Faubourg Saint Patrice - ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University

These jaded words, of course, reflect Joyce's growing frustration at the perceived
myopia of his countrymen. Joyce's perception of the collusion of Church and state in
the subjugation of the Irish spirit is well-documented, both in his personal letters and his
literary works. In a 1904 letter to his future wife, Nora Barnacle, he eloquently revealed
his rejection of Irish culture, most significantly his enmity towards Catholic Church:
My mind rejects the whole present social order and Christianity--home,
the recognized virtues, classes of life, and religious doctrine . . . Six years
ago I left the Catholic Church, hating it most fervently. I found it
impossible for me to remain in it on account of the impulses of my nature.
I made secret war upon it when I was a student and declined to accept the
positions it offered me. By doing this I made myself a beggar but I
retained my pride. Now I make open war on it by what I write and say
and do. I cannot enter the social order a vagabond. (Letters 48)
Although Joyce wrote these words to Nora fifteen years prior to his composition of
Ulysses, his alienation from the Catholic Church had not changed by the time he finished
his masterpiece. His exile was not solely an absence from his motherland, but also a
rejection of the institutional religion which had permeated his youth, his family, and his
country. Joyce's "open" literary war against Irish Catholicism was his effort to forge a
new consciousness for the Irish people and an attempt to portray the repressive nature of
religion within Irish culture--the predominant power which he felt led to Ireland's
paralysis. Attempting to reflect the stymieing effect of the Church on the Irish spirit,
Joyce presents three perspectives on Irish Catholicism in Ulysses: first, the young artist,
Stephen Dedalus, struggling to escape from the restrictive religious shackles which have
pinioned his artistic wings: second, the Jewish cultural-Outsider, Leopold Bloom, who
provides a pragmatic and impartial view on Irish culture from the margin, highlighting its
hypocrisies and inconsistencies; and third, those Dubliners, both secular and clerical,
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