Mapping the Modernist Urban Chronotope in James Joyce’s Ulysses

Abstract

In James Joyce’s modernist novel Ulysses, the city and consciousness merge into a single narrative syntax through the stream of consciousness: the protagonist’s physical movement through Dublin intertwines with his subjective associations, memories, and premonitions. The novel sharply reveals the ambivalence, labyrinthine structure, and internal constraints of urban space, which consistently challenge its characters. Dublin functions simultaneously as a concrete, historical city, a universal mythic space, and a medium for stream of consciousness narration, synthesising three distinct chronotopes. At least three temporal registers operate concurrently: subjective/epiphanic (Bloom’s consciousness), historical/colonial (British-ruled Ireland in 1904), and mythological/cyclical (Homeric parallels). For Joyce, the modernist city embodies dual symbolic significance: itis both a realm of decline and a site of potential salvation, juxtaposing mechanised urban life with mythic metamorphosis. The theoretical and methodological framework of the present study is grounded in Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope (Bakhtin, 1981), together with key contributions to literary urbanism by Edward Soja (Soja, 1996), Lieven Ameel (Ameel, 2017; 2023), Robert Alter (Alter, 2005), and Richard Lehan (Lehan, 1998).