What Did James Joyce Mean When He Wrote Ulysses Anyway ? Part IV
book: to the Homeric parallel we add a presiding organ, art, colour, symbol, and an appropriate technique. The characters cannot think what they want to think nor do what they want to do: they are bound in a lex eterna, disciplined to the making of a work of art, and yet---such is the author's silence and cunning---they appear to have freewill. By the time we have finished the book they have presented us not only with a serio-comic re-telling of the Odyssey but also with a complete conspectus of the arts and sciences, a working model of the human body, a spectrum, and a textbook of literary techniques. These are gifts which we can accept or ignore, just as we wish: they are primarily there in the service of a story. As Joyce himself said, they make a bridge for the marching across of his eighteen chapters; when the chapters have achieved their passage the bridge can be blown sky-high. But the bridge is an astonishing piece of pontifical architecture in its own right." (4)
For, in the end the story of Stephen Dedalus is about escaping the confines of the material and releasing the beautiful wonder of the human spirit. When Stephen wanders by the oceans of the Irish countryside, or leaves us with the songs of a country maiden in, "Portrait Of An Artist", he is escaping the confines of this harsh reality. As Stephen breaks the Ash plant near the end of the novel, an ashplant that he has been carrying around with him throughout the novel, his actions symbolize the yearning of the human spirit to break free from the boundaries that pull humanity into the depths of a universal Hades; capturing the aspirations of his or her spiritual essence into the chairs of complacency forever. The name of Dadelus can even be traced back to its' Greek roots and origins in reference to the concept of freedom. From the earliest of his childhood, into the his adolocent years, as he struggles to become a writer, well into the early stage of adulthood, Stephen has been struggling to break free from his humble environment; so that his spirit can soar becoming the creative artist, a desire that his heart has always yearned since his early memories of youth. Stephen stands for the search of all men; grasping for the dream lying within the human heart to be free. In Ulysses, Stephen is given the chance to grow into the beautiful flower lying inside his soul.
Latest Articles