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.