James Joyce

Essay by Kim NashHigh School, 11th gradeA+, August 1996

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English III

James Joyce, an Irish novelist and poet, grew up near Dublin. James Joyce is one of the most influential novelists of the 20th century. In each of his prose works he used symbols to experience what he called an 'epiphany', the revelation of certain revealing qualities about himself. His early writings reveal individual moods and characters and the plight of Ireland and the Irish artist in the 1900's. Later works, reveal a man in all his complexity as an artist and in family aspects. Joyce is known for his style of writing called 'stream of consciousness'. Using this technique, he ignored ordinary sentence structure and attempted to reproduce the rambling's of the human mind. Many of his works were influenced by his life in Ireland as an artist. He was influenced by three main factors in his life, his childhood and parents, his homeland of Dublin, Ireland, and the Roman Catholic Church.

These three aspects show up in all his works subtly, but specifically in, The Dead, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Araby.

James Joyce, was born February 2, 1882 in Dublin, Ireland. He was the first of fifteen kids born to Mary Jane Murray, and John Stanslaus Joyce. He was christened James Augustine Aloysius Joyce. His mother was a mild woman who had intelligent opinions but didn't express them. His father was a violent, quick tempered man who was a medical student and politician. He was educated in Dublin at Jesuit school's his whole life. In 1888, he went to Clongeswood College, but his father lost his job and James had to withdraw. He graduated in October of 1902, from Royal University. He was fascinated by the sounds of words and by the rhythms of speech since he first started...