The Anxiety Of Culture In James Joyce

James Joyce, the Irish novelist, is a world-recognized European modernist literary champion. He has long been studied in Anglo-American modernist context; however, not enough critical attention has been paid to his status as a modern Irish national writer. This dissertation, by adopting such critical approaches as Psychoanalysis, Cultural Studies, New Historicism, Postcolonial Studies and Discourse Theories, and based on a close-reading of Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses, attempts to make a systematic study on the formation, character and essence of the anxiety of culture in Joyce.The anxiety of culture is an anxiety and concern about culture and civilization. It issues from and focuses on culture and civilization. Joyce's anxiety of culture emerges from the Irish culture in the British colonist cultural context. Further, it has roots in Western culture and civilization. This anxiety has enabled his literary creation and forged his peculiar literary character, endowing his works with unique artistic, national features and cultural values.Apart from an introduction and a conclusion, this dissertation has four chapters. The introduction presents a literature review, a definition of the anxiety of culture, and brief statement of the thesis in this study.Chapter One studies the anxiety of the paralysis of Irish national cultural psychology in Dubliners. It analyzes how Joyce reveals in these stories the Dubliners' loss of faith, their disappearance of conscience, emotional paralysis, spiritual apathy and loss of self, all of which disclose the paralysis of the national cultural psychology of the Irish. His vivid description of these spiritual morbidities truly reflects his own anxiety.Chapter Two discusses Joyce's anxiety over spiritual growth in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Ireland is both a colony of the British Empire and a Catholic nation. The Irish young artist in the novel both embodies young Joyce and represents the wandering Irish nation. In pursuit of his spiritual freedom and artistic life, he bravely breaks the triple nets of language, nationality and religion in Ireland, overcoming his anxiety caused by these cultural restrictions, and finally achieving his spiritual growth.Chapter Three investigates Joyce's anxiety over Irish national cultural identity in Ulysses. Ireland is a nation community of many races. However, one-eyed nationalists in Ireland hold that only the Celtic are the real Irish, hating and repelling the other races. The novel, by successfully depicting an artistic character of Hebrew and Celtic descent, Bloom, attempts to dissolve and destroy this narrow-minded nationalism.Chapter Four explores Joyce's anxiety over cultural discourses in Ulysses. Ireland, is a nation deprived of its own native tongue by the British, who have imposed their own language—English on the Irish. Ulysses, by way of deconstructing and overthrowing a whole set of colonist cultural discourses—journalistic, critical, political, religious and scientific, succeeds in establishing its own fresh pattern of literary discourse. Thus, Joyce takes a crucial step towards the creation of Irish cultural discourse with national characteristics.In Conclusion, the author maintains that it is Joyce's anxiety of culture that has cultivated his literary uniqueness. This anxiety not only has established his eminent status in the history of modern Irish literature, but also has made him a great monument in the history of modern English literature.