Digital Object Identifier
This article primarily and particularly reviews the relationship between personal memories and family secrets in James Joyce’s 1922 work Ulysses by taking specific chapters in the novel into consideration. Hailed as a masterpiece and often a subject of persistent analyses, Joyce’s work is a modern parallel to Homer’s Odyssey with its unabashed portrayal of the core of 20th-century Dublin society through its three central characters. One compelling lens through which to interpret the novel is as a profound exploration of memory, as the protagonists are presented as grappling with their pasts persistently. This study attempts to explore how the narrative techniques invoke secrecy and how these secrets unravel the connections between memory, its traces and the stories we tell about the past. By situating Ulysses as a memory text with a focus on Annette Kuhn’s theory on family secrets and memory, the article strives to offer a fresh interpretation of the relationship between the characters and decipher how secrets become a key narrative force in the text.
Ms. Fathima Nazarin. ““Tell You All”: A Glance into the Borderlands of Memory in James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922).” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 53-74. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.4.
Open Access · CC BY 4.0 · Crossref DOI ·
the-criterion.com