A Small City or Joyce Does Omniscience

This section, more than any other, allows Joyce's reader to realize that their suspicions of up-till-now-unseen characters are, for the most part, true. However we are also allowed a view into connections between seemingly dissimilar characters.

For instance, the reverend Conmee's walk through the streets feels much like Bloom's early morning walk to get his breakfast. They both focus on things like trams and exchanging salutations with some of the same people. These surface things however become rooted in more subtle similarities as we hear the reverend's thoughts on the first countess of Belvedere, "that tyrannous incontinence, needed however for men's race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our ways." (223) Here we see the reverend thinking about procreation, just as Bloom does often, and even in this section. Later on the Conmee is confronted by "a flushed young man from the gap of a hedge and after him came a young woman..."(224). This displays the ways that The reverend, sworn to chastity ("Blessed are the undefiled" 224), is reminded of his own form of impotence, just as Bloom is constantly followed by his. In a stretch of the imagination and probably Joyce's intent, one could say that a parallele between the man of God and the Jewish protagonist makes Bloom into a christ-like figure. This gains a sort of validity in the section of this chapter where Joyce has Bloom unwittingly utilize a tool of the prophets to open a book to the part at which it describes the infidelities of a man's wife.

Another unlikely pairing of characters would be Simon Dedalus with the dead Dignam. This manifests itself through many sections including Dignam's son's narration, the parts involving his daughters selling their belongings and going hungry, and where we see Simon, unwilling to get or give money to his children, yet going out drinking for lunch. However, the inversion here lies in that Dignam's son is suffering because his father, typically figured as the bread winner, has passed away. In the Dedalus family, the strife arises out of losing the mother figure of the family. This has a way of bringing to light a lot of Stephen's psyche in his longing for women and his problems with them, as well as his maternal qualities, when we see him interact with his sister who idolizes him in wanting to learn French.

We also get to see the darker side to Buck Mulligan which has only ever existed as an undertone to his statements, usually masked with a tone of joviality. But here we hear Buck admit that he thinks Stephen will never make anything of himself, that "his tragedy" (249) lies in his religious upbringing. I'm not sure that this connects his character with another in some way, but it doesn't make me like him. Even though I think Stephen is pretentious, I still find Buck Mulligan insufferable.

The "intrusions" must be meticulously placed, and yet they are not easily identifiable as connections between the scenes they are placed in and how they enhance a theme therein. The Wandering Rocks shows itself as the shifting scenes and ultimately as the carriages' pass through the streets of Dublin and the characters we have been following.

Physicality

James Joyce is no fair. No, I don't mean that. I only would have liked a little more of a hint towards whether the scene we walk into in the library was being seen from a distance by Bloom, being described in the thrid person by a narrator, or if we are in Stephen's head. It took a long time finally realize that, much like the first chapter, we were being presented a combination of the last two narrative structures.

One reason I had a hard time figuring this out was because of the physical nature of many of description of the people surrounding Stephen. This felt unusaul for our abstract and self-absorbed protagonist. However, this idea of physicality functions throughout this section as more than just a confusing literary device. We see the idea of the physical presented in discussion on Plato. Plato felt that truth was only found in thought, in the abstract nature of things, the physical form of things being just crude representations for thought. This seems to go against Stephen's struggle with forms and his idea of himself and his art. Thinking of Aristotle often, we can assume that Stephen feels that forms are important.

Yet, in his disucssion on Hamlet, this may not be absolutely true. Stephen describes the physical connection between child and mother, that amor matris is the only love in the world. However he shows how there really is no connection between the father and child, that there is no true physical sharing between them. In this way, Stephen gives the physical an importance, and yet he shows that it is not really necessary for life. This gets confusing, as Stephen is himself, when thinking about Stephen's feelings towards his parents. We can assume a certain amount of disdain for his father based on the Proteus episode, and we also see his guilt towards his mother. These things all combine to show a particularly torn, insecure and pretentious Stephen in this episode of the book.

Grotesque Man

It is interesting how being inside of Leopold Bloom's head can stand in such contrast to what we are shown when thrust into a room that he has just walked out of. In Bloom's head we see a practical man who looks around him and thinks about ownership (153), health care (162), public policy (157), and nationalism (164,165). These concerns make Bloom seem like the anti-Stephen; someone rooted in the reality of economics and social systems. However, being inside Bloom's head we watch these things transform so that his musings about an advertisement turn into, "How can you own water really? It's alway flowing in a stream, never the same, which in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. (153)" Or Bloom combines all his other observations on the Irish people and their system of governance in a Yeatsian image of "wheels within wheels. (163)" From here he take us to one of his most insightful, if gloomy, rants; "Things go on the same; day after day... one born every second somewhere. Other dying every second. Since I fed the birds five minutes. Three hundred kicked the bucket... No one is anything. (164)"

Humanity becomes futile in Bloom's eyes and this, as the preface to witnessing the cannibalistic eating habits of Irish men in a pub, combines to give us a grotesque view of man. We see this in Nosey Flynn whose nose is running and constantly threatening to drop mucus into his glass. We see it even in the altruistic gesture made by Bloom to help a blind young man cross the street. What he notices is the stains on his clothes. It becomes overwhelmingly evident when Bloom discusses Sinn Fein (163) and how the Irish will not speak out against Parnell's brother because they don't want to seem un-Irish. In his discussion of Sinn Fien Bloom describes a system where man locks themsleves into an organization that could latter be seen as a trap, much as Bloom is accused of being a part of the Freemasons, a very tight knit organization.

All of this informs the grotesque image of man that Bloom offers and is heightened at the end of the chapter when, after giving us insights into the baseness of the Irish, we see him run and hide between the statues of Goddesses to avoid being seen by his wife's lover. This display of cowardess drives home the idea in this, the Legostrygonians episode of Ulysses, that most men follow each other, are gluttonous, and will "eat" each other for gain. In the light of this Bloom runs away, much as Odysseus does for the island where all the other ships had docked in a land locked area. While Bloom may seem connected to the hero in Odysseus, here for his clever forethought, ultimately he becomes a smaller man hidden behind Greek Goddesses. In a way, Joyce here makes a commentary on the character of Odysseus, or the nature of the hero itself.

Form, content, connections

I would like to say that I am impressed. While, at times I felt that the headlines would not function as headlines in a paper (Only Once More That Soap, ???, Short But to the Point, Sad) I felt willing to overlook this as the majority of the headlines functioned not only to give meaning to the setting of this section, but to aid in the meaning of the text. For instance, Short But To The Point, while not one of my favorite headlines as a headline, manages to draw the readers attention to something that may otherwise be overlooked. While the discussion of land and the repeated image of Bloom moving "nimbly aside" make an impact, it is the headline that really makes the reader see that a point is being made here. In some ways it is as if Joyce is giving his reader his own notes for this section.

However, I think that the form of this section functions to aid Joyce in an interesting way. In previous chapters we see the narrator switch from slightly omniscient, to close third, until finally it is in first person, and back again between all three. However, in the previous chapters we are only really concerned with one of our protagonists at a time, either Stephen or Bloom. In this section we have both of our protagonists in the same space and time and using this form allows Joyce to do things like have Stephen's entrance into the office be linked to Bloom's Exit by the presence of the wind (143) and with jumping into his inner thoughts as soon as he enters the office - "A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten years the Greeks." (132) While, in earlier sections we are firmly rooted in Bloom's thoughts - "Feathered in his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that chap in the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely." (126) By using this form of articles I think it becomes easier to digest these narratorial shifts because in a newspaper one is used to shifts in the speaker as each article is written by someone new.

I also just enjoyed this section because of how explicitly experimental it is. I think that Joyce in 1904 was more successful in stretching the boundarie of fiction than a lot of experimental fiction writers are today. I do not see why one would argue that this is not fiction.

The Likeable Protagonist

Thus far we have been presented with characters that exist in extremes. Whether or not we see their struggle with this depends on whose head Joyce takes us into. Most of the characters we have been shown have not been depicted as people a reader feels for. From Stephen's point of view, the people around him are base and insensitive, while he himself comes off as confused, contrived and incredibly insecure. Our next protagonist, Mr. Leopold Bloom shows us the Irishmen around him and they become stereotypes of themselves and at first he himself appears spineless.

I say spineless because he knows about his wife's infidelities and yet he allows it and waits on her hand and foot. However, as we get into his section of the story, we begin to see a pathos develop. In this way, I feel that Joyce has given us what a novel such as this one needs, a likeable protagonist. Through Bloom's trina of consciousness we are given a character that mimicks Stephen in some of his connotations, thinks or acts like Buck Mulligan at times, and a truley outside perspective, from an outsider.

Maybe, what I am currently feeling is pity or sympathy for the way that Bloom is treated while going to the funeral for Dingam, but more than that I am allowed to commiserate with him in a way that, as of yet I cannot with Stephen. In many ways Stephen thinks big but acts little and is so lofty and disconnected that the death of his mother, while acknowledged and appearing as a complex issue for him, cannot yet be defined. Contrary to this is the death of Bloom's son, which is given so much bodily detail and so many repeated images connecting back to the crucifixtion and the idea of the Son, that we begin to get a full understanding of Bloom's psyche and why he embodies an impotence when it comes to his wife.

The themes of life and death, the sacred and profane, have been strongly addressed throughout Ulysses with most everything else coming back to them. All images and actions seem to circle around the idea of what gives life, what takes life and if it matters. Being given the middle ground character of Bloom at this point in the book allows this theme to present itself clearly and gives the reader a little something solid to hold on to.

The Concealer

The Calypso episdoe of Ulysses seems to be the most easily identifiable in its references to The Odyssey.

Meeting Mr. Leopold Bloom after being submerged inside Stephen's head during the Proteus episode, creates a stark contrast that serves to show the different worlds that different people percieve. This manages to add meaning to the presvious sections discussion of the differnent ways of viewing things, either sequentially or stationary (rooted in images) while asserting Bloom's character in all its physical and tangible glory. While Bloom seems base in comparison to Stephen's lofty ideals for himself, we see Bloom's dimensions in his religious roots and in; "a soft qualm regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will happen, yes. Prevent. Useless: can't move. Girl's sweet light lips. Will happen too. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to move now." (67)

Bloom appears to turn away from the truth of his wife's infidelities but we see him tortured by it, we see him projecting his thoughts of sexual tension onto the life of his maturing daughter. Despite the obvious focus that Leopold has on bodily functions and the female bodies around him, the discussion about metempsychosis he has with his wife shows a space for the developing theme of the separation between the abstract and the physical world. Joyce's love for puns and word play becomes a bit heavy handed. Such as, "Bone them young so they metempsychosis. The we live after death. That a man's soul after he dies." (64) Leopold sees the act of reincarnation as happening within life, within growing older. He sees this in is daughter but not in his wife. He seems to feel that his wife was always the way she is now.

That Bloom is Jewish comes into his head repeatedly. The same way that Stephen is plagued by the shadow of catholicism that he feels falls over all of Ireland, Bloom's Jewish descent is a constant thought and a constant factor in the way the he views the world around him. While Stephen constantly referrences the Bible and places in the Bible, Bloom referrences Palestine at least four times. I would love to see Mr. Deasy and Leopold Bloom interact.