Essay about The Role of Loneliness in James Joyces Ulysses

The Role of Loneliness in James Joyces Ulysses Have you ever had one of those days when the world seems cold and unfeeling? Where the people that surround you are far away and uncaring? Ulysses is about one of those days, and two people who are stuck within it, searching desperately for a way out. Loneliness runs like a thread through Ulysses, a novel by James Joyce. It constantly tugs at the characters minds, and drives their lives in subtle ways. Joyce drives the point home by giving a drab, grey description of the characters lives. Ulysses is set in 1904, Dublin, Ireland. Joyces book was first published in 1922. The plot of Ulysses is fairly simple. The novel re-creates the days of two Irishmen, Leopold Bloom, the main†¦show more content†¦A series of events lead to this unhappiness, and during the day that the book takes place, Bloom, although he leads a comfortable life, is quite miserable. The blow that hit him the hardest was the death of his one year old son. Now, his daughter is away, and he spends much of his time serving his wife, who does not respect him, and is even having an affair with her employer. When Bloom receives a letter from his precious daughter, his mood only worsens, and his mind drifts into the thought of separation. Fifteen yesterday. Bloom muses, Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her first birthday away from home. Separation (66). Bloom is also plagued by a gnawing worry that his daughter, Milly, might become like his wife. When Bloom goes to the funeral of Paddy Dignam, an old friend, his thoughts lead to a remembrance of his fathers suicide. Bloom also feels singled out, not only in his family life, but in general, as a Jew. Although people like and respect Leopold Bloom, there are people he encounters throughout the book who hate him, only because of his religion. Stephen is another lonely soul wandering the streets of Dublin. His unhappiness is mostly rooted in the fact that his has mother recently died, and the fact that many of his relatives blame him for the death. Although he did not kill his mother, he refused to pray at her deathbed - her finalShow MoreRelatedANALIZ TEXT INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS28843 Words   |  116 Pagesthan he is with himself – or about where the major crisis, or turning point of the narrative actually occurs. Nor is there any special reason that the crisis should occur at or near the middle of the plot. It can, in fact, occur at any moment. In James Joyce’s â€Å"Araby† and in a number of the other companion stories in â€Å"Dubliners† the crisis – in the form of a sudden illumination that Joyce called an epiphany – occurs at the very end of the story, and the falling action and the resolution are dispensedRead MoreWho Goes with Fergus11452 Words   |  46 Pagesand wo men alike to leave off brooding over loves bitter mystery and to turn instead to the mysterious order of nature, over which Fergus rules. Analysis This short poem is full of mystery and complexity. It was James Joyces favorite poem, and figures in his famous novel Ulysses, where Stephen Daedalus sings it to his dying mother. On one level, the poem represents Yeats exhortation to the young men and women of his day to give over their political and emotional struggles in exchange for a