The theme of insatiety and impotence recurs. There is butter and sugar everywhere, but nothing nourishing. The church serves as candy here just as it served as lotus or poppies, in the lotus-eaters. The priests are well fed on butter, but the Dedalus girl is starving. The people of the wasteland are still awaiting a messiah, Bloom, unmistakably. “Bloo…Me? No. / Blood of the Lamb,” (151).
Bloom is in a state of arrest, a fly in the bar window, and retreats from his role as messiah. The messiah will not be birthed. A woman has labored for days, and it will not come, just as the body is yet to be found in the water, and Bloom’s son was born dead. Jesus is on the wall, hanging, and has yet to rise (151). “Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit / Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth,” (152). The resurrection has not occurred.
The people of Dublin are more ready to accept a false prophet then the seagulls are, who reject the crumbled throwaway that Bloom tries to pass as bread, or manna from heaven. He purchases them real bread, and they gobble it up. At least the gulls are fed. Throughout this chapter there are numerous references to consuming poisonous, inedible, or junk food, or things that are just not meant to be eaten, such as the rats in the porter, or swans.
Bloom wanders the streets, letting his mind meander as he slowly searches for a suitable eatery. Just as in the lotus-eaters, Bloom’s mind works hard to try to elude thoughts of Molly, which lead to thoughts of Boylan, who Bloom also tries to physically avoid. Women, again, are tempestuous, cruel creatures. Molly’s pins are all over the house, and he thinks to purchase her a pincushion for her birthday. She has pricked him relentlessly. He runs into an old love interest, Mrs. Breen, who is covered in pastry flakes and sugar. Once a sharp dresser, and a beauty, Breen is now unappealing and old, only a year older then Molly, reminding Bloom of the inescapable plight of time. Breen takes a pin out of her purse, but puts it back. Like Martha, her flower has no scent. He pin will not prick Bloom.
No women are appealing in this episode. Their breasts are tired and overworked, dried up grapes, insufficient for reproduction. The baby will not be birthed. The only appealing woman, as always, is Molly. It is apparent that Bloom’s hunger reaches far beyond that of the tummy. Memories of Molly’s satiable love finally reach Bloom’s mind in a beautifully written scene on page 176.
Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweet and sour with spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy.”
This thought ends with “Me. And me now.” Bloom ponders over rather common philosophical issues: the me in the past is different then the me of now. Also, previously in this episode, Bloom’s faithful cloud momentarily covers the sunlight, and he has a momentary bout of depression: just as people die they are supplanted by numerous other births. The world keeps spinning. Everything is meaningless. Its all gas and dust. Language is just a bunch of sounds. ‘No one is anything.’
He also, in his philosophical meanderings, considers the word, parallax, much like Molly’s metempsychosis. His mind cannot penetrate the word, but he is intrigued. The word seems fitting. Life is a stream that stretches along the curbstone, therefore, linear. Life is time. If we are physically above this line, we can see the past as well as the present and the future. Parallax is “the apparent displacement or the difference in apparent direction of an object as seen from two different points of view.” This could hearken back to Blooms view his different selves, and also the self of the future. The messiah has been crucified, but will he rise again?
After considering Molly, Bloom’s mind reverts to a beauty beyond the ‘ineluctable modality’, or the grasp of time. He seeks ambrosial feasts and the beauty of statues. Bloom has been reminded numerous times in this episode of his impotence, concerning Molly. He suitors are everywhere in this chapter, and Bloom compares himself to them. When the blind man refers to Bloom as a man, Bloom thinks, it must be my voice, which reminds us of Molly’s suitor, the ‘barreltone’ baritone. Bloom is starving, but someone at the restaurant mentions that Molly is well fed. Bloom cannot avoid Boylan, and, in fact, sees him from a slight distance, and tries to evade his glance. His heart beats like a bird's as he retreats, like Ulysses, fumbling for his soap.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Aeolus
I have about two minutes to write so this will be quick... I found this episode the most frustrating out of all of Ulysses. My reading experience truly mimicked the emotive tone of the chapter. I found it extremely difficult to follow. It is written outside of a character's perspective, and seems to be told from the noise of the newsroom. "Almost human the way it sllt to call attention. Doing its level best to speak," (121).
This chapter is riddled with noise. It's as if no one is listening to each other. No one can hear each other or remain focused on the conversation or the task at hand. Bloom is clumsy, and given many obstacles, ultimately rejected by his peers as he is by Molly. There is so much more going on that I don't have time to delve into. I also have a very loose understanding of this chapter, and hope that class today helps tighten up the wheels in my brain. More on Aeolus later...
This chapter is riddled with noise. It's as if no one is listening to each other. No one can hear each other or remain focused on the conversation or the task at hand. Bloom is clumsy, and given many obstacles, ultimately rejected by his peers as he is by Molly. There is so much more going on that I don't have time to delve into. I also have a very loose understanding of this chapter, and hope that class today helps tighten up the wheels in my brain. More on Aeolus later...
Monday, March 10, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Calypso
Leopold Bloom seems to be an interesting mixture between brutish and docile; he is also a dreamer, but those dreams are easily taken by darkness. This creates for quite a dynamic character.
He is incredibly animalistic. His consciousness is intertwined with that of the cats, (“scratch my head. Purr.”) He is described as incredibly carnivorous; Leo is in his name. He takes extreme pleasure in the corporeal, and he exudes carnal desire for food and sex. This is demonstrated when he is admiring the young servant of his neighbor. First, he is imagining a farmhouse, and the cattle that occupy the land, but even the description of the cattle have a sexual undertone. He goes from describing the breeders covered in dung slapping the rear of a young white heifer, to fantasizing about the servant whacking the rug, her skirt swinging whack by whack, all in the same breath. He tires to catch up to her to admire her from behind, then imagines her being taken by a policemen: a girl like that needs them sizable. There are more sexual puns in this chapter. The cat is called pussens; Molly, when calling the cat says, “come, come, pussy, come,” Molly also mentions liking the last name of an author, that sounds like cocks.
But to only talk about the brutish side of Bloom is to have an extremely limited view of him. He shows incredible tenderness and patience towards Molly. He is careful not to disturb her on his way out; He brings her the tea as he is ordered to. He teaches her in the most gentile way, as to avoid condescendence. He says nothing negative about the letter she hides from him, which is from another man. He loves her dearly, and although there seems to be an underlying jealously, it is not expressed by Bloom himself, but more subtly, but Ponchelli’s dance for example, A lot seems to be swarming under Bloom’s surface.
His mind changes so easily from a sweet mixture of memory and fantasy to nightmarish thoughts of a hellish barren land destroyed by sin becoming the ‘grey sunken cunt of the world.’ These thoughts never linger, however. He avoids this particular thought by focusing on the warm body of his wife.
There is another episode that precedes this one that turns dark, literally, very quickly. In fact, the sudden change from day to night recurs throughout the chapter. He seems to be mourning how quickly he and his wife have aged, and how quickly death sets in. Like the drowned man in the previous episodes, the funeral is rarely directly addressed, but lingers in the backdrop. He fantasizes about avoiding the progression of time by jumping to different places around the world, avoiding the progression of day, but this is impossible. Suddenly, his fantasy of the bustling eastern town blackens to cries on the street, a mother calling her children home, the color of the night. Again, he escapes with visions of Molly, whose garters resemble the color of the night sky.
Age cannot be avoided by anyone. Molly is described as slightly stale. She eats day old bread to make her feel younger, has many lines under her eyes, the incense turns to foul flower water by the next day. Blooms little girl is quickly budding, becoming a sexual being. This breaks his heart, and he is distracted by the call of nature, that brings Leopold back to a place that he seems to enjoy a bit more then his mind.
He is incredibly animalistic. His consciousness is intertwined with that of the cats, (“scratch my head. Purr.”) He is described as incredibly carnivorous; Leo is in his name. He takes extreme pleasure in the corporeal, and he exudes carnal desire for food and sex. This is demonstrated when he is admiring the young servant of his neighbor. First, he is imagining a farmhouse, and the cattle that occupy the land, but even the description of the cattle have a sexual undertone. He goes from describing the breeders covered in dung slapping the rear of a young white heifer, to fantasizing about the servant whacking the rug, her skirt swinging whack by whack, all in the same breath. He tires to catch up to her to admire her from behind, then imagines her being taken by a policemen: a girl like that needs them sizable. There are more sexual puns in this chapter. The cat is called pussens; Molly, when calling the cat says, “come, come, pussy, come,” Molly also mentions liking the last name of an author, that sounds like cocks.
But to only talk about the brutish side of Bloom is to have an extremely limited view of him. He shows incredible tenderness and patience towards Molly. He is careful not to disturb her on his way out; He brings her the tea as he is ordered to. He teaches her in the most gentile way, as to avoid condescendence. He says nothing negative about the letter she hides from him, which is from another man. He loves her dearly, and although there seems to be an underlying jealously, it is not expressed by Bloom himself, but more subtly, but Ponchelli’s dance for example, A lot seems to be swarming under Bloom’s surface.
His mind changes so easily from a sweet mixture of memory and fantasy to nightmarish thoughts of a hellish barren land destroyed by sin becoming the ‘grey sunken cunt of the world.’ These thoughts never linger, however. He avoids this particular thought by focusing on the warm body of his wife.
There is another episode that precedes this one that turns dark, literally, very quickly. In fact, the sudden change from day to night recurs throughout the chapter. He seems to be mourning how quickly he and his wife have aged, and how quickly death sets in. Like the drowned man in the previous episodes, the funeral is rarely directly addressed, but lingers in the backdrop. He fantasizes about avoiding the progression of time by jumping to different places around the world, avoiding the progression of day, but this is impossible. Suddenly, his fantasy of the bustling eastern town blackens to cries on the street, a mother calling her children home, the color of the night. Again, he escapes with visions of Molly, whose garters resemble the color of the night sky.
Age cannot be avoided by anyone. Molly is described as slightly stale. She eats day old bread to make her feel younger, has many lines under her eyes, the incense turns to foul flower water by the next day. Blooms little girl is quickly budding, becoming a sexual being. This breaks his heart, and he is distracted by the call of nature, that brings Leopold back to a place that he seems to enjoy a bit more then his mind.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Proteus
Isolation pervades as Stephen contemplates and yearns for connection. Mother, father, lover, and God are interrelated symbolically. It seems that each entity, by itself, goes on to represent all of the other entities at once, or, perhaps, it would be better to say that all represent a sundered connection that is yearned for over a lifetime. This yearning is the reason for mystic monks, sex, romantic and familial love. Stephen laments his isolation from humanity and God, and on page 38, he ponders whether or not he and his father are consubstantial. In this passage, and arguably throughout the rest of this chapter the father represents both the biological father and the heavenly father. Stephen wonders if he shares an essence with another human (his father) and with God.
This creates an interesting dichotomy in this passage. Stephen speaks of how we are all born into the original sin of Eve; it is inescapable and, what dooms us to not ‘be a saint.’ Eve’s body was without the blemish of the navel; Mary was with out the blemish of sex also: Jesus was made not begotten. Stephen declares, perhaps futilely that he, like Jesus, although wombed in sin, was made and not begotten.
“I was made not begotten. By them, the man with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath. They clasped and sundered, did the coupler’s will. From before ages he willed me and may not will me away ever.”
He is a product of both randomness and the will of God. He exists because his parents copulated. They experienced the isolation and detachment that Stephen is feeling, so they joined with each other to access that “strandentwining cable of all flesh.” Also, in Christian theology, when a couple is married they are united together with God, and this sexual act could express that unity with God; Consequently, Stephen is the product of both the simple fuck that is only a continuation of original sin, body with blemish, but he is also a product of God, made and not begotten, ‘creation from nothing.’
In this passage his mother is referred to as the ghost woman with ashes on her breath. By describing her this way her death truly encompasses eternity; it is the present and the future, but also reaches into the past, a past that is dead; one cannot escape the modality of time and space. This is juxtaposed with the last quoted sentence in this passage, “He willed me and may not will me way ever.” This suggests eternal life, something the Christian god offers humanity in the bible; world without end.
We cannot escape the modality of time and space; we cannot return to time as if it is place. Again, this harkens back to the mutable past that was suggested in Nestor. However, place and objects seem mutable also: “A very short space of time through very short times of space.” Or rather, we are the ones that change in the inescapable modality of perception. Things exist and we try to “knock our sconce about them bodies before they are colored.”
This whole idea of color in the chapter is interesting. It seems that color is something emotive, subjective; it is outside the being or essence of the object; perhaps it is our perception of the object. Therefore, an object exists without color and we give it color. There is this sinking, drowning in all of our perceptions; a rhyme and reason develops: “Rhythm begins, you see.”
But still, all if this is ineluctable. How can we separate the self, the mind, and the ideal, with the external world? Stephen seems to prefer the ideal: “Open your eyes. No. Jesus!” Thought is as visible as anything. This accounts for Stephen’s tension between the ideal and the corporeal. He expresses detachment from his body: “My two feet in his boots are at the end of his legs.” His shoes are borrowed from Buck, and perhaps his legs also. He hears the tapping, but feels separated from this. Again, he moves and sinks without his will: the ineluctable modality.
Life and death coexist on the beach. There is a dead dog fondled by a living dog, which also alludes to the Telemachus episode, where Stephen refers to his body, the body he was given, as a dogsbody. Not only does the live dog fondle the dead, Stephen mouths the womb of his dead mother, the sea. “His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her womb.” The sea’s air is pervasive, inescapable. The sea is his mother and his father and there is a drowned man in the sea. “They are waiting for him now. The truth. Spit it out.” Death is the truth that is hidden in his mother’s womb of the sea, but also his father and God. And the father also become the dead man that the sea must spit out. The dog wants whatever is in that sea and he wants to sniff the death on the beach, but he must be more refined then that. He must be the fox who buries his grandmother. To burry is the right thing to do. But who watches anyway, God?
This creates an interesting dichotomy in this passage. Stephen speaks of how we are all born into the original sin of Eve; it is inescapable and, what dooms us to not ‘be a saint.’ Eve’s body was without the blemish of the navel; Mary was with out the blemish of sex also: Jesus was made not begotten. Stephen declares, perhaps futilely that he, like Jesus, although wombed in sin, was made and not begotten.
“I was made not begotten. By them, the man with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath. They clasped and sundered, did the coupler’s will. From before ages he willed me and may not will me away ever.”
He is a product of both randomness and the will of God. He exists because his parents copulated. They experienced the isolation and detachment that Stephen is feeling, so they joined with each other to access that “strandentwining cable of all flesh.” Also, in Christian theology, when a couple is married they are united together with God, and this sexual act could express that unity with God; Consequently, Stephen is the product of both the simple fuck that is only a continuation of original sin, body with blemish, but he is also a product of God, made and not begotten, ‘creation from nothing.’
In this passage his mother is referred to as the ghost woman with ashes on her breath. By describing her this way her death truly encompasses eternity; it is the present and the future, but also reaches into the past, a past that is dead; one cannot escape the modality of time and space. This is juxtaposed with the last quoted sentence in this passage, “He willed me and may not will me way ever.” This suggests eternal life, something the Christian god offers humanity in the bible; world without end.
We cannot escape the modality of time and space; we cannot return to time as if it is place. Again, this harkens back to the mutable past that was suggested in Nestor. However, place and objects seem mutable also: “A very short space of time through very short times of space.” Or rather, we are the ones that change in the inescapable modality of perception. Things exist and we try to “knock our sconce about them bodies before they are colored.”
This whole idea of color in the chapter is interesting. It seems that color is something emotive, subjective; it is outside the being or essence of the object; perhaps it is our perception of the object. Therefore, an object exists without color and we give it color. There is this sinking, drowning in all of our perceptions; a rhyme and reason develops: “Rhythm begins, you see.”
But still, all if this is ineluctable. How can we separate the self, the mind, and the ideal, with the external world? Stephen seems to prefer the ideal: “Open your eyes. No. Jesus!” Thought is as visible as anything. This accounts for Stephen’s tension between the ideal and the corporeal. He expresses detachment from his body: “My two feet in his boots are at the end of his legs.” His shoes are borrowed from Buck, and perhaps his legs also. He hears the tapping, but feels separated from this. Again, he moves and sinks without his will: the ineluctable modality.
Life and death coexist on the beach. There is a dead dog fondled by a living dog, which also alludes to the Telemachus episode, where Stephen refers to his body, the body he was given, as a dogsbody. Not only does the live dog fondle the dead, Stephen mouths the womb of his dead mother, the sea. “His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her womb.” The sea’s air is pervasive, inescapable. The sea is his mother and his father and there is a drowned man in the sea. “They are waiting for him now. The truth. Spit it out.” Death is the truth that is hidden in his mother’s womb of the sea, but also his father and God. And the father also become the dead man that the sea must spit out. The dog wants whatever is in that sea and he wants to sniff the death on the beach, but he must be more refined then that. He must be the fox who buries his grandmother. To burry is the right thing to do. But who watches anyway, God?
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Nestor
Mr. Deasy seems to be a believer in the accessibility of the past, as if, to use Plato’s metaphor, the mind is a wax tablet receiving an impression of our experiences, as if our brain files these away and we can refer back to the original impression. Deasy has many relics glorifying and legitimizing the past, a past that contains actual events and also a history of mythology (religion): paintings and spoons being one example. He is also a firm believer of the future; all of history moves toward one great goal, which is the manifestation of God.
One of the opening passages contradicts this idea, and speaks, from Stephen’s perspective, of a more mutable past.
“Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as memory fabled it… I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and time one livid final flame,” (24).
The frame work of the past slips though time, becoming inaccessible, but yet at the same time, there are ways to access at least an abstraction of it, as the student does when reading Lycidas. But, as soon as the passage is over, the child leans back having just remembered, and the memory slips away seconds after it is recalled, or created. The poem recalls Edward King, walking on the waves; it is a poem with a sort of mythic element about a man who actually lived, a mixture reminiscent of relics in Deasy’s office and of the children begging Stephen to tell them a ghost story during a history lesson.
However, these ideas of Stephen are mutable themselves, and he realizes that even though the past is out of reach, it creates a momentum that thrusts part of it into the future with the potential of giving him a back kick, a future that Deasy helps to create and Stephen works against (to ourselves…new paganism…omphalos…)
What is real then? Stephen ponders. Is it a mother’s love, a mother who has no choice but to love, and if there is no choice, is there value in that love? And either way, if it is of value or not, she can not be there every moment, on the hockey field or after she has died. The fox buries his dead mother.
There are other differences between Deasy and Stephen. Stephen sees humankind in the inescapable clutches of sin at every moment, while Deasy believes we are all born into the original sin of Eve, the sin of woman, and that the grace of the good lord will save us from that. God, to Stephen, is a cry on the soccer field. Deasy also believes in the value of form, money and even words. He can put meaning ‘in a nut shell’ where I don’t think Stephen could so easily trust words, they are mutable, like the past.
Money is something to be kept, to be put away, to Deasy. They are just empty shells in Stephen’s pocket. All of these objects, the spoon, the painting, the books, the money, they are symbols of ‘beauty and power’ to Deasy, but the are just a lump in Stephen’s pocket, symbols tainted by greed and misery.
One of the opening passages contradicts this idea, and speaks, from Stephen’s perspective, of a more mutable past.
“Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as memory fabled it… I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry, and time one livid final flame,” (24).
The frame work of the past slips though time, becoming inaccessible, but yet at the same time, there are ways to access at least an abstraction of it, as the student does when reading Lycidas. But, as soon as the passage is over, the child leans back having just remembered, and the memory slips away seconds after it is recalled, or created. The poem recalls Edward King, walking on the waves; it is a poem with a sort of mythic element about a man who actually lived, a mixture reminiscent of relics in Deasy’s office and of the children begging Stephen to tell them a ghost story during a history lesson.
However, these ideas of Stephen are mutable themselves, and he realizes that even though the past is out of reach, it creates a momentum that thrusts part of it into the future with the potential of giving him a back kick, a future that Deasy helps to create and Stephen works against (to ourselves…new paganism…omphalos…)
What is real then? Stephen ponders. Is it a mother’s love, a mother who has no choice but to love, and if there is no choice, is there value in that love? And either way, if it is of value or not, she can not be there every moment, on the hockey field or after she has died. The fox buries his dead mother.
There are other differences between Deasy and Stephen. Stephen sees humankind in the inescapable clutches of sin at every moment, while Deasy believes we are all born into the original sin of Eve, the sin of woman, and that the grace of the good lord will save us from that. God, to Stephen, is a cry on the soccer field. Deasy also believes in the value of form, money and even words. He can put meaning ‘in a nut shell’ where I don’t think Stephen could so easily trust words, they are mutable, like the past.
Money is something to be kept, to be put away, to Deasy. They are just empty shells in Stephen’s pocket. All of these objects, the spoon, the painting, the books, the money, they are symbols of ‘beauty and power’ to Deasy, but the are just a lump in Stephen’s pocket, symbols tainted by greed and misery.
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