Table Of ContentJoyce & Betrayal
JamesAlexanderFraser
Joyce & Betrayal
JamesAlexanderFraser
UniversityofExeter
Exeter,UK
ISBN978-1-137-59587-4 ISBN978-1-137-59588-1(eBook)
DOI10.1057/978-1-137-59588-1
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A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I will begin by thanking the University of York, who not only supported
methroughoutmyPhDstudy,butprovidedmewitharich,exciting,and
challenging research community of academics and postgraduates within
which to develop my ideas. Special thanks must go to Derek Attridge
whose support of this project has always been enthusiastic and attentive.
The very model of a doctoral supervisor, I will always be grateful for his
patient, probing questions and for the warm encouragement that has
continued beyond my graduate degree. Thanks must also go to Hugh
Haughton, whose critical commentary on my work was always provoca-
tive,nuanced, andjust.
I’d further like to thank the British Association of Irish Studies (BAIS)
for their generous award of a subsistence grant at a crucial time in my
graduate study; Modernism/modernity—and in particular Lawrence
Rainey—for trusting me with editorial power over the leading journal in
the field of modernist studies; and my colleagues at the University of
Cambridge and University of East Anglia, who have offered me support
andguidance overthe last two years.
There are many more people without whom this book may not have
come into being; many more without whom the book may have existed,
but in aseverely depleted form;and more againwithoutwhom the book
mayhavethrived,butattheexpenseofmymentalwell-being.Mythanks
first of all to the “Gang.” Thanks for keeping me fit in body and mind. I
offermythankstobothmyparents,fromwhomIreceivedwhatevershare
ofbrainsIhave,andtomymotherinparticularforhavingnoambitionfor
herchildren butthatthey should go asfar astheycould.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks go finally to Anna: funding body, best friend, proofreader
(improving all the time), and life-long companion. Thanks for sticking
withme.IcansaywithabsolutecertaintythatIcouldnothavedonethis
withoutyou; nor wouldI havewantedto.
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
2 WritingDrama, WritingBetrayal: Joyce’s Triestine
Non-Fiction 37
3 “Boyhood” as“Death”: Betrayalin APortrait
ofthe Artist asa Young Man 57
4 “A nationexacts apenance”: Platonic Betrayal
andHeroic Return in Exiles 81
5 “Like thieves inthe night”: SexualBetrayal
asDispossession inExiles 103
6 Betrayal, Stagnation,andthe Family Romantic
in Ulysses 133
7 BetrayingBloom 153
8 SexualBetrayal in“Penelope” 175
vii
viii CONTENTS
Coda 197
Bibliography 199
Index 207
CHAPTER1
Introduction
BETRAYAL: THE GREAT DONNÉE OF JOYCE STUDIES
Even the most cursory reader of James Joyce is likely to pick up on his
interest inbetrayal. After all,thisis far fromasilentpresence in hiswork,
from Dubliners through to Finnegans Wake. Yet while his more com-
mitted readers—the writers and critics who have contributed to the
already monumental body of commentary and exegesis that has built up
overthelastcentury—havesimilarlyacknowledgedthisinterest,therehas
beenrelativelylittleattempttoexplainitcritically.Itisforthisreasonthat
IsuggestthatbetrayalisoneofthegreatdonnéesofJoyceancriticism.It
hasbecomea“given”inthemostproblematicofsenses—somuchofthe
work that has been done on Joyce’s oeuvre over the last century has
placed at or near its centre the assumption that Joyce was “obsessed”
with betrayal. When James Fairhall suggested, in 1995, that “the theme
ofbetrayalrunsthroughoutJoyce’swritings,”hedidsowiththeapparent
certainty of someone not so much stating a position as acknowledging a
fact.1Theideawasanoldone35yearsearlier,whenWilliamYorkTindall,
with a similar sense of treading on old ground, suggested that
“betrayal...was one of Joyce’s central themes.”2 Neil Davison, shortly
afterFairhall,displayedthecuriousmixofinsistenceanduneasethatcrops
up time and again in discussions of Joycean betrayal: “The very idea of
betrayal,”Davisonsuggests,“became,ofcourse,apreoccupationofJoyce’s
adultlife”—the“ofcourse”issignificant.3Itseemsthatbythemid-1990s
(if not earlier), it was no longer acceptable to speak of betrayal in Joyce’s
©TheAuthor(s)2016 1
J.A.Fraser,Joyce&Betrayal,DOI10.1057/978-1-137-59588-1_1
2 JOYCE&BETRAYAL
workwithoutapologizingtothereaderforwhatwas,thewriterwaskeen
to stress, a digression into “well-known” territory. This deferral of argu-
mentationisimportant,sincewhileitisrarelymadecleartowhatseminal,
conclusive critical study we owe this knowledge (that Joyce was obsessed
bybetrayal),weareencouragedtoseeitasamattermoreorlessclosedfor
discussion. The work has already been done, but it’s never quite clear
precisely where or precisely when. What we can say with certainty, it
seems,isthatitwasdonelongenoughagoastobecommonknowledge.
Since the reader is assumed to know everything there is to know on this
subject,then,itisseenasbestforthecritictomoveonquicklytomatters
that are seen as more novel and, therefore, more worthy of critics’ and
readers’time.Thisbookis,inasense,anattempttoreversethistrend,to
draw attention to Joycean betrayal while making no apologies for doing
so: for choosing to linger on its intricacies and its indeterminacies, to
unravel the significance of a topic that has been seen, paradoxically, to
be toocentralto Joyce’s thoughttobe worthyof furtherstudy.
The complacency within Joycean studies on this issue is evident from
the language that has been adopted to discuss it. While Tindall’s sugges-
tion that betrayal was one of Joyce’s “central themes” leaves open the
question of what this centrality might mean, he also makes use of a quite
different, more problematic register: “[B]etrayal, [is] one of the most
evident [themes] in Exiles, and if we may judge by its presence in A
Portrait and Ulysses, one of Joyce’s obsessions.”4 Davison, after speaking
more coyly about Joyce’s “preoccupation” also describes it as an “obses-
sion.”5 The linguistic shift that occurs here is telling, since both “preoc-
cupation”and“obsession,”ratherthanofferanexplanationordescription
of Joycean betrayal, attempt instead to pathologize it. When we speak of
prevailingmotifsand“centralthemes”wearespeakingofapredominately
volitionalinterest,but“obsession”suggeststhatthisinterestissoextreme
intypeand/orextentthatitmovesbeyondthenormalrangeofexplicable
action. In using the language of compulsion, we tacitly accept that this
aspectofJoyce’swritingis,fundamentally,inaccessibletoanalysis(except,
perhaps, psychoanalysis). There have certainly been (problematic)
attempts to analyse Joyce as a product of his “obsession” with betrayal,6
butmorecommonlythispathologizationmerelyallowsforbetrayaltobe
set aside altogether. Once we have acknowledged its importance, we can
safelyignoreit.Thequestionofthehow,why,andwhatforisansweredby
itsowncircularlogic:Joycewritesaboutbetrayalbecauseheisobsessedby
betrayal, he is obsessed by betrayal because...The only possible
