Nora Joyce

Nora Barnacle was working as a hotel 'maid, waitress, and barmaid' (Susan: 2010) when James Joyce first met her in 1904. He is taken with her and asks to meet her again. She does not appear the second time round, but when he successfully meets up with her upon a third try, a blossoming romance finally leading to marriage begins.

 

In 'That Summer in Paris' it initially seems that Callaghan has taken a shy fancy to the 'deep-bosomed' (Callaghan 1963) Nora Joyce as he meets over dinner with the Joyces. But the more he gets to know her, the more her recognises her 'motherly' qualities and a good humoured nature equivocal to James Joyce's. Although Callaghan is mainly interested in James Joyce, he and his wife are portrayed as a close unit on the occasion that Morley does meet them. For example, in the Manyeyes visualisation below, the lines 'were watching us intently' and 'would know what we were thinking' conveys the self-conscious fear that Loretta and Morley feel when Nora Joyce and James Joyce collectively study the couple one evening, whilst also portraying a sense of the Joyces close bond. The word 'mrs' appears twice, and gives us a sense of Nora's main role which appears to be supporting James Joyce as his wife, while he writes in Paris.

 

 

 

 

Keeping, Susan. 'James Joyce and Nora Barnacle Biography', February 2010. http://suite101.com/article/james-joyce-and-nora-barnacle-biography-a202071