Madness and James Joyce

✍ Scribed by Robert Kaplan

• Book ID: 104469881
• Publisher: Informa plc
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 82 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1039-8562
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1440-1665.2002.00447.x

✦ Synopsis

Objective: To consider the association between the author James Joyce and madness.

Conclusions: Joyce lived closer to the state of madness than he would have preferred. His mother died in a state of delirium. His daughter Lucia developed hebephrenic schizophrenia and was permanently hospitalised. His son married a manic depressive. Joyce, an acute observer of the world around him, portrayed different states of madness in his writings, most famously in the Nighttown chapter of Ulysses. Critics of his works accused him of being mad, interpreting his use of the stream-of-consciousness and other unique literary techniques as the product of a disordered mind. A psychiatrist referred to him as the schizoid origin of his daughter's insanity. Yet Joyce, who displayed an extraordinary discipline in writing his works, always had a clear idea of his intentions and believed his approach would ultimately be vindicated.