Ulysses and the metamorphosis of Stephen Dedalus

About this book

"Ulysses is usually approached as a narrative designed to frustrate any attempt by the reader to discover unity or coherence. But in this study Margaret McBride explores at length the highly self-conscious layers at work within the story and makes the case that this intense reflexivity effects a plot and theme that are more integrated and more familiar than critics have heretofore realized: Joyce's great novel may be a brilliant variation on the Kunstlerroman or story of the artist. A close examination of the work's self-referentiality suggests that the entire tale may center around Stephen Dedalus." "This study therefore begins by focusing on the character of Stephen. Stephen is, significantly, a time-obsessed writer who wishes to obtain the time-transcending status of an Ovid or a Homer. When the wider tale is examined in terms of Stephen's ambition, Ulysses emerges as, potentially, a "self-begetting" work - that is, the finished narration can be read as a creation of the aspiring writer featured within the narrative itself."--Jacket.