This paper explores the fugal narrative and its effects in the `Sirens` chapter of Ulysses. It examines how Joyce`s adaptation of the musical devices for his linguistic devices has an effects on the structure and the theme of the `Sirens`. In tis narr...
This paper explores the fugal narrative and its effects in the `Sirens` chapter of Ulysses. It examines how Joyce`s adaptation of the musical devices for his linguistic devices has an effects on the structure and the theme of the `Sirens`. In tis narrative and structure, the `Sirens` follows a musical development rather than a logical development. The fugal structure of Subject, Answer, Counter-Subject, and Episodes becomes the fundamental structure of the chapter, and the themes are suggested and implied in the fugal manner. Since the music is the art of this chapter, the sound is the primary concern in its use of language through the devices such as alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, rhyme, etc. Joyce`s verbal virtuostity reflects the musical allusions of stretto, cadence, coda, divertimenti, trillando, staccato and diminuendo. The sentence rhythms in the repetitive rephrasing are the main musical device. Because of the experimentation with words the grammar is often disturbed and the words are distorted in a musical form. This paper also explores how the musical devices are matched with deconstructive narrative and how they work for the theme of allurement and of the `Sirens`, that of overcoming its dangers.