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| James Joyce (1881-1941) |
Ulysses is known as one of the modernist novels, written by an Irish writer, James Joyce. James Joyce, or also known as James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, was born on February 2, 1881 in Dublin, Ireland. He comes from a big family where he is the eldest from ten children of John Stanislaus Joyce and Marry Murray Joyce. Joyce received his education from Irish schools of Clongowes and later Belvedere College. Having passion for literature lead Joyce to eventually graduate from University College Dublin with a Bachelor of Arts focusing on modern languages. It is said that Joyce could speak 17 languages which include Italian, Arabic, Greek, Sanskrit, etc. He died at the age of 59 on January 13, 1941 and was buried at Fluntern cemetery in Zurich.
This novel has approximately 265000 words and the whole novel is
divided into eighteen episodes which are all set in Dublin, Ireland from June
16-17, 1904. The three main characters introduced in Ulysses are a young school
teacher and ambitious writer named Stephen Dedalus, a middle-aged advertising
salesman, Leopold Bloom, and his wife, Molly Bloom. The novel narrates every
single day in Dublin and it follows the story of the three central characters
which mentioned earlier and the city life that develops around them. This novel
impressively has drawn the attention of people and becomes controversial that
demands scrutiny. The outstanding techniques used in this novel such as
stream-of-consciousness, careful structuring, and experimental prose have
resulted in its recognition from the whole world as the greatest literary work
that has ever published.
In this novel, the mental process of the characters is continuously
taking place which clearly shown through stream of consciousness technique. In
other words, the characters have an endless flow of perceptions, feelings and
thoughts in waking and conscious mind. The characters keep talking to
themselves in their mind and the unbroken flow of ideas and thoughts cannot be
controlled as it keeps flooding their mind. Using this technique, Joyce aims to
expose the personality, past, problems, present status and condition of a
character to the readers.For example, in the final episode of this novel, Penelope,
Molly Bloom has a monologue and the whole episode is about her stream of
consciousness as she lies awake. In this chapter, Joyce illustrates how her
mind made a flashback on the varieties of subjects at one time such as her
girlhood, her singing engagement, her courtship with Leopold Bloom, etc. This
stream of consciousness technique allows the readers to discover and understand
the mental process and inner truth of a character. It has been said that before
Ulysses is published, there is no writer before Joyce who had so foregrounded
the process of thinking.
.
In this novel, the mental process of the characters is continuously
taking place which clearly shown through stream of consciousness technique. In
other words, the characters have an endless flow of perceptions, feelings and
thoughts in waking and conscious mind. The characters keep talking to
themselves in their mind and the unbroken flow of ideas and thoughts cannot be
controlled as it keeps flooding their mind. Using this technique, Joyce aims to
expose the personality, past, problems, present status and condition of a
character to the readers.For example, in the final episode of this novel, Penelope,
Molly Bloom has a monologue and the whole episode is about her stream of
consciousness as she lies awake. In this chapter, Joyce illustrates how her
mind made a flashback on the varieties of subjects at one time such as her
girlhood, her singing engagement, her courtship with Leopold Bloom, etc. This
stream of consciousness technique allows the readers to discover and understand
the mental process and inner truth of a character. It has been said that before
Ulysses is published, there is no writer before Joyce who had so foregrounded
the process of thinking. .
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