Joyce’s Utopian Imaginations in Ulysses

Thomas More’s Utopia, the very origin of the term “utopia,” does contain criticisms on the social and economic systems of the contemporary England society, while the second part of the book describes the ideal conditions of the island Utopia. Inspired by this Janus-faced structure of Utopia, this study attempts to analyze Joyce’s Ulysses in terms of the three main characters’ realistic complaints and utopian idealisms. Deeply rooted in reality, Ulysses unfurls utopian imaginations: Stephen, distressed by the nightmarish history, dreams of an alternative form of history as “a shout in the street”; Bloom, alienated and discriminated as an outsider, imagines himself as an emperor building an empire beyond the demarcations of race, gender, and class; and Molly, who commits adultery, fancies a world in which women become subjects, not objects. These different forms of imaginations suggest a utopian vision for Ireland, which was torn by Catholicism, nationalism, anti-Semitism, and androcentrism. (Anyang University)