Framed Images as Counterpoints in James Joyce's 'The Dead'
ISSN: 0210-6124
Any de publicació: 2011
Volum: 33
Número: 2
Pàgines: 61-74
Tipus: Article
Altres publicacions en: Atlantis: Revista de la Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos
Resum
This article aims to analyse the images presented within frames in James Joyce's 'The Dead' as if they were descriptions of works of art, or ekphrases. It will be shown that the four main framed images reproduce a certain design established by the initial set, underlying once again the perfect structure as well as the complex intertwining between all the narrative elements of the text. Examining ekphrases involves a symbolic reading of the textual images, often leading to unexpected associations, which, at the same time, reinforcelike counterpointscentral aspects of the story. This analysis has also made it possible to focus on elements usually overlooked by Joycean criticism, such as the waistcoat that Gabriel's mother made for him. Since all the framed images may be considered as exploring and exhibiting Gabriel's inner conflicts, Lacan's psychoanalytic theory has provided an invaluable tool for understanding both the main character's epiphanic experience and the intense dynamics of those around him, including the spectral presences of his mother and Michael Furey. The two ekphrastic descriptions of unframed imagesthe supper table and the snowwill also be considered.
Referències bibliogràfiques
- Beck, Warren 1969: Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’: Substance, Vision and Art. Durham: Duke UP.
- Chiesa, Lorenzo 2007: Subjectivity and Otherness: A Philosophical Reading of Lacan. Cambridge: MIT P.
- Heffernan, James 1993: Museum of Words. The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
- Joyce, James 1969 (1914): Dubliners. New York: Viking P.
- Krieger, Murray 1998: ‘The Problem of Ekphrasis: Image and Works, Space and Time, and the Literary Work’. Valerie Robillard and Els Jongeneel, eds. Pictures into Words: Theoretical and Descriptive Approaches to Ekphrasis. Amsterdam: VU UP. 3-20.
- Lacan, Jacques 1994: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin.
- Leonard, Garry 1991: ‘Joyce and Lacan: “The Woman” as a Symptom of “Masculinity” In “The Dead”’. James Joyce Quarterly 28: 451-71.
- Norris, Margot 1989: ‘Stifled Back Answers: The Gender Politics of Art in Joyce’s “The Dead”’. Modern Fiction Studies 35: 479-503.
- O Hehir, Brendan P. 1957: ‘Structural Symbol in Joyce’s “The Dead”’. Twentieth Century Literature 3: 3-13.
- Pecora, Vincent 1989: Self and Form in Modern Narrative. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.
- Quinn, Gerard 1999/2000: ‘Joyce and Tenebrae: The Ironic Passion and Death of Gabriel Conroy’. James Joyce Quarterly 37: 153-66.
- Rice, Thomas Jackson 1991: ‘The Geometry of Meaning in Dubliners: A Euclidian Approach’. Style 25: 393-404.
- Riquelme, John Paul 1991: ‘Joyce’s “The Dead”: The Dissolution of the Self and the Police’. Style 25: 488-505.
- Robillard, Valerie and Els Jongeneel, eds. 1998: Pictures into Words: Theoretical and Descriptive Approaches to Ekphrasis. Amsterdam: VU UP.
- San Juan, Epifanio Jr 1972: James Joyce and the Craft of Fiction: An Interpretation of ‘Dubliners’. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson UP.
- Schneidau, Herbert N. 1969: Ezra Pound. The Image and the Real. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP.
- Schwarz, Daniel R. 1994: ‘Gabriel Conroy’s Psyche: Character as Concept in Joyce’s “The Dead”’. Daniel R. Schwarz, ed. James Joyce. The Dead. Boston: Bedford. 102-24.
- Walzl, Florence L. 1966: ‘Gabriel and Michael: The Conclusion of “The Dead”’. James Joyce Quarterly 4: 17-31.
- Weisstein, Ulrich 2007: ‘To Frame or not to Frame, that is the Question: An Intermedial Study of Achim von Arnim’s “Die Majoratsherren”, its Frontispice and Robert Campin’s Mérode Altarpiece’. Jens Arvidson, ed. Changing Borders. Contemporary Positions in Intermediality. Lund: Intermedia SP. 189-203.