James Joyce brought literature for people and wrote the unwritten, talked about banned problems and described an indescribable without boundaries of the grammar, punctuation or style. He attempted to show the flow of thoughts coming out of ones consciousness and those from the past repressed in sub-consciousness(Freud), hidden emotions that still have an impact on an individual’s adult life as well as those that influenced the history.
Joyce separates the narrative for three main characters (Stephen, Bloom and Bloom’s wife Molly), this structure corresponds with Homeric parallel as in Odyssey. Some of the pages are written in poetic style some like newspaper stories with the headlines and other in a form of a play’s script. The novel reflects the language of the body rather than mind and is highly consensual. It is deep, spiritual and touches controversial topics like racism and religious concepts.It shows range of skills of the author beginning of linguistic knowledge (episode14- play with words and different styles of English) and also falling image of Roman Catholic Church. Episode 13 is quite characteristic for Joyce’s style describing stream of consciousness of Gerty Mcdowell(seen as Virgin Mary), young girl that is being watched by Bloom from the distance.
The girl encouraged by Leonard exposes herself purposely. The long rocket corresponds with Blooms manhood as he is masturbating to Gerty’s display. Eventually both of them reach the climax as the roman candle explodes. The scene is compared to the Benediction of Blessed Sacrament that was happening at the same time in a Catholic Church across the road. It gives away Joyce’s vision on the ceremonial display of the “Body of Christ” while Bloom was acting out his “Adoration”. Gerty’s final act of being “lame” reads as opinion of the state of the Catholic Church, especially in Ireland. (ref.3)Inspiration:
Ulysses, James Joyce
Winchester University Journalism Course
History and Context of Journalism Part III Lecture week 3 and 4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(novel)
