English 334: Joyce
Paper topics, papers #2 and #3.
More topics may be added to this list. If you decide to write on something
other than a topic I provide, including creative topics, please clear it with
me first at least 4 days before the due date.
1. Explore one of the following
concepts/metaphors as it appears in Ulysses. You are encouraged to focus
as much as possible; feel free to limit yourself to one chapter, or a very
particular metaphor (snotgreen instead of green, etc.)
green
cats
dogs (&/or foxes)
butter (&/or milk)
cows
bread
feces/urine
money
paper
2. What does Bloom carry in his pockets and why
might those items be important?
Why might it be important that they're in his pockets?
3. Pick a chapter of the book; examine its
style, Odyssean correspondences, topical concerns, etc. What reading
practice--that is, what modes of reading and/or interpretation--does Joyce seem
to be espousing or at least presenting in that chapter?
4. Examine the heresies of Arius, Valentine, and
Sabellius (see in particular the notes in Gifford, p. 26). Why is Stephen
so interested in heretics? Which kind(s) of heretic does Stephen seem to
be? How does that help us to
understand the text?
5. There are many texts to which Ulysses
aludes--King Lear, Hamlet, the Bible, the Odyssey, Irish ballads, Plato's Symposium,
Yeats poems, operas, etc. Examine one of the allusions in context; how is
Joyce (and/or the character) using the text? What is the point of the
allusion? What does the allusion suggest about the relationship between
Ulysses and the text to which it alludes? Given the length of the paper, you
should probably focus your inquiry very narrowly.
6. Does the final chapter of Ulysses provide
closure for the text? How?
7. In what ways are ghosts important to Ulysses?
8. Is Joyce providing a critique of language in
Ulysses or Finnegans Wake? What kinds of relationships does language
facilitate?
9.
Open Finnegans Wake to any page. Try to find meaning in that page.
Then discuss the strategies you used to find meaning.