Joyce's Voices : power and polyphony in Ulysses.

Abstract

This thesis, “Joyce’s Voices: Power and Polyphony in Ulysses” examines James Joyce’s 1922 novel, Ulysses, in its turn of the century Dublin cultural context. Through the analysis of myriad primary resources, the thesis argues that Ulysses exposes, challenges, and subverts the conventions of women’s language in Dublin popular discourse, through its structure as a polyphonic novel, or a text that incorporates multiple voices. In making this claim, the thesis contributes to Ulysses’ scholarship both by emphasizing the importance of primary sources in historicist readings of the novel, and by re-assessing depictions of gender in Joyce’s work.