The Everymans Epic Journalism, Ordinariness and the New Mass Epic - Literature Essay Samples

In the Aeolus chapter of James Joyces Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus tries to express to Professor MacHugh that he has much, much to learn about Dublin, but that he also has a vision (Joyce 119). Whether his vision pertains to the city or to his artistic aspirations is unclear but also unimportant. Rather, the interruptions by yelling newsboys and the distracting errands Stephens group is running are critical in their significance to Joyces conception of the epic form, his fascination with mass media and the influence of external factors on an artists product.Joyce struggles to forge a new role for Ulysses in the literary pantheon of great epics and novels while trying to exceed and confound historical standards of greatness. In Aeolus, Joyce runs into problems defining his work in context of epic legacy. Also, he toys with the sprawl of his ambition and tries to straddle multiple meanings of novel and epic. Joyces decision to construct Aeolus to resemble an assortment of newspaper clippin gs, with headlines followed by concise blurbs, allows the author to examine Ulysses position in a constantly shifting canon of epics and the novels role as a reader-created tale of the average man. Evidence of Joyces historical homage, his acknowledgement of Ulysses previous and future stimuli, is less pervasive in this chapter -his reliance on intertextuality is limited to mostly Irish sources. However, the predecessors to Joyces modern epic are still present in the work, though mostly in distorted reincarnations. The Aeolus characters especially Christ look-alike William Brayden, Mr. Editor Myles Crawford, even Bloom, the representative of the gentle art of advertisement are still paragons of mankind, but they represent the epitome of the flawed human rather than the godlike superman (Joyce 111). Patrick McGee identifies an even subtler distinction between the ambassador figure from Homeric epics and the mere examples from Joyce: the social stability of the patriarchal subject in Homer is undermined by the incommensurability of the modern, decentered subject, which has no relation to the whole (McGee 194). None of these figures is guaranteed a triumphant ending; Blooms ad for Keyes is rejected, Brayden ascends the stairs and disappears, Crawford is flippant, bombastic and penny-pinching. Perhaps the failure to perform traditional heroism occurs because, Michael Gillespie points out, most characters cannot naturally command the narratives focus and are swallowed by the city, arguably the true epic force in Ulysses. Stephen, telling his Parable of the Plums to a distracted Crawford, Lenehan and Burke, must struggle to make his ideas heard and to draw from others some acknowledgement of their worth. He spends much of the remainder of the day striving to earn the regard of his fellow Dubliners, and he must also pass the remainder of the novel competing for the attention of the reader (Gillespie 161).In the meantime, Joyce intends for the reader to sift throu gh the myriad perspectives presented in Aeolus, none of which achieves a position which allows one to derive a consistent and logical meaning from the diverse elements of the discourse and that no discrete creative pattern proves sufficient to encompass all the vagaries of the work (Gillespie 155). This is not an epic with a social agenda other than to identify the larger-than-life but mundane details of normal peoples lives or the slight absurdity of such a colloquial phrase as bullockbefriending bard under the title the Grandeur that was Rome (Joyce 108-9). The relatively unexciting vignettes of Aeolus are only stimulating due to their placement in a self-proclaimed epic and because Joyce hands readers freedom of interpretation. We make of Ulysses what we will; the absence of a driving force leaves the chapter drawing the reader into a deeper commitment to the creative process involved in the production of a text (Gillespie 154).Unlike traditional epics, which feature distinct, un attainable heroes of the Gilgamesh or Beowulf variety, Joyce avoids pinpointing a central vortex in Ulysses, shunning outlandish events or flamboyant characters in favor of a more accessible and applicable text: the everymans self-constructed epic. In striving toward the universal, Gillespie writes, Joyce felt the attraction of a narrative strategy that would step over the bounds of individual consciousnesses while retaining the personal view No reader can ignore the range of odors and hope to form a coherent text (Gillespie 172). This is not to say that Joyces characters do not aim for the same grandeur of Odysseus MacHugh is obsessed with kyrie eleison and Ignatius Gallahers inspiration of genius is a favorite topic of conversation (Joyce 110). But for Michael Seidel, Ulysses is notable as an epic on a more human level: Joyce may reposition the Odyssey in Dublin, but his hero is not a king, has not the assistance of a goddess, and is not mythically endowed, Epic resolution in Ul ysses is more a hope than a promise (Seidel 84). So the text seems to oscillate between attempts to surpass historys preset criteria of literary superiority, comprehensiveness and peer-judged worth and efforts to strike free of history altogether and creating something entirely new. The ingrained journalism comparison suggests Aeoluss interest in daily reinvention and Joyces desire to write the common mans bible. The bolded headlines, Gillespie contends, circumvent a sense of lineage common in most epics and instead require each reader to consider the chapter differently than the next reader: This very process of reading asserts an implicit contract between artist, audience, and artifact, acknowledging an intellectual engagement with the work and affirming belief in the possibility of forming some text encompassing the vagaries of the evolving paradigm (Gillespie 179).The mixed journalistic and literary styles of Aeolus also promote Joyces hybridized notion of epic. The simultaneous draw of newspaper writing Ulysses as a tireless recorder of objective humanity and history and the creative license of journalism results in the amalgam of styles evident in Aeolus. Though actions of several characters are meticulously tracked in brusque reporters prose, the presence of censorship, editing and literary awareness are also visible through metaphor (a smile of light), parable (Jacobs 11 brothers), intent, etc. (Joyce 110, 101). At one point, an unidentified editor/narrator comments on John F. Taylors speech, visualizes it, anticipates it: His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smokes ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand at it yourself? (Joyce 117). But Joyces justifications for conceiving an epic in the first place remain mysterious: does he strive to reserve a spot in the overwhelming bulk of great literature past, slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking ( Joyce 99)? Or does he want to forsake example and paralyse Europe with a shock of originality (Joyce 111)? It turns out that Joyce wants both. He knows that an epic cannot exist on a clean slate, in isolation of its predecessors, its authors biases, its readers biases, because, as McGee writes, we are confronted with the paperspace, a space that expands and divides beyond the limits of the book, that includes the history of its criticism, its reception, its social context and so on (McGee 182). The best path to literary uniqueness is through innovation, not separation from the past. But the novels preset, concrete state bound into a book rather than in changeable electronic or verbal form or even on a wall scrawled with matches (Joyce 101) means that its influence cannot be infinitely innovative. Because Ulysses is tied down by a book spine and does not lend itself to mass dissemination, part of its pioneering capabilities will always remain static. Nevertheless, achieving a grand range of coverage and connections for his epic is still a priority for Joyce in Aeolus. Imagery of overlapping sounds, bustling populations and extensive travel permeate this chapter, as if Joyce is striving for an all-encompassing effect of total, continual relevance. The repetitious thumps, bingbangs and clanking that Joyce writes into the chapters threefour time soundtrack combined with the whirring telephone are both realistic and awesome for the reader (Joyce 98, 105, 112). From the omnipresent, interchangeable bevy of scampering newsboys to the influx of characters (as opposed to the relative dominance of Stephen and Bloom in the first six chapters), Aeolus becomes a human convergence point where every reader can have a point of reference (Joyce 120). Lists also dominate Aeolus; they become all-inclusive, exhaustive chronicles of the minutiae of life while engulfing readers with information and sonic overload about hackney cars, cabs, delivery wagons or Blackrock, Kingstown a nd Dalkey, Clonskea (Joyce 122, 96). Perhaps aware of the limitations of his book form, Joyce emulates newspaper and advertising structure, hoping to reproduce their mass appeal and vast distribution while remaining the stately figure [that] entered between the newsboards (Joyce 97). Joyces book teeters towards stagnancy and the threat of becoming passÃÆ'Â © while attempting to remain timeless and contemporary at the same time, a dilemma that does not concern newspapermen, who can veer about when they get wind of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same breath (Joyce 103).But bulk communication can cheapen meaning, Joyce understands, especially when letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured and paid, for local, provincial, British and overseas delivery are loudly flung into the post office, as if without respect for their messages, less valuable than the shoes being shined next to them (Joyce 96). There is an argument for the singularity of the epic and its po sition to tell the story of an entire culture or nation using focused, selective tactics, rather than the endlessly spawning creative excess of Aeolus.The prevalence of repetition in this chapter the steady repartee between the sounds of communication and the occasional false lull of silence and its contrast with the overstimulation of thoughts only solidifies Gillespies point that Ulysses text is best used as a venue through which readers are responsible for discovering their own set of meanings. The idiosyncrasy of the style of Aeolus belies the mediocrity of its characters, not one of whom stands as the dominant force reflecting the complexities of the entire work, for the attention demanded by a variety of characters does not allow a reader to derive a single, continuous perspective that encompasses the formal and thematic virtuosity of Ulysses (Gillespie 154).WORKS CITEDGillespie, Michael Patrick. Reading the Book of Himself: Narrative Strategies in the Works of James Joyce. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1989. Joyce, James. Ulysses. Ed. Hans Walter Gabler. New York: Random House, Inc. 1986.McGee, Patrick. Paperspace: Style as Ideology in Joyces Ulysses. USA: University of Nebraska Press, 1988.Seidel, Michael. Epic Geography: James Joyces Ulysses. The Novels Epic Geography. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1976.