ULYSSES, by James Joyce ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK AND MAIN CHARACTERS

Gaddi Lisa 5B School year 2012-2013

The narrative techniques used are: the mythical method, the stream of consciuosness First published in 1922 .

The themes are: the searh for a father/son, the exile, quest/journey

ULYSSES

Each chapter is associated with a specific colour , art or science, and body organ . The novel takes place in a single day: 16TH JUNE 1904 .

It consists of

18 CHAPTERS

day , each one covering an hour of the .

CHARACTERS:

In Ulysses, J.Joyce sets the characters and episodes of Homer’s Odyssey in modern Dublin. The protagonists of the story are:

MOLLY BLOOM

as PENELOPE She represents the ESSENCE OF FEMALE

NATURE.

Differently from Penelope, she is the unfaithful wife. In the final monologue she represents the sum of all women in the novel (Calypso, Circe ecc.) and the solution for Bloom and Stephen’s quest.

LEOPOLD BLOOM

as ULYSSES He represents THE COMMON MAN He is a 38 years old advertising canvasser, he is mature and even-headed and an urealised artist. Bloom is the common man curious of new experiences but not efficient. He looks foward the scientific certainties and human relationships he’s not able to find.

STEPHEN DEDALUS

as TELEMACHUS He represents every YOUNG MAN SEEKING FOR

MATURITY.

He embodies J.Joyce himself at the age of 22. He is the protagonist of “Portrait of the artist as a young man” and he is and idealist in search for spiritual values. Stephen Dedalus is very different from Bloom but similiar as well: he’s unable to satisfy his deepest expectations and he’s always persuing a QUEST.

In the comprhension of Ulysses is also important the use of narrative techniques. There’s:

THE MYTICAL METHOD

: First defined by T.S Eliot as “a way of controlling , of ordering, of giving shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.” The mythical method allows the writer to make a parallel with the Odyssey and provides the book with a symbolic meaning.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

For example in final Molly Bloom’s monologue. There’s no narrator,no punctuation and no cronological order. The organisation principle is the JUXTAPPOSITION OF ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.