Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Death Defied: James Joyce's Naturalistic Evolution, Cody D. Jarman

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Death, as a thematic and narrative motif, is of particular import to the Naturalistic literary approach. This is extremely evident in the work of James Joyce, on whom the Naturalist movement had a notable influence. Throughout his career Joyce utilized the subtext surrounding death in the father-son relationship to criticize Irish culture as it appears in his works. However, Joyce was not content to simply recreate a textbook interpretation of Naturalism. Joyce developed the core principles of the Naturalistic approach, starting with a basic and purely Naturalistic approach in his early writing; Joyce eventually managed to subvert and reinterpret the …