Hamid Farahmandian

Are Bloom and Stephen Homosocial? Hamid Farahmandian

This book aims to analyze the homosocial desire and the lack of it in two protagonists and heroes of James Joyce in his two novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. Unlike the fame of these novels and the extensive research done on these two novels, the theoretical relevance of Homosociality in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses has not been widely discussed. This is mostly due to the fact that although, the theory first became popular in the 1990s, it is still a relatively new perspective. This study analyses various views of the social bonds and private lives and their effects on social behaviors to determine the reasons for the lack of homosociality and the ways in which it is regained in two Joyce protagonists. Furthermore, this study will seek to argue that if the characters endeavour logically to solve the problems in their lives and mind, their homosociality will be boosted. For example, according to the plot of the story, if Stephen and Bloom as the main characters in Ulysses find their paternity and the root of fatherhood, their relationships and associations with other males in society will be changed accordingly.