James Joyce’s “Giacomo Joyce” Analysis in Terms of Text Depth

Abstract.

ТEXTUAL DEPTH AS A CHARACTERISTIC FEATURE OF JAMES JOYCE’S “GIACOMO JOYCE”

Mariia Orobinska

Department of Philology, Kharkiv National Automobile and Highway University, Kharkiv, Ukraine.

Abstract

Background: The research of the process of text comprehension is an actual problem of modern linguistics. Considering James Joyce’s texts saturation with allusions, puzzles, metaphors and etc. it’s expedient to use the linguistics category (the text depth) that reflects text complexity for the analysis of his works.

Purpose: The purpose of the analysis is to determine specific features of James Joyce’s “Giacomo Joyce” paradigmatic organization and figure out what influence they have on this work text depth.

Results: The paradigmatic organization of “Giacomo Joyce”t is the following: motivated with the text, logically heterogeneous, hyperactual, monofunctional, conceptual paradigms that are united on both language and mental levels. The paradigms configuration is unconditional. Such paradigmatic organization determines the quite big text depth (Orobinska). Such text depth determines hard for understanding texts and more frequently occurs in poetic works.

Such paradigm organization may be a reflection of main hero’s inner chaos (all the main paradigms elements are connected with the strange logics that works just in the text framework). Giacomo Joyce tries to overcome this chaos, basing on some fixed elements of the world (paradigms ROUTINE and NATURE are linking means of paradigms ENAMORED, BELOVED and PASSION). Still Giacomo fails in his intentions. The major text antinomy (that is determined with opposition of paradigms PASSION and ILLUSORY) does not find its solution within the text framework.

Discussion: James Joyce is said to be one of the most enigmatic authors. ). A lot of researches focus on different problems of his creative activity analysis, but still many issues have not been considered.

Keywords: text depth, paradigmatic analysis, paradigms, functional linguistics, postmodern.

Vitae

Maria Orobinska is PhD in philology, lecturer of Philology department of Kharkiv National Automobile and Highway University, Kharkiv, Ukraine. Her areas of research interests include functional linguistics, text linguistics, paradigmatic analysis, text comprehension and postmodern texts.

Correspondence: mariaorobinska@gmail.com.

Article.

Марія Оробінська

УДК 801.7

ТEXTUAL DEPTH AS A CHARACTERISTIC FEATURE OF JAMES JOYCE’S “GIACOMO JOYCE”

У статті наведено результати аналізу твору Джеймса Джойса «Джокомо Джойс» в аспекті глибини тексту (характеристики, що відображає складність та варіативність сприйняття тексту). Для встановлення глибини тексту використано парадигматичний аналіз текстової інформації: парадигми тексту аналізуються в контексті їхніх функцій, складу, способу вираження, актуальності, конфігурації та зв’язків.

Ключові слова: глибина тексту, парадигматичний аналіз, функціональна лінгвістика, постмодернізм.

James Joyce is “a towering figure in the development of English-language modernist prose fiction” (Milton, 3). A lot of researches focus on different problems of his creative activity analysis (Ellmann, Mahaffey, McCourt, Milton, Power, etc.), however many issues have not been considered yet. James Joyce said that he had put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it would keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what he meant, and that’s the only way of insuring his immortality (Ellmann “James Joyce” 521). “Giacomo Joyce is said to remain the most enigmatic of Joyce’s writings.

Considering the density of James Joyce’s novels and short stories with allusions, puzzles, metaphors and other stylistic and rhetorical devices it is expedient to use the linguistic category the textual depth as a tool to explore the complexity of Joyce’s literary works. All the foregoing determines the research relevance.

The goal of the analysis is to determine specific features of the paradigmatic organization of “Giacomo Joyce” and reveal the influence they have on the textual depth.

A recipient's consciousness correlates the text with the reality during the process of text understanding, in other words connections are established between the systems of verbal images (reflections of the word forms in the person’s mind) and "objective" images (images of extralinguistic real-life phenomena and situations). Language laws regulate the system of verbal images. This system has a syntagmatic character, which reflects the linear principle of the text deployment in the act of reception. Verbal images generate "objective" images on the conceptual level (level of thinking). The connections between these images are paradigmatic whereas the text understanding determines them. The system of "objective" images can be considered as a conceptual paradigm, and the system that generates a conceptual paradigm is a verbal paradigm. The degree of "discrepancy" of links on the verbal and conceptual levels defines the degree of understanding textual complexity and is regarded as its depth (Stepanchenko “Poeticheskiy iazik Sergeia Esenina (analiz leksiki)”).

To demonstrate my understanding of the term “textual depth” I will compare two word combinations: “a burning needleprick stings of bees”and “a burning needleprick stings of eyes”. In the first word combination (“a burning needleprick stings of bees”), the links between verbal images are established on the basis of a regular lexico-grammatical model. The corresponding "objective" images can also be linked to one another directly. Such a connection does not contradict the recipient's perception of the surrounding reality (bees have needlepricks and they can sting). In this case, the system of "objective" images is combined with a system of verbal images. In the word-combination "a burning needleprick stings of eyes", the links between the verbal images are established on the basis of a regular lexico-grammatical model, the words are arranged in a linear sequence. However, the corresponding "objective" images cannot be directly related to each other. Such a connection is contrary to the recipient's ideas about the world (eyes do not have needlericks and they cannot sting). In this case additional association links are necessary to understand this word combination. Because the connections of objective images system do not coincide with the connections of the verbal images system. Thus the first word combination is characterized by a vast depth.

The textual depth may characterize both a separate text and an individual style. The textual depth is an unvalued textual category, because it describes the text in terms of the complexity of its perception, but it does not assess the aesthetic value of a fictional text.

The complex of paradigm characteristics influences the textual depth (paradigm composition, paradigm relevance, paradigm function, paradigm configuration, paradigm mode of expression and the connection between paradigms).

The main paradigms of James Joyce’s “Giacomo Joyce” are the following:

· BELOVED, that includes paradigms ILLUSORY (“A pale face”, “The long eyelids beat and lift”, “a burning needleprick stings”, “quivers in the velvet iris”, “High heels clack hollow”, “Tapping clacking heels”, “a high and hollow noise”, “A form of speech”, “the lesser for the greater”, “ungainly grace”, “pale cheeks”) , FRAGILITY (“a brief syllable”, “A brief laugh” , “A brief beat of the eyelids”, “A flower given by her to my daughter”, “Frail gift”, “frail giver”, “frail blue-veined child”, “A white flash: a flake, a snowflake” “A gentle creature”, etc.), CORPOREALITY (“heavy odorous furs”, “Cobweb handwriting”, “traced long and fine”, “with quiet disdain and resignation”, “She never blows her nose”, “Rounded and ripened”, “rounded by the lathe of intermarriage”, “ripened in the forcing-house of the seclusion of her race”, “the wings of her drooping hat”, “her false smile”, “her falsely smiling face”, “smitten by the hot creamy light”, “grey wheyhued shadows”), YOUTH (“a young person of quality”, “frail blue-veined child”, “She follows her mother”, “A girl on horseback”, “Hedda! Hedda Gabler!”, “Youth has an end“). The paradigms ILLUSORY and FRAGILITY oppose the paradigm CORPORELITY. They form an antinomy unsolved within the framework of “Giacomo Joyce”.

· ENAMORED (“I launch forth on an easy wave”,”The wave is spent”, “Papa and the girls”, “the Grand Turk and his harem” “And when she next doth ride abroad / May I be there to see!” “rush out of the tobacco-shop”, “call her name”, “my jumbled words of lessons”, “hours”, “Si pol?”). Besides, the paradigm is formed with paradigms BETRAYAL (“Easy now, Jamesy!”, “Did you never walk the streets of Dublin at night sobbing another name?”, “Aber das ist eine Schweinerei!”, “Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife's lover's wife”, ‘the busy housewife is astir, sloe-eyed”, “a saucer of acetic acid in her hand”, etc.) and PASSION (“A dark wave of sense”, “again and again and again”, “Mine eyes fail in darkness, mine eyes fail, / Mine eyes fail in darkness, love”, “Again”, “No more”, “Dark love”, “dark longing”, “Darkness.” “This heart is sore and sad”, “Crossed in love?”, “these words were spoken softly”, etc.). These paradigms create the image of Giacomo associated with the writer James Joyce. Richard Ellmann believes that “Joyce allows no doubt that the hero is to be identified with himself” (Ellmann, 12)

· NATURE (“Pure air”, “silence”, “the upland road and hoofs”, “Pure air on the upland road”, “Trieste is waking rawly”, “raw sunlight over its huddled browntiled roofs”, “testudoform”, “a multitude of prostrate bugs awwait a national deliverance”, “raw veiled”, “spring morning faint odours float of morning Paris”, “aniseed”, “damp sawdust”, “hot dough of bread”, “the steelblue waking waters”, “chill”, etc.).

· ANTAGONIST (“The old man's face”,” handsome”, “flushed”, “with strongly Jewish features”, “long white whiskers”, “courtesy”, “benevolence”, “curiosity”, “trust”, “suspicion”, “naturalness”, “helplessness of age”, “confidence”, “frankness”, “urbanity”, “sincerity”, “warning”, “pathos”, “compassion”, “a perfect blend”).

· PASSION (“She raises her arms in an effort”, “hook at the nape”, “her neck a gown of black veiling”, “She moves backwards towards me”, “mutely”, “I raise my arms to help her”, “her arms fall”, “websoft edges of her gown”, “drawing them out to hook”, “I see”, “the opening of the black veil”, “her lithe body”, “sheathed in an orange shift”, “It slips its ribbons of moorings”, “at her shoulders”, “falls slowly”, “a lithe smooth naked body”, “shimmering with silvery scales”, “Fingers”, “cold and calm”, “moving”, “A touch”, “a touch”, “Small witless helpless”, “thin breath”, “a voice”, “A sparrow under the wheels of Juggernaut”, “shaking shaker of the earth”, “Please, mister God”, “big mister God!”, “Goodbye, big world!”, “A skirt caught back”, “her sudden moving knee”, “a white lace edging of an underskirt lifted unduly”, “a legstretched web of stocking”).

· ROUTINE (“tepid speech” “Swedenborg”, “the pseudo-Areopagite”, “Miguel de Molinos”, “Joachim Abbas”, “Her classmate”, “retwisting her twisted body”, “purrs in boneless Viennese Italian: Che coltura!”, “the resonant stone stairs”, “Wintry air in the castle”, “gibbeted coats of mail”, “rude iron sconces over the windings of the winding turret stairs”, “one below would speak with your ladyship”, “A ricefield near Vercelli”, “under creamy summer haze”, “Padua”, “far beyond the sea”, “The silent middle age”, “night”, “darkness of history”, “under the moon”, “The city sleeps”, “Under the arches in the dark streets”, “near the river”, “the whores' eyes spy out for fornicators”, “Cinque servizi per cinque franchi”, “Twilight”, “Crossin the piazza”, “grey eve lowering on wide sagegreen pasturelands”, “sheddin silently dusk and dew”, “Corpses of Jews lie about me”, “rotting in the mould”, “their holy field”, “the tomb of her people”, “black stone”, “silence without hope”, “Pimply Meissel brought me here”, “beyond those trees”, “standing with covered head”, “at the grave of his suicide wife”, “wondering how the woman who slept in his bed has come to this end”).

Textual paradigms may be characterized from different perspectives. All of the paradigm characteristics affect the textual depth.

The composition of paradigms is a system of verbal images that generates a system of objective images on a mental level. If there is a logical connection between units of textual paradigms (the composition of a verbal paradigm is logically homogeneous). All the depth of the text will be less significant as to the associative connection between the elements of the paradigms, i.e. if the paradigm composition is logically heterogeneous. The composition of a paradigm can be motivated by the text (verbal images may be integrated into a paradigm just in this context) or due to an extra-textual reality (verbal images may be combined outside the text framework). E.g. the elements of the paradigm ILLUSORY (“A pale face”, “The long eyelids beat and lift”, “a burning needleprick stings”, “High heels clack hollow”, “A form of speech”, “the lesser for the greater”, “ungainly grace”, “pale cheeks”, etc.) cannot be connected outside the text frame. As a result, the paradigm composition is motivated by the text. This characteristic may be applied to the majority of the text paradigms. There is no logical connection between the paradigm elements (e.g. “A form of speech”, “pale cheeks” and “High heels clack hollow” cannot be connected logically). Therefore, the paradigm is logically heterogeneous. Still the composition of some peripheral paradigms is logically homogeneous (ROUTINE (“under the moon”, “The city sleeps”, “Under the arches in the dark streets”, “near the river”, “the tomb of her people”, “black stone”), NATURE (“Pure air”, “silence”, “the upland road and hoofs”, “Pure air on the upland road”, “Trieste is waking rawly”), ANTAGONIST (“The old man's face”,” handsome”, “flushed”, “with strongly Jewish features”, “long white whiskers”, “courtesy”, “benevolence”, “curiosity”, “trust”, “suspicion”, “naturalness”, “helplessness of age”, etc.).

The degree of the paradigm relevance is the degree of the paradigm significance for the comprehension of the text. The degree of relevance of paradigms varies from hypoactual (paradigm has insignificant relevance) to hyperactual (paradigms dominate in texts, reducing the importance of other paradigms; their functioning predetermines the functioning of other paradigms). The idea of a piece of fiction in which a hyperactual paradigm functions is usually related to the function of this paradigm. The depth of the texts in which the hyperactual paradigms function is not as vast as in comparison with the fictional works in which hypoactual paradigms function (Stepanchenko, Ivan, Miroshnichienko, Mariia, Nesterenko, Kseniia, Piekharieva Mariia and Prosianik, Oksana 42).

Two hyperactual paradigms (PASSION and ILLUSORY) function in the text under consideration. These paradigms form the main conflict of the text. Enamored Giacomo Joyce (James Joyce’s alter ego) cannot achieve his Beloved (so called “dark lady” (Ellmann “Introduction” 8) because of her illusory nature. “In the course of these shifting perspectives, Joyce unfolds the paradigm of unsatisfied love as it takes hold of no longer young” (Ellmann “Introduction” 16). The story contains an abortive attempt of seduction. Mahaffey called it a “seduction piece’. Thus the central conflict is based on the opposition of the paradigms of PASSION and ILLUSORY. The protagonist fails in his attempts owing to his beloved’s illusory nature.

Depending on the number of functions performed, the paradigms may be monofunctional (performing one function in the text) and polyfunctional (performing several functions in the text). The number of functions performed by the paradigm is directly proportional to the textual depth . The paradigm can be divided into projective (forming image) and conceptual (defining the concept). The conceptual function of the paradigm increases the textual depth (Stepanchenko, Ivan, Miroshnichienko, Mariia, Nesterenko, Kseniia, Piekharieva Mariia and Prosianik, Oksana 43).

The majority of the text paradigms performs but a single function (that’s why they may be called monofunctional). E.g. the paradigm BETRAYAL (“Easy now, Jamesy!”, “Did you never walk the streets of Dublin at night sobbing another name?”, “Aber das ist eine Schweinerei!”, “Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife's lover's wife”, ‘the busy housewife is astir, sloe-eyed”, “a saucer of acetic acid in her hand”) forms the concept “infidelity”, and performs in this way a conceptual function similar to the majority of text paradigms.

The paradigms configuration is the relationship between separate paradigms. It determines the features of their unification into the hyperparadigm of the whole text (Stepanchenko, “O konfigurazii paradigmaticheskikh struktur poetichieskogo teksta (na materiale stikhotvorieniy S. Esenina)” 329). The texts whose paradigms are connected by relationships analogous to parataxis (paradigms complement each other in the composition of hyperparadigms, form an open conceptual set (configuration of unconditional paradigms)), apparently, have a smaller depth in comparison with the texts whose paradigms are united by relationships analogous to hypotaxis (configuration of conditional paradigms) (Stepanchenko, Ivan, Miroshnichienko, Mariia, Nesterenko, Kseniia, Piekharieva Mariia and Prosianik, Oksana 49).

The paradigms configuration of James Joyce’s “Giacomo Joyce” is unconditional. The paradigms are connected by relationships that are analogous to parataxis in the hyperparadigm of the text. They form an open conceptual series.

The connection of paradigms in the text may be established on the language level (lexical and grammatical links) and on the mental level (associative and logical connections), and also on both levels simultaneously. Texts, whose paradigms connection is established on the mental level, have bigger depth (Stepanchenko, Ivan, Miroshnichienko, Mariia, Nesterenko, Kseniia, Piekharieva, Mariia and Prosianik, Oksana 50).

The paradigms are united on both language and mental levels. E.g. paradigms ILLUSORY and CORPOREALITY oppose one another in the framework of one syntagma (“A pale face surrounded by heavy odorous furs”). The paradigms ENAMORED, BELOVED and PASSION are united with paradigms ROUTINE and NATURE. E.g. “Moving mists on the hill as I look upward from night and mud. Hanging mists over the damp trees. A light in the upper room. She is dressing to go to the play”. In this abstract elements of the paradigms ROUTINE (“A light”, “the upper room”) and NATURE (“Moving mists”, “on the hill”, “night”, “mud”, “Hanging mists”, “the damp trees”) unite paradigms ENAMORED and BELOVED with the help of associative and logical means. The nature and surrounding word reflect the relationships of the main hero and heroine that are covered with “mist” and “illusory”.

Thus the paradigmatic organization of the text is textually motivated, logically heterogeneous, hyperactual, and monofunctional. Conceptual paradigms are united on both language and mental levels and the paradigms configuration is unconditional. Such a paradigmatic organization determines quite a big textual depth (Orobinska). Such a textual depth makes the understanding of the texts hard and more often occurs in poetic works.

Such a paradigm organization may be a reflection of the main hero’s inner chaos (all the main paradigms’ elements are connected with some strange logic that works just in the text framework). Giacomo Joyce tries to overcome this chaos by applying some fixed elements of the world (paradigms ROUTINE and NATURE are linking means of paradigms ENAMORED, BELOVED and PASSION). Vicki Mahaffey finds that “Giacomo Joyce” represents “an opposition between inner and outer reality” and “how that opposition breaks down” (Mahaffey “Joyce’s Shorter Works” 188). Still Giacomo fails in his intentions. The major text antinomy (that is determined with opposition of paradigms PASSION and ILLUSORY) does not find its solution within the text framework. We find in “Giacomo Joyce”: “It will never be. You know that well. What then? Write it, damn you, write it!”.

The research prospects are the comparative analysis of “Giacomo Joyce” with other James Joyce’s works and other modernistic literature works for figuring out more essential characteristics of the work. The development of the meaning of the linguistic category of the textual depth is also one of the perspective directions of the research.

References.

References

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Mahaffey, Vicki. “Joyce’s Shorter Works”. Ed. Derek Attridge. The Cambridge Companion to James Joyce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.185-211. Print.

Mahaffey, Vicki “Giacomo Joyce”. Giacomo Joyce: Envoys of the Other. Eds., Louis Armand and ClareWallace. Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006. 26-70. Print.

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Stepanchenko, Ivan “Poeticheskiy iazik Sergeia Esenina (analiz leksiki)” (Sergey Esenin’s poetic language (the lexicon analysis). Kharkiv: KhSPU, 1991. Print.

Stepanchenko, Ivan, Miroshnichienko, Mariia, Nesterenko, Kseniia, Piekharieva Mariia and Prosianik, Oksana Paradigmatichieskiy analiz lieksiki poetichieskogo proizviedieniia (Paradigmatic analysis of poetic work). Kyiv: Ukrajnske vydavnitstvo, 2014.

Надійшла до редакції 22 березня 2018 року.