What I Lived For | Literary Precedents
Besides Walden, What I Lived For draws on James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) as indicated by a quotation from this novel that Oates chooses as a headnote: "He rests. He has traveled." Corky's weekend, episodic journey recalls the day-long journey that Joyce sets in Dublin. Corky combines Joyce's Telemachus/Stephen Dedalus and Odysseus/Leopold Bloom as he wanders aimlessly in a restless spiritual malaise, ineffectual in most of his actions. Unlike Joyce, Oates confines her stream-of- consciousness technique to Corky, shaping her novel only around the episodes he participates in....
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