ULYSSES

ULYSSES
Joyce's Ulysses, in addition to being the author's masterpiece published in 1922 in

Paris, also represents one of the most complex works of the entire literature. It is a
universal work as it encompasses the entire Western thought. Joyce creates this
work in which he rewrites the Odyssey in a modern key, bringing it to the present
day. The effect obtained is a parodic effect of mythology: he uses myth to bring out
even more the decadence of the present world and to highlight everything that
does not work in the modern world.
He chooses Ulysses because in literature this characther has always represented a
central figure, and Joyce has always been fascinated by his mental brilliance as
Ulysses, in a world of mythology uses strength and intelligence.
In this work there is nothing, but there is everything: the story takes place in a single
day, from 8:00 to 00:00, but the entire Western culture is enclosed reducing the
myth to the present day and making everything that is mythological in the work
becomes ordinary.
The day on which the whole story takes place is June 19, 1906 (an important date
for Joyce, as it is the day of the first date with his wife) and is narrated in more than
a thousand pages: Joyce dilates time, and the moment becomes infinite.
The book is divided into eighteen chapters or "Episodes" all set in Dublin, marked
by deep paralysis.
The important characters are three, triad that reproduces the Homeric model and
the Holy Trinity, and in these there are biographical elements of the author:
1. Leopold Bloom Ulysses-Father
He is the protagonist. He has Jewish origin and feels wandering around
Europe. It is reflected with the mature Joyce who feels like an outsider.
2. Stephen Dedalus Son-Telemachus
He is an artist who returns to Dublin because his mother is dead and tries to
find his way. He is obsessed with a sin, a fault that he will carry on himself for
a lifetime: not having prayed at his mother's bedside. This is also the fault
that Joyce carries on himself: as in “Araby”, the mature Joyce sees himself in
the character as a young man.
The name that Joyce has chosen for this character is not accidental: it unites
Athens and Jerusalem, Greek and Christian culture, both important for
Western culture although opposite. Stephen da Stefano, the first Christian
martyr and Dedalus da Dedalo: there is a specific reason, in fact Joyce wants
us to understand that to become artists we must sacrifice ourselves, and it is
the destiny of all artists, and destiny also of Joyce himself.
3. Molly Bloom Holy spirit-Penelope
Traitorous wife of the protagonist.
He is the most vital character of the work and whom Joyce describes as
geoterra/Eve/fertilizing goddess from whom everything originates; he
compares it to an ocean that, despite being beautiful, is still dangerous
The novel focuses on a common day of an ordinary man: Leopold Bloom gets up
and, after preparing breakfast for his wife, leaves the house. He begins to wander
around Dublin (like Joyce) and meets several people including Stephen Dedalus: he
meets him in a brothel, saves him from a fight and takes him home, where he offers
him a hot chocolate; Stephen will leave Leopold's house at midnight. The
protagonist then finally goes to sleep.
Leopold's wife is a singer, but she is an unfaithful wife, in fact she has an
extramarital affair with Hugh "Blazes" Bolyan. Bloom is aware that Boylan will end
up in bed with his wife Molly the same day, and is tormented by this thought.
The last chapter of the work focuses on the latter character: in the sleepy Molly,
while she is next to her husband, retraces her entire love story (Joyce uses the
stream of consciousness without using punctuation) and does so through a
monologue in which she puts together different memories of her life. In the last
lines there is the repetition of the word "yes", which means Molly's total acceptance
of her choices made during her life.
Leopold and Molly have lost a son, Stephen has lost his father: we see Leopold
looking for a son and Stephen looking for a father. Oedipal triangulation.
This situation refers us to Shakespeare's Hamlet, the central tragedy of literature
and Joyce could not fail to take it into account and remain influenced by it.
Leopold and Dedalus will never meet, only at the end: there is a kind of reunion
between father and son, between Ulysses and Telemachus, and how Jesus reunites
with God.
He uses all the styles and all the linguistic registers in the eighteen chapters of the
work, entitled with the names of the different characters of the Odyssey. It is also
permeated by the philosophies that existed until then: it is influenced by the
thought of Giambattista Vico, of Tommaso D’Aquino.
As for the themes, however, Joyce addresses everything that man has been since
the origin of time, both as an intellect and as a flesh, he addresses all that is great in
man and all that is small in him; it does this because it wants to represent
everything that man has managed to do up to that moment.
In fact, he received much criticism because the work was considered vulgar and
Joyce, "accepts" this criticism of obscenity. Then Joyce shows how the problems,
conflicts, triumphs and tragedies of the classical world are the same problem faced
by modern man. The difference is that the modern man is imperfect: he is not a
hero, and he cannot rely on the kindness of the gods to help him through his
struggles.
He also receives another criticism, that of incomprehension, to which he replies that
in reality his is the most rational work that exists and that to write this work he used
the most logical and rational structure that man has ever built: the labyrinth.

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Joyce's Ulysses, in addition to being the author's masterpiece published in 1922 in

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