James Joyce's Ulysses "There's five fathoms out there.... A sail veering about the blank bay waiting for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, saltwhite. Here I am" (18). If "Old Father Ocean" (42) is Proteus (Gifford 46), god of "primal matter" (32) corresponding with a viridian tinge of primal soup as well as the tide that washes in the ruined flotsam and jetsam of man's voyages, it makes some kind of sense that there is no corresponding symbolic organ to this episode. We are in the protean realm of the non-organic, or rather unorganized and de-organized matter. The aforementioned bobbing corpse is of course more than a homicide case in Joyce's symbology. The corpse lost to sea's rot and "bladderwrack" is the body of Proteus manifest in a disturbing (dead) human form, bloated and dissolving. It is there to intimately remind us of our eventual return to unformed matter, to entropy at its extreme. This disintegration will lead to a chaotic reintegration with the Ocean, unfathomable body of energy, crusher of bodies washed to shore, carried to the sandflats of Dublin via "Cock Lake." Proteus harbingers the "seachange" (42) of all organisms, all matter; the corpse also manifests the "Seadeath, mildest of all deaths" (42), "soft as the hand of mist" (Book XI of The Odyssey). "Full fathom five thy father lies" (41): Father Ocean or Proteus as the drowned, absent father, hidden body of "coral" and "pearls" (The Tempest), always in the "sea change... rich and strange" (ibid.). This macabre dance of matter and energy is witnessed in the undead movement of the corpse "driving before it a drift of rubble" (41), an indeterminate mass of preterite matter. He will rise again "sunk though he be beneath the watery floor" (41). He is a "bag of corpsegas," porous, "a spongy titbit." In his undead, coral-like growth, matter transforms according to unpredictable, heretical logic, which Dedalus is compelled to read as he does "signatures of all things... seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot" (31). This logic only a poet could follow, or perhaps it is simply poetic creation: "God becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed mountain" (41-2). This fabulation of the chain of being is certainly profane, or at least outside the accepted, predictable logic of any catechism. Ocean is God as an immanent storm and flux; the abstract, ethereal God of Christendom is more ascetic, barren, removed.
Published in 1944, the poem itself is an elegy, addressing the melancholy and sorrow of wartime death, as indicated by the title ‘Beach Burial’. This title gives clear meaning to the sombre nature of the work, and the enigmatic nature of it holds the attention of the audience. The entirety of the poem is strewn with poetic devices, such as personification of dead sailors as “…they sway and wander in the waters far under”, the words inscribed on their crosses being choked, and the “sob and clubbing of the gunfire” (Slessor). Alliteration is used to great effect in lines such as that describing the soldiers being “bur[ied]…in burrows” and simile in the likening of the epitaph of each seaman to the blue of drowned men’s lips and onomatopoeia is shown in the “purple drips” (Slessor). The predominant mood of the work is ephemeral, with various references to the transient nature of humanity. The ethereal adjectives used to describe and characterise objects within the poem allow a more abstract interpretation of what would normally be concrete in meaning. The rhythm of this piece is markedly similar to the prevalent concept of tidal ebb and flow, with lines falling into an ABCB rhyme scheme and concepts
The juxtaposition of the Titanic and the environment in the first five stanzas symbolizes the opposition between man and nature, suggesting that nature overcomes man. The speaker characterizes the sea as being “deep from human vanity” (2) and deep from the “Pride of Life that planned” the Titanic. The diction of “human vanity” (2) suggests that the sea is incorruptible by men and then the speaker’s juxtaposition of vanity with “the
Finnegan's Wake is an old Irish tune, but these words were added later for music-hall use during the Victorian era. Some Irish people have objected to them as an English inspired stereotype, but I first heard this song sung by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, at the Gate of Horn in Chicago, in the late 50s. To me, no one was more Irish than they were. Here it is in honor of Saint Patrick's Day.
The imagery contrasted with the “vaingloriousness” of the ship and its passengers showcase how all the materialistic amenities and goods on the ship have no value at the bottom of the sea. The poet describes the marine life as “slimed, dumb, [and] indifferent”. Animals do not understand human desires for unnecessary aesthetically pleasing luxury items. These animals are gross and slimy, yet they still swim around these valuable items with disinterest. Another example of imagery is of the jewels lying at the bottom of the ocean. They were “designed” to be beautiful “, yet now “lie lightless” at the bottom of the sea. Under the waves, everything from the Titanic is irrelevant and loss its value. This shows that in
They are forced to contend with the realization that their survival does not matter to nature. The correspondent comes to the realization, “When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples” (Crane 213). While the men may try to pin their trouble on the “mythicized deity,” that really does not serve them. When discussing this, Hilfer says, “The discomfiting thing about nature is that though we can address it, our messages can only come back stamped ‘return to sender’” (251). No matter how much the men in the boat try to make sense of what is happening to them, they cannot find the being or force behind
Normally when most people think of vampires, they envision a deathly, pale creature with fangs. But Thomas Foster seems to think differently, who argues that it is not necessary for a vampire to embody a stereotypical vampire. Surprisingly enough, even humans can be these types of monsters. From Foster 's perspective, being a vampire not only includes an individual 's aesthetics, but also their actions, personality, intent, and overall representation of personal identity. The classic novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, presents an excellent example of this occurrence, where the character Roger Chillingworth meets the criteria of a vampiric figure, based on Thomas Foster 's ideas of vampirism, found in his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor.
“The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in
Throughout the story the ocean represented Edna's constant struggle for self-realization and independence. From her first flow of emotion on the beach to her last breath of life in the sea, the ocean beckons her. The voice of the sea lures her onward in her journey toward liberation and empowerment.
“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”
to have a noble background, which is borne out by the existence of a coat of
At first he does not seem content with his seafaring life. During the early descriptions of his time there, it is painted as a life of hardship and penance. Images and adjectives of the sea and life there are harsh and foreboding-"ice cold", "hung round with icicles" , "fettered with frost". The sea is seen as cold, and not just in the physical sense .It is remote, a place of despair , an earthly purgatory, where there is "always anxiety …. as to what the Lord will bestow on him"2. The narrator is cut away from the comforts ...
"Eveline" is the story of a young teenager facing a dilemma where she has to choose between living with her father or escaping with Frank, a sailor which she has been courting for some time. The story is one of fifteen stories written by James Joyce in a collection called "Dubliners". These stories follow a certain pattern that Joyce uses to express his ideas: "Joyce's focus in Dubliners is almost exclusively on the middle-class Catholics known to himself and his family"(the Gale Group). Joyce's early life, family background, and his catholic background appear in the way he writes these stories. "Where Joyce usually relates his stories to events in his life, there are some stories which are actually events that took place in his life" (Joyce, Stanislaus). James Joyce in his letter to Grant Richard writes:
Running along the outermost rim of the shield is the Ocean River, the river that is at once the barrier between the quick and the dead, and also the frontier of the known and imagined worlds. One of the last descriptions on the shield, this river could perhaps be a symbol for total inclusiveness and eternity, and for the stability of the larger perspective.
James Joyce's short story "The Dead" deals with the meaning of life. This title is significant and enhances several aspects of the story. First of all, it reveals that the characters are unable to be emotional. They are physically living but emotionally dead. Second of all, it contributes to the main subject of the story, Gabriel's epiphany. The title contributes to these aspects of the story by adding meaning and acting as a reminder of the overall theme of the story.
'Ulysses' is both a lament and an inspiring poem. Even modern readers who are not so familiar with the classics, can visualize the heroic legend of Ulysses, and so is not prepared for what he finds in the poem— not Ulysses the hero but Ulysses the man.