Throughout his life, James Joyce is a self-exile both physically and spiritually. But that is not a mark of his escapism, isolationism or egoism. Instead, it is his strategy to transcend reification and to de-territorialize Ireland from its parochialism in his narration of his nation. This makes him a "nay-sayer" to the dominant national, cultural and religious discourses and a "heteroglossia" in representing his nation in literature among his contemporary compatriot writers. In doing so, his intention is to enlighten his countrymen and get his nation on its way towards spiritual liberation. In this sense, his works represent the very conscience of an intellectual-writer. Corresponding to his exile spirit is his intellectualized aesthetics in which "intellect" is not meant to differ from "imagination," but is to be understood in Julien Banda`s sense to indicate stasis, transcendence, reason, pursuit of naked truth and justice in resistance against all kinds of blind passion and romanticism, partisan, racial or national. Based on his aesthetic principles, his artistic aspiration in all his works is to involve readers in intellectual reflections and polemics by subverting the conventional story writing techniques and by changing the readers` automatic reading habit. The result is the creating of his obscure art, making it impossible for a "rapid skimming and absorption of the scant cream of sense" (in Beckett`s words) but confronting readers with the task of penetrating, analyzing, synthesizing and reconstruction. Thus, all his works have not only a unique artistic value but pedagogical significance in that they can train the readers to be rational beings and critical readers.