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.