Lotus Eaters

There are obvious similarities between the episode in the Odyssey and this episode. Bloom is clearly idle and somewhat impotent. His vivacity from the previous episode has diminished. Sentences drop off without being finished. He lacks his usual state of curiosity and lets his mind slump when considering the salinity of the Dead Sea. Also, he doesn’t purse sexual fantasy to the length that I would expect of him. The letter from Martha set him up perfectly for him to pursue the thought of being punished by her. Instead, he only glides over the prospect of sleeping with her, considering the game of cat and mouse she will put up, keeping up the appearance of a good catholic girl. It is clear he has no interest in bringing this relationship into physicality. He tosses her pin aside; her flower won’t prick him. In fact, her flower has lost its scent, it’s intoxicating language. Molly’s scent, however, pervades, as he purchases her eau de toilette. Still, as in the Odyssey, Bloom is distracted from thoughts of home, perhaps intentionally by himself, for he knows of his wife’s infidelity.
His anger and frustration towards Molly seems to be geared in the depiction of all women in this episode. Martha is mentioned in the same breath as two whores, both are missing a pin to ‘keep it up’, an obvious sexual pun. Women are fatal, exuding their intoxicating scent and then trapping their men. (“They like it because no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down.) This also harkens back to the previous episode, when the cat is paralleled with Molly. “Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it,” (55). Women have the unspoken power of sexuality to arrest men with their claws, their scent, but so far it seems that Molly is the only one to have this power over Bloom.
Bloom tears up the letter like her might tear up a check. Both have potential value, but the value is not cashed in. In fact nothing seems to take fruition. The potential meaning of everything seems to be squashed.
Religion is absolutely meaningless. One might as well smoke opium; it has the same effect. When the priest administers the holy sacrament, women, young and old, bend down to their knees and seem to submit and receive from the priest as if they were engaged in a sexual act. The drop of the holy water, or wine, in their mouth is meaningless, just as if it was the life force in a sexual act. In fact, he mentions that they are chewing corpses, the sacrament of the dead god, reminiscent of The Waste Land.
It seems everyone is dirty or sick or dead, lacking vivaciousness. In the opening scene, the child collects the garbage; the little girl plays with garbage, scarred with skin disease. Martha’s flower is dried and dead. God is dead. Beer sputters out from the train, intoxicating the land, dumbing all. People try to fight this crawl towards death, the decay of the body, through lotions and creams and chemicals, but Blooms sees that nature has the perfect cure, death.