Chaos Theory and
James Joyce's Everyman
by Peter
Francis Mackey
Order
this Book now
Peter Francis Mackey
examines how Leopold Bloom’s behavior relates to
such human matters as fate, free will, chance, and
courage. Unraveling some of Ulysses’ most
challenging passages, he reveals the heroism of the
novel’s main character while also demonstrating the
utility of chaos theory for literary analysis.
In one of the most detailed assessments of Bloom’s
thoughts, behavior, and character yet advanced, Mackey
examines the philosophy of life apparent in Bloom’s
persistence amidst the day’s--and the
novel’s--dramatic shifts. He demonstrates specific
ways in which the stream-of-consciousness technique
conveys personality, how Bloom’s contingent
relationship with his world reveals his fears and hopes,
and how he finally pursues his desires despite the sad
life that fate seems to have prepared for him.
More than this, Mackey provides one of the most thorough
applications of chaos theory to literature yet rendered.
He demonstrates how chaos theory expands our
understanding of literature and how cross-disciplinary
exchange between science and the arts can inform our
judgment of the ontological value of both. In the
process, Mackey also shows how and why chaos theory
offers the best model yet for understanding daily human
life and a fresh, humanistic understanding of Joyce.
Peter Francis Mackey is director of presidential
communications and research and instructor of English at
the University of South Carolina.
The Florida James Joyce Series
1999. 232pp. 6 X 9.
ISBN 0-8130-1708-4 Cloth, $55.00
Shopping
Cart Operations
For MasterCard/Visa
holders, accumulate titles in the Shopping Cart
and submit your order electronically.
Shopping Cart Operations
|
|
"An
original contribution to Joyce studies because it takes
an important scientific conceptual framework and allies
it not to the stylistic, technical level of the text but
to the cognitive, psychological level."—Roy
Gottfried, Vanderbilt University
"Mackey gets the physics right and makes an
important contribution to the debate between the sciences
and humanities."--Yakir Aharonov, member,
National Academy of Sciences and recipient, the Wolf
Prize in Physics and the Elliott Cresson Medal
Titles of
Related Interest:
Joyce through the Ages,
Edited by Michael Patrick Gillespie
Reading Derrida Reading
Joyce,
Alan Roughley
Joyce's Music and Noise,
Theme and Variation in His Writings,
Jack W. Weaver
|