Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Lesson Plan

Personal Hell

Kind of Activity:

Classwide Discussion

Objective:

Students will compare two different depictions of hell from the literary canon.

Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.9-10.9

Structure:

James Joyce's depiction of hell very pointedly plays to his own fears and anxieties. Although Joyce intends to evoke Dante's Inferno, which he held in extremely high regard, what we know about the man indicates that he targeted himself when writing the most terrifying possible description of hell. Joyce did not have particularly good eyesight, for instance, and so he spends a great deal of time describing how the other senses are stimulated in hell, such as the...