On The Spiritual Wanderings In James Joyce’s Ulysses

James Joyce is a great master of modernist literature in the 20th century.His works exhibit unique artistic charm like epics.They represent the highest achievement of the modernist literature.Ulysses is Joyce’s crowning novel.It not only embodies Joyce’s literary experiment and innovation in form,but also runs through his persistent exploration and pursuit in content.The story of Ulysses took place on June 16th,1904.What the characters saw,heard and felt during their wanderings on that day,to some extent,were their wandering experiences.And while studying wanderings,experts and scholars are tend to pay special attention on thoughts and psychological state of the characters.This kind of psychological state caused by wanderings is called spiritual wanderings.Based on Freud’s psychological theories,modernism theories,cultural nationalism theories etc.and the approach of text analysis,this dissertation purports to explore the embodiment of spiritual wanderings in Ulysses,namely the deficiency of kinship,the confusion about modern society and the helplessness for national identity.Their deficiency of kinship is expressed by Bloom’s loss of his beloved son and Stephen’s deep resentment of his parents.The contrast between the Bloom family in Ulysses and the Odysseus family in The Odyssey reveals the characteristics of the modern nobodies and their confusion about modern society.Through the living background of Irish and Jewish people,the metaphors in Ulysses show that Irish and Jewish people have the helplessness for their national identity.Based on the social background of the novel and Joyce’s own experiences,the dissertation concludes that the characters in the novel are eager to get out of the spiritual dilemma and obtain the effective identity from family,society and nation through wanderings.Joyce’s writing technique of wanderings has some enlightening significance to the innovation and research of contemporary wandering novels.