Relationship
Nora and James' relationship was very complex. They had different personalities, tastes and cultural interests. At the beginning they loved each other passionately and deeply, as witnessed by the sensual epistolary correspondence between them. James seems to have admired and trusted her totally. Nora was well-disposed towards James, and seems to have tried to accommodate him. In anticipation of his move to Paris, Nora began studying French. Nora used to cook English puddings at Joyce's request and acquiesced in following him during his travels.
In 1904, Nora and James left Ireland for continental Europe, and in the following year they set up house in Trieste (at that time in Austria-Hungary). On 27 June 1905, Nora Barnacle gave birth to a son, Giorgio, and later to a daughter, Lucia, on 26 July 1907. A miscarriage in 1908 coincided with the beginning of a series of difficulties for Nora, which placed strain on her relationship with Joyce and made it increasingly conflicted. Although she remained by his side, she complained to her sister both about his personal qualities and his writings.
In these letters to her sister, she depicts her husband as a weak man and a neurotic artist. She accuses Joyce of ruining her life and that of their children. She says he drinks too much and wastes too much money. As for his literary activity, she laments that his writings are obscure and lacking in sense. She hates attending his meetings with other artists and admits she would have preferred him had he been a musician—in his youth, he was a talented singer—rather than a writer.
Another challenge to the couple's relationship was posed by Lucia's mental disease. Nora believed hospitalisation was required, but James was against it. Lucia's parents brought in many specialists and only in 1936 was she interned in a clinic. There, her father visited often, but not her mother; Nora would refuse to see her daughter ever again.
Notwithstanding all the accusations and criticisms she levelled against Joyce, Nora married him in 1931. After living through Joyce's death in Zurich in 1941, Nora decided to remain there. She died in Zurich of acute renal failure in 1951, aged 67.
Read more about this topic: Nora Barnacle
Famous quotes containing the word relationship:
“Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.”
—Beatrice Gottlieb, U.S. historian. The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, ch. 12, Oxford University Press (1993)
“Most childhood problems don’t result from “bad” parenting, but are the inevitable result of the growing that parents and children do together. The point isn’t to head off these problems or find ways around them, but rather to work through them together and in doing so to develop a relationship of mutual trust to rely on when the next problem comes along.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“In contrast with envy, which usually occurs between two people and is focused upon another person’s qualities or possessions, jealousy occurs when a third person becomes a threat to a dyad. Jealousy involves the loss or the impending loss of a relationship that one wants to hold onto, a relationship that is vital to personal fulfillment and claimed as one’s own.”
—Carol S. Becker (b. 1942)