The Joyce of Food: A Negotiation of History, Politics, and Society

Abstract

Joyce’s art establishes a liminal space in which he interrogates hegemonic positions on colonialism, politics, religion, and gender, and this cultural work makes a significant contribution to reimagining the Irish social contract. Joyce’s use of ‘parallax’ in Ulysses complicates understandings of each of these issues as he reveals a complex intermingling of structural impediments that paralyse Dubliners through inter-generational memory, and thwart social agency. Joyce challenges Platonic dualistic thought and the traditional hierarchy of the senses by paying particular attention to food, a fraught topic in post-Famine Ireland. My examination of Joyce’s treatment of this central human concern reconsiders Irish politics, history, religion, culture, society and makes a specific case for the role that literature can play in refiguring memory and addressing the effects of the past on the social contract.