Searching for Home

by Kolby Maly
James Joyce was an Irish novelist and “was perhaps the most influential and significant novelist of the 20^th century” (Columbia).  He was very influential throughout his time writing and a lot of people enjoyed his work.  Joyce however was influenced himself from his childhood and different events that happened in his life, which affected his work.  He was born in Dublin and jumped around multiple schools to get his education.  Many of the stories he wrote were based from Dublin or had some connection to where he spent most of his time.  Also some of his works we read like “Araby” and “Dead Man” were from his collection of short stories called the “Dubliners”.

“His novel “Ulysses”, which is among the great works of world literature, utilizes many radical literary techniques and forms” (Columbia).  In this work he is criticized for what exactly “home” means in the story.  “The relation between language and home is resonant with issues of political identity, ethnicity, and national existence” (Law 197).  Joyce has these ideas due to the fact he has moved around a lot and has seen different places, therefore what exactly home means will differ from person to person depending where they have been and the things they have experienced.

One of his more famous works was the “Dubliners”, which were a collection of twelve short stories.  The idea of “home” is also used in this as well: “home as where we came from (thus home as return), home as what we are most familiar with (thus home as a kind of perception), and home as what we imagine we would feel most comfortable with (home as a goal)” (Law 198).  This may be why we see in “Araby” the boy has a crush on the girl even though he barely talks to her, and then asks her to go to the bazaar with him.  She doesn’t go and he gets to the bazaar late and doesn’t have much fun.  But you could say Joyce could have encountered a similar instance in his life growing up.  In “Araby” he seems to be bitter about love, there is not the fairy tale ending with his crush.  This could be because he never experienced that or had his heartbroken before.

Joyce did not have the best father figure in his life as “his father was not the man to stay affluent for long; he drank, neglected his affairs, and borrowed money from his office, and his family sank deeper and deeper into poverty” (Atherton).  This affected Joyce as he is always questioning what “home” actually is. He did not grow up in the best settings, he and his brother were admitted to a grammar school in Dublin due to the fact they did not have the money for them to go. (Atherton).  He questions “home” a lot because he doesn’t know exactly what it is like to grow up and not have to worry about the things he had to worry about.  So even though he was living at home it didn’t have the home feel to it.

Understanding James Joyce’s background will help readers grasp what exactly Joyce is trying to say in his stories and why his stories are written the way they are.  Growing up in not the best of conditions but still making the most out of it and writing his stories is something Joyce can be commended for.  Although not all of his stories were written with bitterness towards love there was definitely something he encountered that made him the way he is.

                     Works Cited 

Atheron, James Stephen. Britannica Biographies. Print.

Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. 6th ed. Web.

Law, Jules David. "Joyce's "Delicate Siamese" Equation: The Dialectic of Home in Ulysses."PMLA. Vol. 101. Modern Language Association, Mar 1987. 197-205. Print.