An Analysis Of Ulysses From The Feminism Perspective

Irish writer James Joyce (1882-1941) is the most innovative novelist in the20th Century, as well as one of the representatives of the Western modernistic literature. For a long time, there are numerous thesis analyzing Joyce and his works, and this paper analyzes Ulysses from the feminist perspective.In the history of literary criticism, numerous researchers have been carried out researches on female characters created by male writers, and the masculine culture and social psyche reflected in the portrayal of the characters have constituted an important part of feminist literary criticism. Ulysses is an oeuvre in rebellion against society’s standards of race, class, and religion, against traditional images of sexuality and gender. Traditional social gender restrained male and female in their own circle. Thus the two main characters in Ulysses break from their traditional social gender. This thesis analyzes not only the female character——Molly, but also Bloom’s attitude and behaviors. Molly Bloom has great passion in pursuit of freedom. She is not the two-dimensional caricature many have suggested. She is so much more than that. Molly rebels against her traditional domestic role, Penelope. The paper embraces a feminist touchstone in Joyce’s portrayal of Leopold Bloom as the sensitive "new womanly man", who is against traditional male role, Odysseus. This paper views two characters and the theme of Ulysses from a feminist perspective.Ulysses maintains Joyce’s topic of rebellion against society and morality. Through analyzing the images of the two characters in Ulysses with feminist critical theory, this thesis examines the nature of gender rebellion, further more, rebellious spirits as its theme in Ulysses. Then the readers can draw the conclusion that the rebellious spirits in Ulysses well reflect the feminism.