James Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He was known for employing innovative literary techniques like stream of consciousness and interior monologue. Two of his most famous works were Dubliners, a collection of short stories depicting life in Dublin, and Ulysses, a novel that follows characters in Dublin for a single day and references Homer's Odyssey. Both works examined themes of paralysis, escape, and epiphany through realistic yet symbolic narratives and drew from Joyce's international cultural influences and love of experimenting with language.

1. JAMES JOYCE
One of the greatest modernist world writers

2. An extraordinary talent
• With an international cultural background

3. He was in love with words.
He was great at employing
the stream of
consciousness technique
He wanted to express the
stream of consciousness
happening in our minds with
no time mediation or
punctuation

4. He was an
innovator with
language
Interior monologue
Free direct and indirect speech
Lack of punctuation
Stream of consciousness
technique

5. Content is not so relevant

6. Dubliners
• It is a collection of 15 stories
corresponding to different stages of human
life
• He moved within the realm of the realistic
tradition but soon he moved away towards
a more allusive symbolic narration

7. Dubliners
• Paralysis is the central motif connecting all
different characters: it's a spiritual one.
• Strictly connected to paralysis there is
escape: all characters want to leave, to
change but they fail, because they are
unable to break the chains which tie them
to family, past, tradition

8. Dubliners
• Only when they experience epiphany they
acquire awareness of their paralysis and
their impossibility of finding a way out
• So epiphany is a sort of characters' sudden
realization triggered by everyday common
objects

9. ULYSSES
An allusive reference to the
classical hero and Homeric work

10. Ulysses
• It is centered on a single day in the life of
Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly and his
friend Stephen Dedalus: all names have a
symbolic meaning, both religious and
classical references.

11. • The book describes the wanderings of the
main protagonist into his home town,
Dublin, echoing the ones of the classical
Ulysses in twenty years.
• Leopold is a common anti-hero fighting
against a various heterogeneous outer
world

12. • Stephen Dedalus represents an artist, he is
the protagonist of another novel written by
Joyce,The portrait of the artist as a young
man
• He represents Telemachus, the son of
Ulysses

13. Failure more than paralysis is the main theme

14. • Molly's monologue closing the book is
really famous with 'yes' appealing to a
sexual intercourse but also acceptance in
general.
• She represents a modern Penelope but she
is not faithful as the classical character

15. Other recurring themes are lack of values, past nostalgia,
despair, fear for future, appearance versus reality, emptiness