James joyce background information

James Joyce Essay: First Two Pages James Joyce, author of “ Araby,” “ Eveline,” and Ulysses, attempts to correct the way of life in his home town of Dublin, Ireland, through his works. He does this through the theme of coming of age and recurring religious allusions in “ Araby”. Additionally, Joyce talks aboutfamilyin “ Eveline” through the themes of escape and betrayal. In Ulysses, he uses stream of consciousness to depict the importance of a father by rewriting Homer’s TheOdyssey.

James Joyce addresses many Irish problems of his time through his works: such as, religious issues in “ Araby” and “ Eveline” and social problems in Ulysses. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, in Dublin, Ireland (“ James Joyce” 1). His inspiration for writing came from his experiences in this town. For example, James Joyce’s father was a highly regarded tenor singer in Ireland; but being a singer, no steady income existed for his family (1).

Adding to this lack of stability, his father was also an alcoholic, so his family never had muchmoneyto live on during Joyce’schildhood(1). This situation with his father most likely gave James the inspiration to write about paternity in his novel Ulysses. James Joyce, however, not only wrote about his own family, he also wrote about the entire society in Dublin. When Joyce traveled to Paris, France, in 1902, he discovered a “ liberated city completely opposite that of his native city” (“ The Life and Work” 1). For this reason, Joyce wrote all of his pieces of literature about Dublin.

He wrote about Irish politics, which his parents introduced him to; and he wrote about what he thought life should be like in Dublin based on how it is in Paris (1). James Joyce additionally wrote about his wife. His wife, Nora Barnacle, provided Joyce with a person for him to develop his groundbreaking female characters, such as Molly Bloom in Ulysses. For Molly Bloom, Joyce actually asked his wife to cheat on him so that he would be in the same situation as the characters in Ulysses (Ellman 58). From his life in Dublin, James Joyce received ample inspiration from the social unrest of his hometown.