Bloomsday

Yesterday was Bloomsday which was the day that James Joyce’s novel took place. I thought it was extremely cool that we were here since we’re studying James Joyce. Sandycove was absolutely breathtaking, and I thought the scenery was something that I connected with. The James Joyce museum was something I thought was really powerful. The museum was interesting because it showed pieces of his texts, and it showed where he lived for a while. I thought this was really powerful because it showed the state in which he wrote some of these texts in, and I think that shows a different imagery than just seeing pictures of said location. With the theory of place, I think actually seeing the place in the exact setup and circumstances where someone was experiencing something is a lot more powerful than seeing a picture of a place or just seeing an empty room that means nothing to people. I think its interesting that being physically in a place gives you more of a perspective of how events played out than just seeing a picture. It’s almost like we have more of an imagery and physical feeling of how things happened when we’re physically in a place. It also felt really real when we were on the tower and the guy was actually reading excerpts of Ulysses, and that made the experience much more powerful. I also noticed something about the people here- they all are extremely knowledgeable about their own history of Ireland and everyone seems to have a story of how it effected them or their family. I think it was also really cool that a lot of people dress up and celebrate Bloomsday, and I honestly do not think something of that nature would happen in the United States.

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