How James Joyce Challenges His Readers in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake

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How James Joyce Challenges His Readers in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake

In the history of written literature, it is difficult not to notice the authors who expand their reader's style and manner of reading. Some write in an unusual syntax which forces the reader to utilize new methods of looking at a language; others employ lengthy allusions which oblige the reader to study the same works the author drew from in order to more fully comprehend the text. Some authors use ingenious and complicated plots which warrant several readings to be understood. But few authors have used all these and still more devices to demand more of the reader. James Joyce, writer of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, uses extraordinarily inventive and intricate plot construction, creative and often thought-provoking word constructions, allusions to works both celebrated and recondite, and complex issues and theories when challenging his readers to expand their method of reading.

The plot, or story, of a book is the foundation upon which all else is constructed, and Joyce is renowned for his extraordinary plots, always innovative and always astonishing. In Ulysses, Joyce parallels the day of his protagonist, Leopold Bloom, with the journeys of Odysseus from Homer's Odyssey. Chapter by chapter, Bloom's travels throughout Dublin, along with the experiences of his young friend Stephen Dedalus and his unfaithful wife Molly, parallels the Odyssey. All the chapters are there: Telemachus, Nestor, Proteus,

Calypso, the Lotus-Eaters, Hades, Aeolus, Lestrygonians, Scylla and Charybdis, Sirens, Cyclops, Nausicaä , Oxen of the Sun, Circe, Eumaeus, Ithaca, and Penelope. He even adds a chapter, Wandering Rocks, by subdividing Scylla ...

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challenged his readers to expand and enhance their reading method, to think for

themselves, to read the raw thoughts of another, to read a hybrid language, to

simply learn, and to become a better reader.

Works Cited:

Barger, John. IQ Infinity- The Unknown James Joyce, Robot Wisdom Pages,

5/25/97: http://www.mcs.net/~jorn/html/jj.html

Cave, Charles. James Joyce Web Page, Ozemail Communications, 5/25/97:

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~caveman/Joyce

Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. New York, New York: Penguin USA, 1976

Joyce, James. Ulysses, New York, New York: Random House Inc., 1992

McHugh, Roland. Annotations to Finnegans Wake, Baltimore, Maryland: Johns

Hopkins University Press, 1991

Thornton, Weldon. Allusions in Ulysses, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University

of North Carolina Press, 1968

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