Final Exam Essay Assignment on Joyce’s Dubliners:

Question: What does Joyce mean by Epiphanies?

Write one paragraph (or more, if you wish) for each of the following:

1. Pick a passage from one of the three stories we have read, perhaps one you have done for homework, and discuss it through the lens of free indirect discourse. That is, point to the ambiguities in the narration and make a case for seeing them one way or another. Try to locate the specifics of the language, the word choice and order that cause you to come to your conclusions. It is not necessary to be decisive but only to make a case for hearing a phrase a certain way.

2. Discuss your conclusions from the above in more human terms. What does it tell you about the character? How does it feel to look at a character this way as opposed to as you might meet him or her in a more “ordinary” third-person narration? In a first-person narration? In a play? Use specific examples from your passage.

3. What difference does the free indirect discourse make in your feeling about the character? How do you explain it? Are you satisfied with your explanation? Why or why not?

We have talked quite a bit in class about free indirect discourse and narrational irony (distance between what we learn about a character and what is actually said) but Joyce had something else in mind as well. No doubt our approach could suffice but we should also be able to reconcile it with Joyce’s vision; we should fill out our understanding with his, regardless of whether or not we think he succeeded. To this end, read the following excerpts of some criticism on Joyce’s works and comment in the next paragraphs.

A. “By an epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself. He believed that it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care, seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments." (Stephen Hero)

"Epiphany" refers to a showing-forth, a manifestation. In the Christian tradition the Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Christ's divinity to the Magi [three wise men]. For Joyce, however, it means a sudden revelation of the whatness of a thing, the moment in which "the soul of the commonest object...seems to us radiant" (Joyce, Stephen Hero 213). The artist is supposed to search for an epiphany not among the gods but among men in "casual, unostentatious, even unpleasant moments" (Ellmann, James Joyce 87).

B. “I am writing a series of epicleti - ten - for a paper. I have written one. I call the series Dubliners to betray the soul of that hemiplegia or paralysis which many consider a city.” The word epiclesis (Latin) or epicleseis (Greek), referred to an invocation still found in the mass of the Eastern church, but dropped from the Roman ritual, in which the Holy Ghost is besought to transform the host [the bread and wine] into the body and blood of Christ. What Joyce meant by the term, adapted like epiphany and eucharistic moment from ritual, he suggested to his brother Stanislaus: “Don’t you think there is a certain resemblance between the mystery of the Mass and what I am trying to do? I mean that I am trying [...] to give people some kind of intellectual pleasure or spiritual enjoyment by converting the bread of everyday life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own ... for their mental, moral, and spiritual uplift.” [... &c.].’ (James Joyce, 1965 Edn., p.169.)( Excerpt from http://www.joycean.org/index.php?p=33)

4. The two passages present two different religious images of Joyce’s technique (1. the revelation of Christ’s divinity to the holy men and 2. the manifestation of Christ’s body and blood in the Mass). For each one, explain: Who in the image represents character being portrayed? Who represents the reader? Who represents the author and what is his role? Discuss each image in terms of your passage.

5. How do you reconcile or relate the two religious images? Use your passage in your discussion if you can.

6. Are you satisfied with Joyce’s images? Relate them to the understanding of his technique that you laid out in the third section. Remember at all times to keep your specific passage in mind.