The Dilemma of the Modern Man in the Major Novels of James Joyce

Abstract

An examination of the scene in the second half of the 19th century shows that it is characterized by confusing scientific rationalism, social anxiety and religious suspicion induced by the works ofthinkers and philosophers like Darwin, Marx, Freud and Nietzsche. Their scientific and philosophical writings led to changes which extended to the following century that was almost on the threshold. Thus, by the tum of the century, there had been unprecedented technological advances accompanied by a landslide inclination towards material values at the expense of spiritual and religious ones. In addition, politicallmrest and a booming sense of nationalism reached the climax with the outbreak of World War I. These new conditions induced a state of chaos and f01med a challenge to man's religious, social and political attitudes and threatened the very nature of his relations with his fellow men. Amidst this new situation, man found himself in a state of confusion and bewilderment. The rift in social relations got wider and the individual felt himself isolated from the people around him. Divided between coping with the new set of values and the commitment to the old social, spiritual and moral codes, modern man began to undergo a sort of withdrawal, religious and moral indifference, which turned to be the malady of the age and a predicament he was entangled in. Literature, in general responded to this new situation. This response has taken the form of a reaction from the writers of the era to the new issues ofthe age, especially, those who were just launching their new literary trend which came to be known as modernism. It is marked by a change in themes of literature and the problems it used to tackle. Modem fiction has explored new areas, new subject matters and new themes. Even characters and techniques are no longer the mere classical ones. For the modem novelist, and in the light of Freudian psychology, the individual's psyche, feelings and working of the mind have become of prime importance. For instance, the social and economic conflicts and the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the lower and the middle-class people,