Analyzing Elements of Modernism and Modern Androgyny in James Joyce “Ulysses” and William Faulkner “The Sound and the Fury”

Abstract

This paper will be focused on two modernist writers: James Joyce and William Faulkner. Through a reciprocal comparison and contrast, it will illuminate elements of modernism as well as of androgyny in “Ulysses” and “The Sound and the Fury”. Joyce and Faulkner have the tendency to express the problems related to native place and culture, different suppressed historiographies within original themes and narrative styles. Fully experimental techniques may be argument as a wish to give voice to the marginalized historiography. Modernist writers claimed the death of the author. In the 20th century, the old concepts of male poet and female muse vanished to leave the place to androgynous imagination that influenced modernist writers. This was a radical change in artistic authority within a world where everything traditional was altered. The way writers have portrayed the source of their inspiration could partially serve as a reflection of their literary and culturally histories. Faulkner’s androgyny is linked to incest, hermaphrodites and pregnancy. Joyce investigates his masochistic ideas to highlight the barriers of most modernist artists from using an androgynous model in their imagination.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2012.v2n4p107