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"Shadow Of My Mind": Women and Nationalism in James Joyce's Fiction

My thesis analyzes James Joyce’s engagement with Catholic-nationalist Ireland’s (mis)understanding of women in Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses. I argue that, while Joyce shows both men and women struggling against the constraints of Catholic-nationalist gender roles, he implies that neither can be free from those constraints until Irish artists seek to more thoroughly understand women. After explaining how Catholic-nationalist rhetoric influenced the Irish understanding of women, I argue that Joyce not only recognizes and engages with Irish gender oppression but also believes that Irish art both constructs and is constructed by this oppression. With analyses of some of Joyce’s female characters, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly Bloom, I demonstrate how Joyce critiques Irish culture’s concept of women and Irish art’s representation of them, and then establishes a new paradigm of artistic representation.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MSSTATE/oai:scholarsjunction.msstate.edu:td-1005
Date17 May 2014
CreatorsHogan, Carolyn Ellen
PublisherScholars Junction
Source SetsMississippi State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceTheses and Dissertations

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