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From Sadness to Madness
The tragic life of Lucia, daughter of James Joyce
The author of arguably the greatest Irish literature of the twentieth century — of Ulysses, of Finnegans Wake, and of Dubliners — James Joyce, actually lived outside of Ireland for much of his life. He fell in love with the remarkably named barmaid, Nora Barnacle, and persuaded her to accompany him to live on the continent.
They went first to the beautiful city of Trieste in Northern Italy where the unmarried couple brought their two children into the world. The eldest, usually known as Giorgio, was very much the apple of his mothers’ eye. Throughout his life, he could do no wrong, married for money, became an alcoholic, and later played a very significant part in ensuring that his younger sister was deprived of the opportunity to tell her own tragic story to the world.
Lucia herself, on the other hand, seems to have been resented and shunned by her mother pretty much from her birth in 1907. Why this was so is not entirely clear, although there may have been a couple of reasons. One might be that Lucia occupied much of her husbands’ affections, at least when he was not preoccupied with his writing; and he indulged Lucia whenever he had money available. Another could be that she envied Lucia’s great artistic gifts which blossomed as she grew into a handsome young adult. Whatever may have been the cause of this troubled maternal relationship, there is little doubt that Lucia’s formative years were not satisfactory. Such a division of the affections given by her parents is unlikely to have added to Lucia’s sense of herself or her personal security.
Despite the family having initially based themselves in Trieste, subsequent removals were forced upon the family. The outbreak of the First World War accounted for a move to Zurich and the Joyce family latterly went to Paris. Lucia, therefore, had a disrupted schooling obliging her to learn new languages in the attempt to maintain her level of education (one who knew Lucia, later on, reported that she was “illiterate in three languages”). Yet, notwithstanding all this Lucia recognised herself as being the true artist within her family, something her father seemed to acknowledge as well. And Lucia was prepared to set about demonstrating her gifts through the medium of dance.
