The beginning started like any other class: students filing in and sitting awkwardly, poised with their notebooks and pens, waiting for the professor to make his grand appearance.  I smiled innocently, unaware of the terror that was to come.  There should have been a neon flashing sign outside of the door: "Beware all who enter!  Finnegans Wake begins and ends in the middle of a sentence!"  I felt that I adequately professed my ignorance (silently, at least) when Dr. Sexson asked if anyone knew anything about James Joyce and the only things that came to mind were "Wasn't he the author of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?" (a book which I own but have yet to read) and "Uhm....."  I listened to the lecture, slightly fearing the misunderstanding and confusion that as to come, dismayed that the author of our books could immediately be called a drunk, a liar, and a crazy person (that is until I realized that some of the greatest minds were labled insane, people are amusing when they've imbibed, and that essentially every writer of fiction is a liar).  Beneath my vast ignorance and feelings of apprehension was a burning spark of interest.  Who was James Joyce?  Why was he considered a drunk and a liar?  Why is he in the Canon?  And more importantly, why on Earth does Finnegans Wake being in the middle of a sentence?

"What is in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.  So Romeo would were he not Romeo called."  I tend to disagree with Shakespeare on the matter of names.  In the world of real time, the meaning of my name, Andrea Lorenz, may not be an intregal part of my life.  Andrea means "womanly" and Lorenz means "sign of victory".  I may not ever need to know this (except, of course, for an assignment...) but in fiction, the meaning of words and names is important.  What something signifies could considerably alter the way a story is interpreted. Stephen Dedalus - Dedalus comes from the grand myths of Ovid.  Daedalus (as it is spelled in the Allen Mandelbaum translation of The Metamorphosis of Ovid) is the master craftsman.  He builds an elaborate maze on the isle of Crete to house the Minotaur.  His work is wonderfully confusing, so confusing in fact that Daedalus finds himself enslaved by his own creation.  A desire to see his homeland prompts Daedalus.  "At once he starts to work on unknown arts, to alter nature."  He builds wings to fly off of Crete.  Two pairs are created: one for the craftsman and the other for his son, Icarus.  Icarus is warned and taught by Daedalus.  He is told that if he flies too high the heat of the sun will melt his wings.  But alas, Icarus is proud and headstrong and the great power of the sun melts the wax that holds his wings together and Icarus falls.  He is lost to the sea.  "And Daedalus cursed his own artistry."  It has been my misfortune to not have read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  And, unlike Paul, I feel that the name Dedalus may be representative of something else.  I see Stephen himself in the role of the master craftsman.  He is enslaved by the monster of his own creation.  Stephen refused to kneel by his mother's death and her image keeps manifesting itself, haunting Stephen.  He is stuck in a cycle of his own creation.

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Journal Page Two

Class Notes

Alright, a bit of a retraction.  I re-read Chapter Three the other day and found references that Stephen makes that would indicate that he sees his father as Daedalus and himself as Icarus.  "Did you see anything of your artist brother Stephen lately?...Couldn't he fly a bit higher than that, eh?" "My father's a bird..."