What About Talking about Joyce in Quite a Serious Way?To begin with…If we owe to the maxim saying that each day must be better than the previous day, we will surely be shocked to know the fact that Ulysses, a novel by an Irish James Joyce launched for the first time in 1922 by Shakespeare and Co., Publisher, was in 1998 elected to be “The Novel of the Century” by Modern Library (www.barnesandnoble.com). Some critics even consider this very novel the best individual work of art in history ( . . . ). There is a 76 year span from 1922 to 1998, but why couldn’t be born a better novelist within it? In the first reading only, a reader must be amazed by the exploitation of literary devices as a surface charm of this novel. Although it is true that this cannot be a mere standard to award in such a way, literary devices itself is a strong point for such a quality.
James Joyce has been well known to be the master of narrative styles and other literary devices. Readers can see that in the 18 chapters of Ulysses, James Joyce uses 18 different narrative styles ranging from the simplest “young narrative” of chapter 1 to the driest “cathecism” of chapter 17. Stuart Gilbert, a Joycean critic lists this in the end pages of Ulysses published by Everyman’s Library (1992). It is just the surface structure quality. Deeper, readers will be forced to admire his use of abundant sources ranging from come-all-yous, Irish vernacular songs, to the most serious philosophical works by Thomas Aquinas. However, the way Joyce uses these sources for the story of a mere one day of Dublin life does not seem to be an exaggeration since they are manipulated in such a subtle way that if a reader is not familiar to a reference he will not even realize that a part is a manipulation of a, let us say, philosophical reading. Besides, Joyce’s concentration of symbolism is very intense and very scrupulous, as stated by John S. Kelly for the introduction of Dubliners (1991).
Symbolism itself has been Joyce’s prominent device since his first works of prose, Dubliners, a collection of 15 short stories telling about the “paralysis” of a world metropolitan named Dublin. In Joyce’s second prose work (and his first novel), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (which in the rest of this study will be shorted into A Portrait), once again he uses symbolism altogether with his newest invention, the stream of consciousness technique—the one which then will be brought to its furthest limit in Ulysses. For the sake of this study, I will concentrate on symbolism as a device that has been agreed by critics to be Joyce’s basic quality ( . . . ).
For the study of symbolism, A Portrait is chosen to be the target since there is a special treatment for the process of symbolism in this novel. This work describes the development of a protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, since the awakening of his consciousness to the age of 20 when he decides to leave Ireland for Europe, like James Joyce himself. This is a semiautobiographical novel and the protagonist is the image of James Joyce. Some major themes of the novel are taken from James Joyce’s personal life. It is what I previously stated as special treatment in the making of symbols. Instead of the biographical elements, there are so many details which are the result of James Joyce’s manipulation and use of symbolism. As a master of symbolism, it surely is impossible for James Joyce to write an autobiographical novel with the details taken from his own life as the mere sources. It will only be a “story”, not a literary story. That is why we can find the use of symbolism. The symbols are very subtly made that they do not destroy the quality of the novel as pseudo-biographical but even strengthen the character of the protagonist.
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There are at least two ideas on the creation of art, including literature: a work of art as “art” and a work of art as a “device”. There are always oppositions between the two. In one hand, the idea of a work of art as “art”, or known as “art for art’s sake”, always proposes that a work of art must be free from social and other pragmatic loads. Aesthetics is the basic as well as the destination of the creation of a work of art. Works of art bearing social and pragmatic loads are, in the eyes of the followers of art for art’s sake school, only devices not works of art; there is no difference between this kind of art and a tool in general. Meanwhile, the pragmatic artists with their own opinion do not admit art as a glorious thing. To them, art is just like other things in life which are created in order to fulfill human needs. These two poles are always in opposition to each other. The opposition between Manifes Kebudayaan, led by Wiratmo Soekito, and Lekra, led by Pramodya Ananta Toer is an example of the two poles stated previously—but this is a radical example. This debate can be seen in Sumber Terpilih Sejarah Sastra Indonesia (E. Ulrich Kratz (Ed.); 2000).
In James Joyce’s case, we are presented with a rather dilemmatic situation. James Joyce, as he has said, is only interested in style, not politics (http://tilp.educ.queensu.ca/guests/martin/Joyce2.html). Kershner writes that “from Yeats in particular [Joyce] learned to see the world of art as an autonomous sphere removed from the pragmatic world of everyday experience, and to see the figure of an artist as a part prophet, part priest, the potential savior of his race” ( . . . ). His statement becomes clearer as he states that he “deals only with forms, others not”. Conversely, from his works, readers can see that James Joyce actually shows his rebellion against a country that does not have its independence and not attempt to gain it. A Portrait also presents the readers with Joyce’s family’s scornfulness on the punishment given to Parnell, a leader of Irish Home Rule movement, after his scandal with Catherine O’Shea has been discovered by public. In this case only, James Joyce expresses his contempt against the intervention of religion into national life that even makes a country fail to reach its independence, whether consciously or unconsciously.
However, no matter how not-pragmatic a literary work is, a great literary work must have a structure homological to the structure of a society where it is born. This notion is derived mainly from the idea proposed by Lucien Goldman, a French Marxist literary critic. A literary work—in this case, the scope of art is narrowed down to the language art, literature—is considered, by Goldman, as one of cultural creations which is actually a way of expressing an individual thought (Faruk, 1996; Damono, 1983; Goldman, . . . ). As an individual is shaped by his environment with the structure of its collective consciousness, a work of art, especially a great one, ineluctably has also a structure similar to it. This homology is actually mediated by the so called world vision. (This will be explained in a certain detail in the next chapter.)
Since A Portrait is known to be a great work of modern literature and have an admirable coherence, as stated by a critic, I try to study the structure of this work as it is homologous to the social structure of Ireland, the country that has shaped the author. To narrow the scope of this study, I concentrate on the structure of the symbolism in the novel because the symbols of this work are also coherent.
As stated far previously, the virtue that this novel is semiautobiographical itself has given a certain problem, that is to separate the biographical parts from the imaginary parts. Fortunately, some articles on the comparison between James Joyce as a young man and Stephen Dedalus as protagonist written by some critics, especially Richard Ellman and Stuart Gilbert, have given an immense aid for the decisions whether some part is a symbol and some parts are biographical. However, as a precedent, a real life is hardly ever perfect when it is meant to be a symbol. (This will be explained more in the next chapter.)
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Previously, it has been stated that one important point of this study is the homology of the structure of the novel to the structure of the social background of the novel, so a study on Irish as a social background is also unavoidable. For this study, the virtue of Irish as a country under the colonialism of England is an important point since this sense of not independent is the one that structures the world vision of Irish people in majority. However, there will not be a long, in details, explanation on it for this will take a long passage to do this. I will describe some important points in the social condition of Irish people that build up the world vision during James Joyce’s life, at least until the time he finished writing A Portrait.
That is, roughly, what this study is about. This following section will present more details of this study.
To formulate in questions…To have an understanding of the later development of this study, there are three research questions. The answer of those questions will constitute the body of this study after being formulated into a synthesized statement. The research questions are:
1. What is the dominant motif in James Joyce’s symbolism?
2. Where do the influences for the creation of the motif in James Joyce’s symbolism come from?
To avoid the potentially crazy talking about insignificant stuffs.…As a literary study, the main focus of this study is on the literary work as an autonomous body. Therefore, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a novel by James Joyce published for the first time in 1916 is the one from which the data to be analyzed here will be taken, or the major source. As stated above, the study focuses on the symbolism of this novel, especially the structure of symbols. This part later takes the most space of this study because it is actually the central of this study, in chapter III.
Besides the novel, this study also deals with some other things that are categorized to be the minor sources. They are, as implied from the background of study section, firstly, James Joyce’s life as a young man in a certain detail. Reviews on this especially contribute to the understanding and identifying the symbolism used in this novel. Roughly, the importance of this review is to separate which part of the novel is symbolical or resulting from imagination and which other part is biographical. For this purpose, I will depend most on articles and books telling about the comparison between James Joyce’s actual life and A Portrait. The sources are mostly taken from Ellman’s research as it is found separately in some essays. Inseparable from this part is also the review on symbolism as a literary device and James Joyce’s symbolism especially. For this part, I will subscribe much to theories developed by dependable literary theorists.
Secondly, theory on the relationship between the social structure and the structure of a literary work as mediated by the world vision of a social class in a certain community is another object that will be reviewed in order to support the central of this study, the study of the symbols in A Portrait. For this very part. The discussion mainly derives from a theory developed by Lucien Goldman well known as the genetic structuralism.
Thirdly, the study on Irish history as a repressed country to a certain detail is also in the scope of this study which is also to support the interpretation in chapter III. Irish history is relevant as long as it has influences in the shaping of the Irish people’s world vision. Therefore, the study will leave any unimportant records in Irish history which are not relevant to this study. These three elements of minor sources will then be discussed in chapter II.
To tell you why it sounds significant…Through this study, it is expected that readers can attain a deeper understanding of James Joyce, especially his use of symbolism and all its elements. Since discussion on symbolism also reaches a wide field, including the life of the writer and the world vision of Irish people as general, I do hope that this study will also give a thorough understanding of man and social background behind a great literary work.
It is also worth explained that through this study, I intend to make a holistic understanding of a literary work in order to know a literary device applied altogether with its relationship to external aspects influencing the creation. It is true that the trend of literary criticism today tends to move much further from the authority of an author as the absolute owner of the meaning of a literary works. But, this study does not pretend to do so since I do feel that a vast multidisciplinary understanding is the compulsory for it and I think studying the quality of a writer is a good effort for the improvement of literature in general.
To point out some key terms….There are some significant terms the understanding of which is very important for the progress of this study. their importance lies right on the fact that they are the show-direction organs of this study that will lead the way to the end of this study, although, as stated before, simultaneously it is also the point of departure for another study. They are:
- Genetic structuralism: an approach of literary criticism that tries to reveal the world vision of the author in order to know the genetic matters of the birth of a certain literary work.
- Structure: The manner of construction of something and the arrangement of its parts.
- Motif: A unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work.
- Symbol: Something visible that by association or convention represents something else that is invisible.
- Repression: A state of forcible subjugation.
- Freedom: The condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints.
