The Urban Imaginary as Psychological Landscape: Dublin in James Joyce’s Fiction and London in the Music of Fakemink

This article examines the representation of urban space in two distinct artistic contexts: the Dublin of James Joyce’s early twentieth-century fiction and the London depicted in the music of contemporary rapper Fakemink. Through comparative analysis, it argues that both artists construct their respective cities not merely as geographical settings but as psychological landscapes that shape, constrain, and reflect the interior lives of their inhabitants. Drawing on Joyce criticism that emphasises the thematic centrality of paralysis and epiphany in “Dubliners,” and on recent music journalism exploring Fakemink’s “dirty luxury” aesthetic and spiritual lyricism, this study identifies parallel strategies of urban representation across a century of artistic production. Both Joyce and Fakemink employ the city as a symbolic apparatus through which to explore themes of confinement, aspiration, identity formation, and the tension between material desire and spiritual fulfilment. The article concludes that despite their obvious differences in medium and historical context, both artists deploy the urban imaginary as a means of negotiating the relationship between self and society, tradition and modernity, belonging and escape.