JAMES JOYCE
LIFE
He was born in Dublin in 1882, into a middle-class Catholic family.
He studied Modern Languages and he grew up as a rebel among rebels.
His interest was for a broader European culture rather than the Irish one.
In 1903 he left Ireland to spend some time in Paris.
His mother’s fatal illness brought him back to Dublin. In June 1904 he met and fell in love with Nora Barnacle.
In 1905 he settled in Trieste with Nora Barnacle and he married her in 1931. Here he met his friend Italo Svevo.
In 1904 he published Dubliners.
In 1918 Ulysses began to appear in serial form in The Little Review.
He died in 1941 at the age of 59. He was buried in Zurich
A MODERNIST WRITER
He is one of the greatest representatives of Modernism.
The setting of most of his works is Ireland, especially Dublin.
ll the facts in his narratives are presented through different points of view at the same time.
Joyce gives a great importance to the inner world of the characters, to the time (perceived as subjective) and to represent life objectively.
STYLE
He wants to reproduce realism through some narrative techniques, for example: -free-direct speech
-third person narration
-little dialogues
-interior monologue.
DUBLINERS
The novel was published in 1914 and it collects a lot of stories set in Dublin. Their order follows lifetime, from childhood to mature and public life.
Dubliners are described as afflicted people.
Each story opens in medias res (in the middle of the events) and is mostly told from the perspective of a character. He uses free direct and direct speech to reproduce characters' thoughts and to give information about their social classes.
Joyce employed the technique of epiphany: it occurs when an object, an image or a situation arouses the character's memory about something happened in the past.
The main theme is paralysis, which can be "physical" or "moral". The only alternative is escaping from it, but this situation leads to failure.
EVELINE (one of the stories of Dubliners)
The main characters are Eveline, her father, her mother and his boyfriend Frank.
The story opens in medias res, the third-person narrator reflects Eveline's point of view and the perception of time is subjective.
The themes are the struggle between personal happiness and responsibility and paralysis.