Hades

Hades

This episode reminds me of Yeats’ poem, Sailing to Byzantium. Stone monuments and the mechanical bird do a poor job supplanting life with feigned immortality. There is reference to a bird in this episode, perched on a poplar, the sort of tree associated with the ghostly, white forms who floated among them, welcoming us into the graveyard. Bloom observes that the bird seems stuffed, and recalls the time Milly buried a dead bird in the kitchen matchbox. This reality of death is juxtaposed when Bloom alludes to the rumor about a painter who depicted fruit, so real, that the birds tried to eat it. Also, “rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of gronzefoil” directly precedes this. On the way to the church the men pass numerous stone monuments, depicting men who have died, and later Simon tells the joke about the drunks, in search of their friends grave, who upon seeing a sepulcher depicting an angel, remarks, this isn’t Mulcahy, the deceased man they searched for.
People do a lot to avoid the reality of mortality. Euphemisms for death, and the avoidance of it, seems to wane as Bloom gets deeper and deeper into the Hades of this episode, drawing near the grave yard. In the beginning, Bloom thinks of the progression of age with out considering death, when he considers Milly’s maturation. He also, counts his blessings when he is reminded of how she avoided the whooping cough; these avoidances of immanent death recede with the progression of the chapter.
Also, his mind jumps to Milly directly after he is silently mourning his son’s death. Consubstantiality and father/ son and mother/ daughter relationships are mentioned numerous times. This paragraph, on the top of page 89 reminded me of Stephen’s musings on page 38, when he considers consubstantiality but also that he is the product of a simple fuck. (They clasped and sundered. Did the coupler’s will.) Bloom recalls the point of his son’s conception. Molly, painfully aroused upon the sight of two animals copulating, begged Bloom to satisfy her desire, thus their son came into being.
Bloom’s muted suffering is an undercurrent of this entire chapter. His agony is likened with Christ’s during the crucifixion. Blazes Boylan enters the picture (in a straw hat), and Bloom is so distressed that he cannot fully observe what is happening. “Mr. Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right hand. The nails, yes,” (92). It goes on. He is reminded of his dead son not only when Simon sees Stephen, but also when they come upon a child’s funeral procession. His father’s suicide is thrown in his face, and the men mock him behind his back. He is an outsider. He tries to get a hold of himself by reverting to practical matters, the amount of money spent of coffins and memorials, questions of insurance, and so on.
Hats recur over and over again. The men Bloom are with sport silk hats. Blazes Boylan sports a straw hat, which makes him seem mockable. Still, he flashes his head to the men, which seems somewhat of an irreverent gesture. When in the graveyard, the men cover their heads, for protection. Simon asks Ned about a mutual friend, Dick. Ned tells him, “nothing between himself and heaven,” (102), which apparently means that he is bald. The word skull is dropped shortly after. Bloom also notices a dent in Menton’s hat, and Menton snubs his observation, possibly because he shows an interest in Molly.
The belief in immortality does not exist for Bloom. Every day the priest sprinkles holy water over slumped corpses, and blesses them into paradise. Parnell is not coming back. We pray for the dead souls, but they are indifferent, (much like the dead in Anne Sexton’s poem, The Truth the Dead Know. “They are more like stone then the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse to be blessed. Throat, eye, and knucklebone.”) Our first impulse is to burry them, protect them from decay as long as possible. Seal them up. Pray for their souls. But we forget them. Their names on the newspaper fade. Out of sight, out of mind. Finality.