History, Memory, and Relationships with the Past in James Joyce’s Ulysses
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document in English
literature
book review
published 15/04/2008
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SummaryThe past can be a daunting thing. From personal memory to history at large, the past has the power to bury those unable to establish a healthy relationship with it. One can easily become trapped – paralyzed – in the past through guilt, regret, or nostalgia, emotions generated based upon socially-constructed ideological frameworks of absolutes. James Joyce's novel, Ulysses, represents an ideal relationship with the past in its narrative, its structure, and its form, a relationship in which history acts as a base from which to build a future. By presenting the paralyzing dangers of becoming trapped in history and highlighting how one might grow towards the future while maintaining a relationship with the past through the character of Leopold Bloom, his relationship with Stephen Dedalus, and the experimental, multi-styled form of the novel itself, Ulysses combines numerous elements which add up to something radically new, but something deeply grounded in the work and history of the past.
Table of Contents
- The novel opens on Stephen Dedalus, protagonist of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
- The novel of Ulysses goes to great lengths to portray absolute value systems.
- The novel also looks down upon a complete ignorance of the past and a lack of any sort of regret.
- Besides his strong relationship with the past, Bloom is also an extremely forward-thinking individual.
- More than just the narrative of Ulysses , however, presents this ideal relationship with the past.
- Joyce wrote and came of age in the time of the Irish Literary Revival.
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