“Finnegans Wake”: a variety of styles, modes and techniques

1.

“Finnegans Wake”:
a variety of styles,
modes and
techniques
A. Beliy

2.

“Finnegans Wake” is a novel by Irish
writer James Joyce. It is known for
its experimental style and its
reputation as one of the
most difficult works of fiction in
the Western canon. Written over a
period of seventeen years and
published in 1939, the novel was
Joyce's final work. It is written in a
largely idiosyncratic language that
blends standard English
with neologisms, portmanteau words,
Irish mannerisms, and puns in
multiple languages.

3.

In the novel, J. Joyce used various modes and
techniques:
Stream of Consciousness: "riverrun, past Eve
and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of
bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of
recirculation back to Howth Castle and
Environs.“ — the opening passage of the
book.
The stream-of-consciousness technique,
flows freely and associatively, mimicking the
natural flow of thought.

4.

Cyclic Structure: "A way a lone a last a loved
a long the“ — This incomplete last sentence
of the novel links directly to the first
sentence of the novel, creating a circular
structure: "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's...“
This cyclic nature emphasizes the idea of
eternal recurrence.

5.

Mythic Framework:
The character Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker is
often seen as a modern reimagining of the mythic
figure Finn MacCool. The story of HCE's rise and
fall mirrors the cyclical nature of mythic heroes
and their narratives.
Non-linear Narrative:
The narrative often shifts suddenly, such as in
Book III, Chapter 4, where the story transitions
from discussing Shem and Shaun to various other
topics without clear transitions. This non-linear
approach mirrors the fragmented nature of
dreams.

6.

Joyce invented a unique polyglot-language or idioglossia solely for
the purpose of this work. This language is composed of composite
words from some sixty to seventy world languages, combined to
form puns, or portmanteau words and phrases intended to convey
several layers of meaning at once. Senn has labelled Finnegans
Wake's language as "polysemetic", and Tindall as an
"Arabesque“. Norris describes it as a language which "like poetry,
uses words and images which can mean several, often
contradictory, things at once“ The style has also been compared
to rumour and gossip, especially in the way the writing subverts
notions of political and scholarly authority.[184] An early review
of the book argued that Joyce was attempting "to employ
language as a new medium, breaking down all grammatical
usages, all time space values, all ordinary conceptions of context
[...] the theme is the language and the language the theme, and a
language where every association of sound and free association is
exploited."

7.

Joyce frees his novel from novelistic conventions of language,
spelling, story-telling, structure, and plot not to make a text that is
difficult for the reader, but rather to demonstrate that the reading
process is a creative endeavor which is not limited to
interpretation and understanding. The multi-layered and antihierarchical nature of the text asserts that there are a multitude of
ways to read and interact with it, and allows the reader to, as
Jennie Wang states, “break the text apart and put it together
himself/herself”.
Reading “Finnegans Wake” is thus not an act of explication but rather an
act of creation; each reader creates the meanings of the text as they
interact with it.