What Did James Joyce Mean When He Wrote Ulysses Anyway ? Part V

Jesuit strain in Stephen's make-up which cannot be eliminated. At once we start to see Mulligan as a kind of Antinous to Stephen's Telemachus. Stephen is patronized and bullied. He has, we learn, paid the rent for this tower where they are living; soon Mulligan will demand the key as well as 'two pence for a pint'. To make matters worse, an English friend of Mulligan's---Haines---is staying with them, and Haines serves to remind Stephen of his, and all Ireland's, servitude to the British state. The key symbol to this episode is 'Heir', and Stephen feels himself to be disinherited: there is nothing he can call his own." (2)

So, with one word, Joyce was able to form a bridge between the two worlds of the ancient Greek myths, and the Christian age that Joyce still inhabited. To modernize the novel Ulysses, to bring the book up to present conditions Joyce had to fill the novel with an innumerable variety of Christian symbols. This helped to achieve the dramatic technique that Joyce hoped to develop succeed; for to create a novel that spoke in epic proportions, Joyce had to capture the Christian age inherent in the ancient Greek myth of the journey, the odyssy, the search by Ulysses. This characteristic gives the novel a quality lacking in other stories and sets Ulysses apart in its' placement in the genre of literary history. By describing these symbols inside the text, Joyce was able to encompass the whole of Irish history complete the religous and political struggles, both successes in regard to their failures. Irish history could never be complete without reference to the Catholic Protestant debate, the drive for Irish independence; a defeated people in battle, who had not given up their inner yearnings to be free from the pull of the English monarchy. In this first chapter, along with the dialogue Joyce has already begun to introduce some of the background elements working beneath the layers of the plot in Ulysses. This is only an example of the different avenues that a paragraph may take in Ulysses. Such twists and turns lead the reader through the sands of allegory, symbolism, and illusion. Chrysostomos becomes more than a word representing chaos, or more than tearing the fabric of order down, this seemingly magical word almost translucent in appearance upon the page serves to bring a multitude of cultural themes together, aiding in holding together the three structural episodes in the move, enabling the prose to flow freely throughout the text. Anthony Burgess

Go To Page: 1 2 3 4 5

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic