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Style and Themes of James Joyce

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Besmer 1

Brian Besmer

Mr. Anselmo

English IV

11/13/00

Styles of James Joyce

I will be discussing the styles of James Joyce and how his life

experiences, his surroundings, and himself affected his writings this area.

James Joyce is an extremely versatile author. He has written books

that were entire collections of short stories such as Dubliners and long novels

such as Ulysses. Much of Joyce's life contributed to his writings and he has

been influence by many people and events. Joyce grew up in Ireland and

then moved to England where he began his writing. He wrote for England but

was Irish at heart and this will be shown in his writings. Many things influenced Joyce's writings, from other authors, to his …show more content…

Sometimes, Joyce would even

incorporate himself into the characters in his stories. Never making them

exactly like himself, but he would add specific parts of himself into his

characters. Joyce wanted everyone to believe that his books were not apart

of himself. Even Celtic traditions were used in his books, which he learned

from his life in Ireland (Halper 15). He even wrote about one of his personal

experiences in a short story called the Dead where he discussed some of the

problems his wife Nora and himself were having while they stayed in Rome

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(Benitudh 37). Joyce used this to vent, but also to show his opinion of

married life. The story talked about marital disillusionment and Joyce talked

about the tension that builds between people as time passes. The marital

disillusionment is what people who are married fail to see the bad things in

the other person where they thought everything was good and that everything

is great.

To create tightly woven stories, Joyce would use integrated patterns in

his books. He would combine different eras of time, such as using antiquity

and contemporary events in his stories (Levin 49). He worked as if he were

sowing a giant quilt, making sure every thread was placed perfectly. When he

wrote Ulysses he didn't just want to create a modern Odyssey, he wanted to

make it of all ages and create a very complex structure for Ulysses (Kiely

217). Joyce's

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