Hello,
I wrote this essay for my British Literature class. Any comments, questions, and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Personal Objectivity of James Joyce
"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster."
Henry Hill, Ray Liotta's character, narrated this statement at the beginning of the critically acclaimed film "Goodfellas" made by Martin Scorsese. Many of Scorsese's films were drawn from his own personal life experiences while he was growing up in New York City, New York. It was not surprising to witness his films take place in New York or to absorb the Italian-American or Irish-American lifestyle which he was born around. While some layers of Scorsese's life were reflected into his films, no person has had as much subjective work (arguably) in his or her literature as James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, or commonly known as James Joyce. His Irish elements in the literary epic Ulysses or in his short story compilations in Dubliners were paralleled to his own life and surroundings. While majority of the people from Ireland were devout (more or less) Catholics, non-Irish people sometimes labeled the Irish as being always related to the Catholic religion. Joyce, ironically, was not a devout Catholic, and his differentiation between Catholicism and how he grew up in Ireland allowed him to publish such objective literary works.
To understand Joyce's point of view, one has to view his upbringing. At an early age, Joyce rejected Catholicism, as it pertained to the church, but he also was aware of the impact the religion had to him and his country. After all, his education came from a Catholic based school. The Jesuit schools of Belvedere College and Clongowes Wood College and the Christian Brothers School were his primary education. Because of the financial troubles of his family, Joyce's educational schooling also changed. Patrick Ledden stated, "It should be clear, then, that schools in Dublin were useful markers of social class" (333). As he grew up, Joyce realized that his views were not in synchronization with the views of most of the people around him. One of Joyce's early contempt at the church came when his father, John Joyce, was criticized at for being pro-Parnell, and the Catholic Church condemned Parnell for his adultery and alleged relations to the Phoenix Park murders of Lord Cavendish. Charles Stuart Parnell was a well known and respected politician in Ireland, but his later years were subject to controversy. Along with his father, Joyce was also fond of Parnell, and "feeling as angry as his father, wrote a poem denouncing [Tim] Healy," who was the lieutenant under Parnell and no longer supported Parnell in his later years, "under the title "Et Tu, Healy'" (Ellmann 33). According to Richard Ellmann, "the word betrayal became a central one in Joyce's view of his countrymen" (32).
Beginning with his late teens and early twenties, Joyce switched his views of Catholicism, and he decided to rid himself of Catholic views that pervaded Dublin. Although, Joyce did hang on to some principles of Thomas Aquinas, who was an ethics philosopher, and of Aristotle, who's influence pervades throughout Joyce's Ulysses. In fact, before his decision to rid himself of the corruption of Catholicism in Dublin, Joyce tried to bring a nonpolitical approach to Dublin. One approach was at some point Joyce wanted to create a periodical which was not diluted with the religious and political corruption. Richard Ellmann notes "that [Dublin's] newspapers were corrupt," and Joyce wanted to create "a new halfpenny daily newspaper of the continental type" that would "primarily be literary rather than political" called The Goblin (140). However, there was heavy influence of Catholicism in Dublin and in much of Ireland, so Joyce went into self-imposed exile after he met his, later to be, wife, Nora Barnacle. At first, Nora hesitated to go with Joyce because she misunderstood him. However, according Ellmann, "[Joyce] wished to wound her image of him by swaggering as a desperado, and also wanted her to break through his second image and detect the vulnerable boy" (169). In a letter to Nora, Joyce elaborated on his views of the Church and Catholicism:
My mind rejects the whole present social order and Christianity-home, the recognised virtues, classes of life, and religious doctrines. How could I like the idea of home? My home was simply a middle-class affair ruined by spendthrift habits which I have inherited. (Ellmann 169)
In a way, Joyce understood Nora's hesitance because he went through similar feelings of Nora's while he was growing up.
Similar to many other literary giants at the time, Joyce explored much of Europe. He traveled from Paris to Zurich to Trieste to London to the United States, and this allowed him to expose himself to many different people of many different backgrounds. Joyce's constant traveling throughout his life reinforced the separation from his background ideals. By being exposed to different backgrounds and cultures, Joyce's far relation from religion, especially Catholicism, became even clearer.
In his works, Joyce created events and situations, in which he was able to get his point across through his characters. Pertaining to Joyce's Dubliners, Craig Hansen Werner stated that it 'exemplifies the early modernist synthesis of Zola's "scientific objectivity" and the intensely subjective aesthetics associated with symbolist poetry' (Werner 7). That scientific objectivity is referred to in Joyce's work of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Joyce's faint use of his views on Catholicism and Christianity in general is quoted from one of the characters in his well known short stories in Dubliners, "The Dead":
"I know all about the honour of God, Mary Jane, but I think it's not at all honourable for the pope to turn out the women out of the choirs that have slaved there all their lives and put little whipper-snappers of boys over their heads. I suppose it is for the good of the Church if the pope does it. But it's not just, Mary Jane, and it's not right" (The Norton Anthology of English Literature 2518).
This statement not only coincides with Joyce's views, but it also shows how Joyce felt about such aspects of the Church. The character's argument towards the Pope of prioritizing men over women for singing in the choir shows confusion on what the religion should be and what it is. Having Joyce put in his own views on Catholicism may seem more subjective than objective, but Joyce did not explore more in detail about Catholicism in much of his works. Werner further explains the slight use of Catholicism in Joyce's works for Joyce to get his point across in "The Dead":
Although religious imagery permeates "The Dead," the characters' religious discourse extends no further than speculation on the monks who "never spoke, got up at two in the morning and slept in their coffins." Although, the image reinforces the themes of death and paralysis, it has no factual basis, thereby highlighting the theological shallowness of Catholic Dublin. (58)
Joyce's views of Catholicism and the Roman Catholic Church are best symmetrically paralleled in A Portrait of and Artist as a Young Man. This work of naturalistic fiction is considered to be Joyce's own autobiography of life. In Twayne's English Authors Series Online Stephen Dedalus's (James Joyce's alter ego in A Portrait and Ulysses) feelings about Catholicism are further stated:
The experiences, though temporally disruptive, also, however, begin a pattern of doubt, suspicion, and hostility that will lead a rebellious Stephen to his fateful decision to reject the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church and become a priest of art. (Twayne's Author Series)
Similarly, Joyce most certainly accomplished his "priesthood into art," and his consciousness technique remained in almost all of his well known works. James Joyce's views were in his works for a purpose or a goal, not for any heavily biased reason.
Joyce's deviation from religion strengthened his literary premise. From that perspective, his works are very objective, not spilling over heavy religious and political views into them. Joyce stayed true to his objective literary principle throughout all of his life. Because of this, he explored and set new boundaries in censorship, terminology, and context in literature. Joyce's alienation from (most of) his family and country showed his clear objective inspiration. It is ironic how he became an exile to differentiate himself between his surroundings and works, but Joyce's works heavily stemmed from his homeland. However, had Joyce grown up in Turkey, he still might have extracted his works based in his homeland. While Joyce's works are known to be subjective, they basically are based on what almost every other author uses to base his or her own work on: life. Joyce just happened to have grown up in Dublin, Ireland. Therefore, he wrote about what he knew best.
Abrams, S. The Norton Anthology of English Literature (Single-Volume 8th Edition). W. W. Norton, March 2006.
Ellmann, Richard. James Joyce. 1959. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Ledden, Patrick J. "Education and Social Class in Joyce's Dublin." Journal of Modern Literature 22.2 (Winter98/99 1998): 329. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Richland College Library, Dallas, TX.
Peterson, Richard F. "A Fluid and Lambent Narrative: Portrait of the Artist." 1999. Twayne's English Authors Series Online. Gale Group.
Werner, Craig Hansen. Dubliners: A Student's Companion to the Stories. Boston: Twayne, 1988.
