The purpose of this study is to investigate how the prose style of James Joyce's Ulysses provides seductive gaps which by design prompt readers to become co-producers of the text. Joyce strategically creates opportunities for readers to engage actively with the text through response-inviting gaps in the prose. The various types of gaps in the text place demands on readers and, inevitably, upon the author. The more reader-friendly gaps are overdetermined gaps which, by definition, are obvious and point to their own completion. These gaps when filled are, more often than not, confirmed by related references throughout the text. Ulysses, however, also abounds with gaps of indeterminacy. The ambiguous nature of these gaps generates anxiety for readers by undermining the expectations established by overdetermined gaps. Joyce's prose arrangements continually call on readers to play roles and adapt these roles to the linguistic movements of the text. This project endeavours to analyse how different gaps function and the degree to which they work in conjunction to seduce readers and the author into the dual roles of co-production and co-consumption of Ulysses.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.22575 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Clissold, Bradley |
| Contributors | Wees, W. C. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001449723, proquestno: MM05372, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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