Finnegans Wake | Summary, Language, & Impact (2024)

Finnegans Wake, experimental novel by James Joyce. Extracts of the work appeared as Work in Progress from 1928 to 1937, and it was published in its entirety as Finnegans Wake in 1939.

Plot summary

Finnegans Wake is a complex novel that blends the reality of life with a dream world. The motive idea of the novel, inspired by the 18th-century Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico, is that history is cyclical. To demonstrate this, the book ends with the first half of the first sentence of the novel. Thus, the last line is actually part of the first line, and the first line a part of the last line. The plot itself is difficult to follow, as the novel explores a number of fractured story lines. The main tension, however, comes from the juxtaposition of reality and dream, which is achieved through changing characters and settings. The beginning of the book introduces the reader to Mr. and Mrs. Porter, who have three children—Kevin and Jerry (twins) and Issy. The Porters live above a pub in Chapelizod (near Dublin). Once Mr. and Mrs. Porter go to sleep, however, their entire world changes.

In the dream world, these characters are given different names. Mr. Porter is Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker (HCE), Mrs. Porter is Anna Livia Plurabelle (ALP), and the boys are Shem the Penman and Shaun the Postman, while Issy remains Issy. HCE plays the archetypal father role and is referred to by a number of variations of the acronym HCE throughout the book. While the exact situation is unclear, it is revealed that HCE has behaved inappropriately in the presence of young girls, for which he feels both innocent and guilty. Rumours are spread about this indiscretion for most of the novel. ALP is representative of the archetypal wife and mother, and it is she who attempts to exonerate HCE. The beginning of the novel also introduces Tim Finnegan, the man named in the novel’s title. Finnegan, a construction worker, died in a workplace accident. At his wake, the strangeness of the story continues: Finnegan’s wife attempts to serve her husband’s corpse as a dish. The novel itself ends with a monologue recited by ALP as she attempts to awaken HCE.

Language in Finnegans Wake

The novel’s plot is not nearly as complex as the linguistic tactics employed by Joyce. He combined a number of languages and utilized complex sonic implications to create an atmosphere of wordplay and hidden meaning throughout the entirety of Finnegans Wake. Particularly notable are his “thunder words,” words comprising approximately one hundred letters that combine numerous languages. As he had in an earlier work, Ulysses (1922), Joyce drew upon an encyclopaedic range of literary works. His polyglot idiom of puns and portmanteau words was intended to convey the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious while interweaving Irish language and mythology with the languages and mythologies of many other cultures.

Impact

Finnegans Wake is arguably one of the most complex works of 20th-century English-language fiction. Joyce himself acknowledged the intricate and detailed nature of the novel, and he wrote in 1927 about his creation of it that

I am really one of the greatest engineers….I am making an engine with only one wheel. No spokes of course. The wheel is a perfect square.…No, it’s a wheel, I tell the world. And it’s all square.

He wanted Finnegans Wake to puzzle critics, and it did. When the novel was first published, it was met with mixed reviews. Some critics saw the novel as unreadable, while others praised Joyce for his ingenuity. Since then, numerous editions have incorporated and otherwise acknowledged corrections made by Joyce in notes and drafts. Despite (or perhaps because of) these corrections, which sometimes do little to change the novel’s comprehensibility, some still believe that the novel holds no merit. However, many scholars consider Finnegans Wake a Modernist landmark and have dedicated large portions of their lives to studying it.