James Joyce’s

Contribution to
Modernism in the
Pictorial Paradigm :
‘A painful case’ as case
study
Outline :
Introduction
I. James Joyce as an author of the Impresionistic canon
II. Joyce’s Contribution to Modernism in terms of the pictorial
III. Study of Joyce’s ‘‘A Painful Case’’
1. Text Presentation
2. Text Analysis
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
Modernism :
Modernism is a literary movement, starting from the last
quarter of the 19th cent, in France and from 1890 in
Great Britain until about the start of the Second World
War.

It may also be viewed as a collective term for the

remarkable variety of contending groups, movements,
and schools in literature, art, and music throughout
Europe over the same period: Symbolism, Post-
Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism,
Imagism, Surrealism.
 Fragmenta
tion

Stream of
Individuali
Consciousne
sm ss

Symboli Flashba
sm ck
James Joyce :

■ An Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, teacher,

and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist
avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most
influential and important authors of the 20th century.
Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), in which he
most famously used the stream of consciousness
technique.
■ Dubliners (1914), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man (1916) Finnegans Wake (1939).
■ His other writings include three books of poetry, a
play, his published letters and occasional journalism.
■ Ezra Pound declared 1922 to be the start of a new
era, asserting that the old one had ended when
James Joyce wrote the last words of his novel
Ulysses.
■ Focusing on life in Dublin, the stories follow a pattern
of childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life,
culminating with the longest, 'The Dead', frequently
described as 'the finest short story in English'. Joyce
intended them to be a 'chapter of the moral history
[of Ireland]', set them in Dublin 'because that city
seemed to [him] the centre of paralysis', and wrote
them in what he called 'a style of scrupulous
meanness'.
Impressionism :
A major movement, first in painting and later in music,
that developed chiefly in France during the late 19th and
early 20th centuries.

Impressionist painting comprises the work produced

between about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists who
shared a set of related approaches and techniques.

The most conspicuous characteristic of Impressionism

was an attempt to accurately and objectively record visual
reality in terms of transient effects of light and colour.
■ The Impressionists faced harsh opposition from
the conventional art community in France. The
name of the style derives from the title of a
Claude Monet work, Impression, soleil levant
(Impression, Sunrise), which provoked the critic
Louis Leroy to coin the term in a satirical review
published in the Parisian newspaper Le Charivari.
In the literary sense, a rather vague term applied to
works or passages that concentrate on the description
of transitory mental impressions as felt by an observer,
rather than on the explanation of their external causes.

Neither a school nor a movement but a kind of

subjective tendency manifested in descriptive
techniques.
It is found in SYMBOLIST and IMAGIST poetry, and in
much modern verse, but also in many works of
prose fiction since the late 19th century.

Impressionistic criticism is the kind of CRITICISM

that restricts itself to describing the critic's own
subjective response to a literary work, rather than
ascribing intrinsic qualities to it in the light of
general principles.
 James Joyce as an
author of the
Impresionistic canon
 Impressionism in Literature is the depiction of scene, emotion, or
character by details intended to achieve a vividness or
effectiveness more by evoking subjective and sensory
impressions than by recreating an objective reality 
Influence of Impressionism depicted in Joyce’s writings:

• Use of a narrative style that is intentionally ambiguous, placing

more responsibility on the reader to form their own conclusions
about events within the novel, rather than relying on the narrator.
• Describing the action through the eyes of the character while the
events are occurring rather than providing details after the
character has already processed the action.

• Employing details in such a way that is sometimes difficult to see

a clear picture of events if you focus on the details too closely.
Much like an impressionistic painting, it is only possible to get a full
picture once you stand back from the novel and view it in its
entirety.
• Focusing on ‘‘ The emotional landscape’’ of the setting . His
concern with the way the landscape evokes certain emotional
responses from both the character and the reader.
oyce’s Contribution to Modernism
In terms of the pictorial
Definition of contribution :

Contribution(n): The part played by a person or thing in bringing

about a result or helping something to advance.

 Joyce's contribution lies in the way he parallels the standard

motion picture techniques (in the visual art) in his writings and
thus going considerably further than his contemporaries. He was
one of the first writers to use extensive and unique visual
techniques into fiction.

 His interest in motion picture is projected in his writings which

Eisenstein ,who is a Russian motion picture director and theorist,
describes as ‘’filmic feelings.’’
 Superimposition of images :

® This technique parallels the montage in the picture motion

techniques , but instead of opting for the simple succession of
images, Joyce superimposes an image on another without the loss
of the first central image . For example, in ‘’Eveline,’’ the image of
the past memory is superimposed on the image of the present but
without losing the idea of the present one. This superimposition
brings about depth perception.
® This superimposition of fragmentary images paves the way for an
image or meaning greater than or different from the separate
images. Essentially, it is “a pictorial method of stating that the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts. What results from this
juxtaposition or collision is the impression of the whole not of the
single parts ’’

Robert S. Ryf, ‘’Joyce’s visual

Imagination’’
“Perhaps more than any other individual, James
Joyce invented the idea of the work of art as an
unimaginably dense, consciously constructed
assemblage of culturally coded meanings, waiting to be
unpacked and analysed by anyone with the time,
knowledge and interest.” The Irish Times
Another case of superimposition in Joyce’s writing is that of
superimposing the thoughts on the speaker in the interior
monologue

 Popularizing the interior monologue or the stream of consciousness

technique :

This method stands for portraying the course of thought through the
mind .
Though Joyce was not the first to use this modernist techinque, He
used it in a unique way . His writings have more in common with
cinema than other modernist fictions .He popularized the technique
and used it to serve the pictorial aspect of his writings and thus put
emphasis on the visual.
“nothing like a kiss long and hot down to your soul almost paralyses
you then I hate that confession when I used to go to Father Corrigan
he touched me father and what harm if he did where and I said on
the canal bank like a fool but where- abouts on your person my child
on the leg behind high up was it yes rather high up was it where you
sit down yes O Lord couldn't he say bottom right out and have done
with it what has that got to do with it and did you whatever way he
put it I forget no father and I always think of the real father what did
he want to know for when I already confessed it to God he had a nice
fat hand the palm moist always I wouldn't mind feeling it neither
would he Id say by the bullneck in his horsecollar I wonder did he
know me in the box I could see his face he couldnt see mine of
course hed never turn or let on.”
Ulysses
Joyce does not attempt to present the whole consciousness as interior
monologue, as he uses this technique as an image that is only one
part of his visual scene in order to mirror the fragmentation of the
world and thus , portraying reality as a ‘heap of broken images.’’

 Flashback:

Flashback is another technique of motion picture used by Eisenstein

and very appreciated by him in Joyce’s visual writing. Though
flashback is a common technique in modernist writings ,Joyce uses it
not only to portray readers when there is a change in the setting and
the time frame or to highlight the theme of fragmentation, but also to
put the the character in a state of paralysis. Notice how Eveline for
instance is in a sense paralyzed after having a flashback of her past ,
she is hesitating and she does not know what to do . This paralysis
contributes to the pictorial aspect as it gives, to a certain extent, the
 controlled perspective = camera angle:

Joyce potrays his scenes through the eyes of his characters that play
the role of the camera angle . This does not only contribute to the
visual aspect in joyce’s fiction but also , this suggestion of literary
equivalents to the vocabulary of film methods accomplishes ‘’little
more than showing that the two media share narrative strategies,
rather than an exploration of their intertextuality and
complementaraity that can offer a deeper analysis of both art forms .’’

  Thomas L. Burkdall, James Burkdall, ‘’Joycean Frames: Film and the

Fiction of James Joyce’’
 Pictorial lighting :

Eisenstein defines the pictorial lighting as a ‘‘colision between a

stream of light and an obstacle,’’ a technique used in portrait
photography in a controlled environment to capture subjects in an
appealing way.
‘’She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me.
The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white
curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and,
falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side
of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat,
just visible as she stood at ease.’’
Dubliners : “Araby”
James Joyce was keenly aware of the possibilities of visual
presentation, and used visual techniques extensively. Indeed, Paul
Deane, analysing Joyce’s “The Dead” advocates “all major film
techniques are present.”

Joyce’s contribution lies mainly in the input of expressive means

adapted from cinema into litertaure and the popularization of the
feature characateristics of modrnism
Study of Joyce’s ‘‘A Painful Case’
1. Text Presentation :

® ‘‘A Painful Case’’ is one of the fifteen short stories of Dubliners

collection written by James Joyce .
 ‘‘ A Painful Case ’’ is about James Duffy , a lonely man who lives in
Dublin a somewhat clinical and sterile life. One day he meets Emily
Sinico , the married woman whith whom he strikes up a friendship .
They shared their passion for classical music and concerts and she
added dynamisim to his life, but he breakes all contacts with her
once she appeares to make a romantic overture towards him. Two
years later, Mr Duffy reads in the newspaper ‘’a painful case’’ of a
woman killed by a train after having become depressed and taken
to drinking , and that woman is none other than Emily Sinico. By
the end of the short story, Mr Duffy is once again lonely and
gloomy wandering around the city, realizing he has lost his only
chance of knowing true love and happiness with someone.
2. Text Analysis :
Bibliography
Aidan Dunne , The Irish Times , “visual art: James joyce’s box of
tricks reopened,” (2016)
 BARBARA STEVENS HEUSEL, “PARALLAX AS A METAPHOR FOR THE
STRUCTURE OF "ULYSSES“ ’’
Lawrence Edward Bowling,‘‘What is the Stream of Consciousness
Technique?” (1950)
 Robert S. Ryf, ‘’Joyce’s visual Imagination,’’ Texas Studies in
Literature and Language (1959)
Thomas Lyons , ‘’ Ambiguous Narratives’’ (2011)
Thomas L. Burkdall, James Burkdall, “Joycean Frames: Film and the
Fiction of James Joyce”