Neuroses In Everyday Life: Freudian Defence Mechanisms In The Everyday Lives Of Joyce’s Ulysses

Abstract

James Joyce’s works, notably Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses, are great examples of how Freudian psychology presents itself in daily life. These works are particularly prominent examples. Joyce does not exhibit any signs of insanity or obvious psychopathology; rather, he demonstrates how normal people use subtle psychological defences such as repression, denial, projection, reaction formation, regression, and displacement in order to cope with frustration, paralysis, sexual guilt, and the oppressive social structures that existed in Ireland during the early twentieth century. Joyce’s work is a representation of how normal people use these psychological defences. Freud’s ideas, which are published in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), and Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), will be the focus of this study, which will analyse Joyce’s characters through the prism of Freud’s research. A person whose internal tensions are represented not via pathological breakdown but rather through habits, rituals, lapses, self-deceptions, and narrative silences is referred to as a “everyday neurotic,” and the article contends that Joyce anticipated current interpretations of this kind of condition. Moreover, Joyce formalises these psychological processes in his literary style by using methods like as epiphany, internal monologue, and free indirect speech. These techniques are examples of Joyce’s literary skills. The text itself becomes a place of suppression and rebirth as a result of this, which describes the situation. According to the findings of this investigation, Joyce’s characters, despite the fact that they seemed to be regular, really had intricate interior lives that were shaped by unconscious struggle. As Freud asserted in these lines; “the ego is not master in its own house” (Freud 192), this research provides an illustration of Freud’s statements.