Counterparts

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, in Dublin, Ireland. Joyce’s writing is classified as fiction, though some could be considered autofiction influenced by the events of his childhood and life in Ireland. His household was Catholic and middle class, and, like his father and grandfather before him, Joyce attended the prestigious primary school, Clongowes Wood College, which was run by the Jesuit priests. Joyce’s father mishandled the family’s finances, and Joyce was forced to leave the boarding school to attend the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School. Nevertheless, despite the lesser credentials, Joyce thrived at school and challenged the conventions of his society.

Joyce’s male characters, such as Farrington from “Counterparts,” are emblematic of the hardships that Joyce saw befall the men of Dublin. As a young man, feeling suffocated by the restraints of Catholicism and provincial Irish Nationalism, Joyce left Ireland for the European continent. He returned home briefly to attend his mother’s deathbed, and it was during this visit when he met Nora Barnacle, a hotel maid from Galway. Joyce and Nora had two children, Lucia and Giorgio, and defied the institution of marriage for decades, ultimately only deciding to wed to ensure their children’s inheritance rights.

Apart from returning for his mother’s death, Joyce never again lived in Ireland. However, despite his self-imposed exile, his entire body of work is set in his home country. Throughout his writing, Joyce’s portrayal of Ireland unfolds a realistic world, but one that is built upon nostalgia, because after 1912 he never again set foot on Irish soil. As a result, the entire oeuvre of Joyce is constructed from memory. The exilic experience of the author is imprinted on the work because even as years passed, Joyce’s preoccupation with his Irish setting was frozen in a time when he was a young man living there. Joyce lived until his death throughout mainland Europe, and his contemporary experience superimposed itself on his stories.

Joyce’s themes were experimental and controversial because they challenged institutions of Irish culture and the influence of English colonialism in Ireland. As Ireland was an English colony until after Joyce’s emigration, his writing is from an explicitly colonial context. Figures representing English power are portrayed negatively in “Counterparts,” but Joyce also shows how narrowminded Irish nationalism can harm people in Ulysses, his more prominent work. The idea of criticizing English rule without propagating a singular Irish male identity to rally behind was very progressive at the time. Furthermore, his stories challenged the authority of the Catholic church, education, family, and colonial powers. He did not shy away from subject matter that revealed how a suppressive environment could force its citizens toward vices like violence and alcoholism, but his bold, stream of consciousness style of writing pointedly portrayed things vilified by religion or society at large as natural. For example, his scenes involving sexual content are explicit and straightforward without passing judgment on his characters. This range of critical or explicit content led to Ulysses and Dubliners being banned for periods of time.

As an innovator of modern literature, James Joyce’s writing still influences today because of his philosophical style. A typical Joyce character has a rich internal dialogue that conveys a landscape much more provocative than the events of the plot. Because of this emphasis on interiority, the narrative often only serves as the catalyst for the character’s dawning awareness of his or her identity. Joyce’s characters grapple with their place in society as they increasingly become more self-aware.

Joyce presents the ways both Irish and English colonial institutions work against the characters’ abilities to self-actualize. His writing points out the flaws in which church, school, homelife, and the pub placate the citizens with dogma and traditions, thus limiting their potential. Because Joyce writes in a manner that mirrors unfolding thoughts, the readers of Joyce also experience personal revelations as they empathize with the characters and recognize themselves in the works’ stream of consciousness digressions.

Joyce stories are relevant to today’s readers a century after they were written, and for this he is celebrated. One ritual named Bloomsday takes place annually on June 16 in Dublin and throughout the world. The holiday is named after the main character of Ulysses, and it is a day when lovers of Joyce and literature enjoy dressing up as the novel’s characters and listening to readings.