Date of Award
12-1-2010
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
English
First Advisor
Molino, Michael
Abstract
There is an inherent, unspoken trauma prevalent amongst the Irish men who dominate James Joyce's narratives. Often, these characters trace back to Joyce's own life and his drawing of them is thereby complicated by memory. Through literary trauma theory, the behavior of these men is better understood. Grounded in Freudian concepts, modern trauma theorists elucidate the problems of memory and response for those marked by traumatic experience. For the Irish, and thus for Joyce's characters, that response often comes through the binary of alcohol and the Church. The purpose of this essay is an attempt to verbalize the silence that surrounds those individuals marked by trauma and to shed greater light on the already vivid Irish men that Joyce creates.
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