Self, Language, and the Other: an Integrative Approach to the Works of James Joyce (Ireland ).

Abstract

My dissertation explores Joyce's representation of the self in language, the individual within the larger textual network that constitutes culture. The issues focussed on are: (1) language as the medium of the self's desires, as the medium that speaks, betrays and arouses them; (2) the alienating effects of language, the ways in which it renders knowledge of the self indirect, ex-centric, and personal memory uncertain; (3) the representation of self and other as texts to be read and interpreted, examining specifically intersubjective perception between the sexes. Although the focus of the dissertation is Finnegans Wake, the method is integrative, emphasizing the connections between Joyce's final work and his earlier fictions. I supplement my analysis with the psychoanalytic concepts of Freud and Lacan, using them as comparative models that endeavor to describe theoretically many concerns Joyce chose to explore artistically.