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The Snotgreen Sea: Water As Metaphor In Joyce's Ulysses

Author(s): Danica Igrutinović
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Универзитет у Нишу
Keywords: water; metaphor; Ulysses

Summary/Abstract: This paper explores the metaphorical meanings of water in Joyce’s Ulysses within the mythology of water newly established in Modernism via interpretations of ancient myths by the first anthropologists and psychologists. Special regard is accorded to the symbolic journey over water, in which the hero is disintegrated, but then also regenerated by water. Water in Ulysses is associated with exile from home, sanity, and stability, towards all that is primitive, irrational, or otherwise disturbing. As Protean prime matter, water is animalistic and feminine, and connected with sexuality, procreation, and motherhood. The Hades of ‘Hades’ and the Hell of ‘Circe’ are entered through water and contain all the watery horrors of the material. Death by water, which might bring regeneration with it, is amply alluded to and linked with lustral waters and baptism. Treasure yielded and represented by water includes unity, art, and the waters of life. It is suggested in the novel that a middle way might be found between the extremes of spirit and matter, objectivity and subjectivity, Scylla and Charybdis.

  • Issue Year: 11/2013
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 55-66
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: English