dublin as his mother was dying, and on 16th June 1904 he met
his future wife, Nora Barnacle. (Keep in mind this date because Joyce wanted the
novel “Ulysses” to take place on that date: 16 June 1904)

From then on, Joyce made his home in other countries as he went on a voluntary
exile. From 1905 to 1915 he and Nora lived in Rome and Trieste, Italy, and from
1915 to 1919 they lived in Zurich, Switzerland. Between World War I and World
War II, they lived in Paris.

They returned to Zurich in 1940, where Joyce died in 1941.

Joyce’s literally production

In 1907, at the age of twenty-five, Joyce published Chamber Music, a collection of

poetry.

Previously, he had also written a collection of short stories, (started in 1904)

Dubliners, which was published only in 1914.

Why were Dubliners published only after many years?

Owing to the censorship.

Though Joyce had written the book years earlier, the stories contained characters and
events that were alarmingly similar to real people and places, raising concerns about
libel (defamation).

Joyce stated that Dubliners is written in a style of scrupulous meanness, indeed, he

based many of the characters in Dubliners on real people, giving such suggestive
details, coupled with (together with) the book’s historical and geographical precision
and sharp (acute/profonde) examination of relationships, flustered (confused/agitated)
anxious publishers.

Joyce’s autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man followed

Dubliners in 1916, and a play, Exiles, followed in 1918. Joyce is most famous for his
latest experimental novels, Ulysses (1922), which maps the Dublin wanderings of its
protagonist on a single day, (16 June 1904) and Finnegan’s Wake (1939). (very
complex and difficult to be read)

These two works were characterized by experimentations like the use of the stream of
consciousness, (flusso di coscienza) which focuses on characters’ thoughts rather
than on their actions, a style he didn’t use in Dubliners.

Despite Joyce’s refusal of Ireland and living overseas but writing, always, about his
native city, Joyce made Dublin unforgettable.

(this part in light blue only to be read)

The political scene at that time was uncertain but hopeful, as Ireland fought for
independence from Great Britain (as Ireland was an English colony)

The nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell, (an Irish politician) who became active in the
1870s, had reinvigorated Irish politics with his proposed Home Rule Bill, which
aimed to give Ireland a greater voice in British government. In 1889, however, his
political career collapsed when his adulterous affair with the married Kitty O’Shea
was made public. Kitty’s husband had known for years about the affair, but instead of
making it public, he attempted to use it to his political and financial advantage.

In the last part of the nineteenth century, after Parnell’s death, Ireland underwent a
dramatic/remarkable cultural revival.

Irish citizens struggled to define what it meant to be Irish, and a movement began to
reinvigorate Irish language and culture. The movement celebrated Irish literature and
encouraged people to learn the Irish language, which many people were forgoing in
favor of the more modern English language.

Maybe as Joyce lived abroad most of his life, he was not interested in the Irish
Revival like other Irish artists of the time (like the poet W. B. Yeats)

DUBLINERS

Dubliners is a work both intensively local and broadly cosmopolitan, because it lies
open to reading as a collection of stories challenging every theme and every
convention of earlier Irish Literature.

Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories written between 1904 and 1907 and
published for the first time in 1914. (No publishers wanted to publish it as it was
explained before).
As the title suggests, the stories revolve around the lives of 15 typical inhabitants of
the city of Dublin and represent an ideal portrait of the Irish Capital at the beginning
of the 20th century.

Joyce wanted his tales to have a symmetrical organization as well as a principle of

thematic development indeed, the stories can be collected into 4 main groups:
childhood, adolescence, adulthood or maturity and public life.

The protagonists come from all walks of life (ceti sociali) such as housemaids, office
clerks, music teachers, students, shop girls, swindlers, and unlucky businessmen.

The last story of the collection The Dead deserves a special mention. It is the longest
story and it is considered one of the finest short stories of the 20th century where
Joyce displays acute psychological insights and ability to render human emotions and
relationships.

The characters of the 15 short stories are introduced only with their names or what is
more some of them are anonymous.

Why?

Because according to Joyce anyone in Dublin could be the character of the story and
also because some of them had not yet developed an identity worthy of a name.

Another expedient used by the author is that a character from one story may happen
to mention a character from another story, creating an interconnecting web in the
narrative (story).

The city of Dublin

The Dublin that Joyce portrays is a static and provincial town completely different
from the cosmopolitan atmosphere of many European capitals. This inevitably affects
the lives of its inhabitants, who are described as being imprisoned in a city that does
not give them the chance to grow.
 The two themes in Dubliners are:

Paralysis and Epiphany

What unites the characters in Dubliners is the common sense of failure they
experience.

All the characters in Dubliners are living an unhappy, lonely or frustrating life, an
unsatisfying job, an unsuccessful marriage, and all have a desire: to have a better life,
overcoming all those obstacles. But they are not able to change their lives and they
surrender to their condition.

This is what Joyce calls Paralysis (the inability to react), which can be physical,
moral emotional or psychological.

The other theme is Epiphany. The word comes from Christian religion and means
Revelation or Manifestation.

The epiphany is the moment when the characters of Dubliners experience the sudden
revelation of their condition of paralysis (they realize how boring, sad, unsatisfied is
their life.)

Unfortunately, this revelation does not lead to a real change in their lives: it simply
makes them more aware of how dead and paralyzed they are.

In addition, relationship between men and women are portrayed as difficult or

corrupted, he gives us images of failed masculinity and examples of betrayals.

The narrative technique

Joyce rejects the Victorian third person omniscient narrator, in fact all the stories are
narrated from the point of view of one character using free indirect speech and free
indirect thought.
 EVELINE

It is the fourth story and is the first one in the collection that uses third-person
narration, the first in the collection to focus on a female protagonist, and the only one
in the collection that takes a character’s name as the title and she is only nineteen
years old, so it belong to the stories concerning Adolescence. Eveline’s story
illustrates the pitfalls of holding onto the past when facing the future. It reflects the
conflicting pull many women in early twentieth-century Dublin felt between a
domestic life rooted in the past and the possibility of a new married life abroad. One
moment, Eveline feels happy to leave her hard life, yet at the next moment she
worries about fulfilling promises to her dead mother. She grasps the letters she’s
written to her father and brother, revealing her inability to let go of those family
relationships, despite her father’s cruelty and her brother’s absence. She clings to the
older and more pleasant memories and imagines what other people want her to do or
will do for her. She sees Frank as a rescuer, saving her from her domestic situation.
Eveline suspends herself between the call of home and the past and the call of new
experiences and the future, unable to make a decision. Eveline’s paralysis leaves her
a “helpless animal,” stripped of human will and emotion. The story shows her
transformation into a robot that lacks expression. The events are narrated from the
point of view of Eveline.

A young woman, Eveline, of about nineteen years old is sitting by her window,
thinking of her life. She is thinking of her childhood, when she used to play with
other children in a field that now is full of buildings. She is thinking about her father
who is a violent man and sometimes abuses her. She is thinking of her job as a shop
assistant in a store and of her principal who does not treat her as she deserves. She is
thinking of her mum who passed away some years ago and she does not want to live
the same sad life as her mum lived. As she is the eldest in the family she feels
responsible of both her brother and her father, but she is definitely aware of her
unsatisfying life. She has a boyfriend, Frank, a sailor who wants her to marry him and
take her to Argentina where he has a house. Eveline faces a difficult dilemma: remain
at home like a dutiful daughter, or leave Dublin with her lover, Frank. She takes the
decision of leaving her home to start a new life with Frank. Before leaving to meet
Frank, she hears the sound of a street organ which reminds her a melody played by
another street organ on the day her mother died and the promise she made her mother
to look after the home (to keep the family together/ to take care of her family as long
as possible). At the docks in Dublin, Eveline waits in a crowd to board the ship with
Frank. She appears detached and worried, overwhelmed by the images around her,
and prays to God for direction. Her previous declaration of intent seems to have never
happened. When the boat whistle blows and Frank pulls on her hand to lead her with
him, Eveline resists. She clutches (holds firmly) the barrier (tornillo) as Frank is
dragged by the crowd towards the ship. He continually shouts “Come!” but Eveline
remains fixed to the land, motionless and emotionless. She looks like a helpless
animal in a cage. The story is told by Eveline’s point of view. Joyce employs the
FREE INDIRECT THOUGHT to give voice to Eveline’s thoughts (the presentation
of the character from the inside). The character is not introduced in a traditional way
since we are not given information about her physical appearance. The reader is
obliged to collect pieces of information from the development of Eveline’s thoughts.

ULYSSES

Written 1918 Published in installments from 1918 to 1920 in an American Journal.

As a novel in 1922 Kind of book masterpiece One of the hardest works of literature
impenetrable

Bloomsday
Thousands of people all over the world dress up like the characters and read the book
aloud Pilgrimage to Dublin just to visit the places depicted in Ulysses

Plot and characters

On a single day (16 June 1904) A story of 3 characters Stephen (the first martyr Saint
Stephen) Dedalus (the architect in Greek myth who was contracted by King Minos to
build the Labyrinth in which he would imprison his wife's son) Reprised from
Joyce’s earlier novel A Portrait of the artist as a young man He becomes Bloom’s
adopted son.
James Joyce’s astonishing masterpiece tells of the diverse events which befalls
Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus in Dublin on 16th June 1904, during which
Bloom’s wife commits adultery. Rich and accurate tour of Dublin in 1904 Leopold
Bloom Half-Jewish advertising canvasser (promotore) for a Dublin newspaper. He
wanders throughout the city to a funeral, a pub, his work avoiding going home
because his wife is about to begin her affair, Molly Bloom Leopold’s wife She is
about to embark on a love affair. This richly allusive novel initially deemed obscene
in England and in the USA was hailed as a work of genius by William Yeats. It is a
scandalously frank and wittily comic novel.
Leopold Bloom= Ulysses
Stephen Dedalus= Telemachus
Molly Bloom= Penelope

Style
It is divided in three parts like Odyssey, the first part is about Telemachus, (1-3) the
second one about Leopold Bloom (4-15) and the last one about Molly. (6-18)
Each chapter written in a different style
Chapter 15 A play
13 Like a cheesy (kitsch)romance novel (scadente)
12 Is a story with a bizarre, exaggerated interruptions
11 Uses techniques like Onomatopoeia Repetitions alliteration
14 Reproduces the evolution of English literary prose style from its beginnings in
Anglo –Saxon right up to the 20th century
Final chapter Molly’s monologue Stream of consciousness Paragraph with no
punctuation
Features Range of styles used is one of the things that makes the book so difficult.
At the same time the novel is enjoyable That’s why the book is held up as one of the
key texts of literary Modernism

References and allusions

From medieval philosophy to the symbolism of tattoos From Dante to Dublin slang
Allusions revolve around Homer’s Odyssey the Odyssey used as a structural
framework

Points of contact with Odyssey

Each chapter is named after a character or episode of Odyssey
Similarities Odysseus after 20-year long journey returns home to Ithaca and reunite
with his faithful wife Penelope, Leopold Bloom wanders around Dublin for a day and
returns home to his unfaithful wife Molly.

Critics
Considered outrageous the book was banned/ censored References to lowbrow dirty
jokes + sexual references

Techniques
Interior monologue Stream of consciousness

Conclusion
A detailed account of an ordinary life on an ordinary day Joyce planned each
movement of each character on each street as though he were playing chess Dublin
becomes itself a character.

MOLLY BLOOM’S SOLILOQUY

Molly Bloom is the female character in the novel and the protagonist of the last
chapter (n.18) She is an opera singer and the wife of the main character Leopold
Bloom. She roughly/approximately corresponds to Penelope in the Odyssey. The
major difference between Molly and Penelope is that while Penelope is eternally
faithful, Molly is not. Molly is having an affair with a music director. Molly was born
in Gibraltar the daughter of an Irish military officer, and, a Gibraltarian of Spanish
origin. So, she is depicted as a woman with a southern temper and appearance. The
final chapter of Ulysses, often called "Molly Bloom's Soliloquy", is the most famous
passage in the novel in which we follow the long, unpunctuated stream of
consciousness of her thoughts as she lies in bed next to Bloom.
The episode both begins and ends with "yes", a word that Joyce describes as "the
female word" and that he says indicates "acquiescence, (agreement) self-abandon,
relaxation, the end of all resistance."

“I SAID YES I WILL YES”

The following extract is about the famous Molly Bloom’s final interior monologue.
Following Homer’s Odyssey, the novel concentrates on Leopold/Ulysses who, after
his wandering in Dublin returns to his wife; but differently from the Odyssey, Joyce’s
Ulysses ends with Molly’s soliloquy which represents the voice of a woman and not a
man.
The chapter about Molly is the last one (it corresponds to the 18th episode) and it is
written in eight huge unpunctuated paragraphs.
At the end of the day, Molly is in bed. She is an unfaithful wife (she has just betrayed
her husband) and while in bed, she thinks the precise moment when her future
husband proposed to her (in reality she got him to propose to her). They were lying
among the rhododendrons, the sun was shining and the reader, through Molly’s
soliloquy, understands Leopold was really in love with her, while Molly decides to
accept his proposal only because he was the right man at that moment. She
remembers what Leopold was wearing, the words he was saying (“the sun shines for
you”; he said “I was a flower of the mountains”).
From Molly’s thoughts the reader understands that Molly has a strong personality,
she is dominant, passionate and very manipulative, she is able to let Leopold do
whatever she wants.
She thinks about her past, other men she had met before Leopold and the period when
she lived in Gibraltar.
The repetition of YES is a way for Molly to convince herself Leopold was the right
man for her, but also it is seen as the woman’s exaltation of life and joy.

Molly, unlike Penelope who is submissive and faithful, expresses thoughts, needs and
desires which are typical of the “new”, more liberated female figure. This can also be
explained by the fact that Joyce was living in Paris, where he would have certainly
come into contact with feminist ideologies.
As it is evident from this excerpt, the narrator completely disappears to leave room
for the reader to move “inside” Molly’s continuous flow of thoughts. In this modern
Penelope stream of consciousness, past and present as well as memories and current
feelings mix together.
 STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND INTERIOR MONOLOGUE

The expression stream of consciousness is used to describe the continuous flow of

thoughts, feelings and perceptions that fill the mind of a person during his/her waking
moments.
These thoughts, feelings do not generally come to a person in a linear or logical way
but are often the result of spontaneous free associations. The mind jumps from one
argument to another, from a past memory to a future event, from a positive to a
negative thought.
Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are similar but with some
differences.
With interior monologue the author will make a choice and focus on some aspects of
the characters’ inner lives and thoughts, those which are necessary for the
development of the story.
With the stream of consciousness nothing is filtered. Every thought is presented to
the reader whether it is relevant to the plot or not and thoughts are presented
spontaneously, in no logical order. It is the reader who must decide what is relevant
and what is not.