The Social Isolation of Neurotic Bloom in James Joyce’sUlysses

Hamid Farahmandian,Lu Shao

doi:10.1177/21582440211047569

Abstract

This paper studies Leopold Bloom’s social isolation and detached personality through the lens of neurosis in James Joyce’s Ulysses. To achieve this, this paper draws on Karen Horney’s theory of neurotics, in which people with detached personality feel as though they do not belong among other people. Such neurotics not only separate themselves from others but become alienated even from themselves. According to Horney, three neurotic elements lead to the formation of a detached personality: the need for “self-sufficiency,” “perfection,” and “narrow limits in life.” In Ulysses, Bloom distances himself from other people because of his anxiety and his desire for freedom, which results in his social alienation. To deal with his isolation, Bloom needs to flaunt his superiority, prove his independence, and set limitations on his life to relieve the pressures imposed on him by people and society.

Highlights

To present and develop inner desires, neurosis, dreams, alienation from society, etc., the influence of psychoanalysis, in the form of various literary devices, in modernist writers like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, William Golding, and Frank O’Connor has been inevitable
About Ulysses, writes to Joyce that “Your Ulysses has presented the world such an upsetting psychological problem that repeatedly I have been called in as a supposed authority on psychological matters” (Adler, 1975, p. 98). Joyce presented his writing style to be more neurotic than pervert, which is commonly believed
Karen Horney challenged the theory of neurosis as a distortion of typical human needs in interpersonal and social relationships rather than instinctual and sexual factors that Freud believed in

Summary

Introduction

To present and develop inner desires, neurosis, dreams, alienation from society, etc., the influence of psychoanalysis, in the form of various literary devices, in modernist writers like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, William Golding, and Frank O’Connor has been inevitable. Keywords James Joyce, Ulysses, detached personality, Karen Horney, social isolation In Ulysses, as Bloom experiences a sense of isolation in the society and at home, he attempts to survive by adopting several distorted behaviors to defend his freedom and “to free his mind from his mind’s bondage”

Results

Conclusion