James Joyce: chapter 6 of Ulysses, Appunti di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica James Joyce: chapter 6 of Ulysses e più Appunti in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! The analysis of the novel Ulysses is one of the masterpieces of modern literature, it deconstructs everything that any reader of a traditional English novel would be accustomed to find in. The novel takes place in one single day (the 16'" of June 1904). This is also a rewriting of Homer's Odyssey (the title is clearly a reference), even though the rewrite is vague. The odyssey is the arch text, which Joyce has in mind. The main character is Leopold Bloom, a Dubliner of 38 years old, his profession is that of canvasser, he writes some advertisements for the journal of Dublin called the Freeman's journal. Ulysses is the epic of the Irish race, (Greek nation for Ulysses in the Odyssey), the epic hero should be a representative of the race, the nation that the epic poem is about to celebrate. The protagonist Bloom is a very peculiar and unorthodox epic hero, he belongs to the class of fundancy (fondi), no heroism which the epic hero is connected to. He is a very untypical Dubliner and Irish man. He's the son of a Jewish father from Hungary (his name was Rudolf Virag). So, Bloom is an antitypical Dubliner. He becomes catholic to marry his wife. He is a converted Christian but his identity, his culture, his mind is deeply Jewish (this is something that Joyce took from Trieste, Joyce took a lot of elements from Trieste to create Bloom). It is a well-established idea that Leopold Bloom is essentially a crypto-triestino. The 80% of Bloom is taken from Italo Svevo’s personal situation. Molly, his wife is also of mixed blood, she is half Jewish, half Spanish, half catholic. She was born in Gibraltar. Two episodes are connected to death and which he opens up in his stream of consciousness: » First episode is the death of his own son, Rudy (Rudolf, the same name of his granddad) who dies 11 days after being born. The loss of the male son is one of the motives that run through the book. They have a daughter, who is studying to become a photographer (vanguard for the time) outside Dublin Second episode is the other event connected to death, namely the suicide of his own father (the reason is unexplained). Rudolf Virag (Virag means bocciolo in Hungarian, such as bloom in English). His father, like many immigrants, translated his own name into English (here, the issue of identity is very strong). The translation of one's name in another language was typical of Ireland. In Trieste (multi-ethnic free port) name v changing was a practice too. Changing the name was a problematic thing from the point of view of identity and choice. So, each episode has a title, which derives from the Homeric poem, for example Telemachia has 3 episodes and it's centred on Stephen; then there is the central part from episode 4 called Calypso to episode 15 called Circe (the episode of brothel -bordello-); the final part is from episode 16 to episode 18 called Nostos and it's about the returning home. The space and the day in the novel On 16* of June nothing much happens, just one day in the life of everyman. Bloom is not an epic hero. The most relevant event that takes place is that Molly Bloom is going to betray him at 4.30 in the afternoon. Bloom is aware it is going to happen, and this is one of the reasons why he spends a day away from home. His journey of walking and doing things is equivalent of Ulysses’ Odyssey = Odyssey transposed into the contemporary Dublin of the beginning of the century. This novel is spatial: the space of Dublin city is not only walked through by many characters in the novel, but it is also obsessively described by the text. Minute, precise description of Dublin city. You need to have a map of Dublin to follow the characters. Walking the city (like De Certeau studied) is the main human activity in the book. Following Bloom and every single (symbolic) place of the XX century city is inserted in the novel (home, newspaper office, school, a church, the graveyard, hospital, the bordel, the streets, home again). Episode VI : Hades The episode 6 is the part of the odyssey and the title is a Homeric correspondence. Hades. The plot is: Bloom attends a funeral of an acquaintance, namely Paddy Dignam (not very personal death), but the episode is centred to the whole story, it's focused upon the events of human death, and Bloom is focused on this concept / event. The episode is divided into 2 parts: >» the first part is about the carriage journey from the house of the dead to the graveyard >» the second part is the funeral inside the graveyard This journey corresponds to the catalyst of the epic hero (descent into the world of the dead, into hades, the underworld). In Greek classical culture, entering the world of the dead was the most risky and dangerous adventure that any epic hero could perform. Odyssey, Enea, Teseo and Orfeo made it. physical elements of our life (wound, blood, decomposing stuff, specific smells and especially the most extreme abject) that exits in human experience is the corpse. So, the corpse is the most powerful form of abjection, and this is so because we feel repulsion, fear, horror, pshysically sick in front of the corpse. This concept of the abject in Hades is almost subverted. The corpse is not that source of repulsion and attraction (as with the sublime there's a sort of game of repulsion, curiosity and attraction). It is interesting that Hades begins with reflecting on a corpse, and on this idea that women in his vision are somehow interested in corpses. So, in this part, women are glad to see us die as male. It's a classic attitude of Bloom’s mind. Job seems to suit them. Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipper-slappers for fear he'd wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming making the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know who will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grow all the same after. Unclean job. Job consist on the preparation of the body for the funeral. Huggermugger is who moves around quiet. Everything here is fictionalized, Bloom is imagining a movie. Women were slopping about with slippers slappers. There is an element of Gothicism: women carrying the body corpse. Trying to keep it quiet, as if the corpse could wake up. Getting ready : we are imagining the preparation of the corpse for the ritual of the funeral through Bloom’s stream of consciousness. This is a pre-ritual concerning death. Molly and Mrs. Fleming making the bed : for Rudy, for the corpse. Molly is making the bed, maybe not a death bed. Never know who will touch you dead : such as Thomas Gray, probably Bloom is thinking about his own death. Wash and shampoo, I believe they clip the nails and the hair : you wash it and you shampoo it, also you clip the nails because they keep growing after death. In this part, a lot of elements concerning death / corpses / corpses after dead / who's going to wash you. Unlike Thomas Gray, here the focus is on the materiality, the corpse. All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap in my hip pocket. Better shift it out of that. Wait for an opportunity. The 4 men wait a long time. All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front turning: then nearer: then horses' hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of the avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At walking pace. The funeral cortege begins, so here begins the trip to cross Dublin. From this moment, the book describes the journey with details. They move alone with the carriage and be yourself in the carriage: Martin Cunningham is saying what is the route (Irishtown, Ringsend, Brunswick street). That's a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died out. All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by passers. Respect. Mr Dedalus comment that is a fine old costume to lowering the windows and lift up the hats. Here we have some reflexions on death and on rituals of death. Respect, relationship between living and the dead. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the smoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, clad in mourning, a wide hat. They are going through Dublin (in the tramtrack) and Bloom sees a little young man, namely Stephen. There's a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said. -- Who is that? -- Your son and heir. -- Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across. Ulysses by Homer talks about meeting the protagonists. So, here Stephen is son and heir of Mr Dedalus (whose name is Simon): they are connected, they represent the father and the son and his wife the spirit (in a religious way). His real father (Simon) does not see Stephen but Bloom sees him. There's a reflexion of Simon about his son: he didn't see him, but Bloom did... Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power's mild face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange feeling it would be. From me This thing inspires in Bloom the memory of his own son, who died prematurely. So, he thinks about Rudy, about what have been like if he lived. We have some parallels with Thomas Gray: what could have been and was not (one of the forms of death). Must have been that morning in Raymond terrace she was at the window, watching the two dogs at it by the wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning up. She had that cream gown on with the rip she never stitched. Give us a touch, Poldy. God, I'm dying for it. How life begins. Bloom tries to remember the night he had sex with his wife (it was morning, she was looking out of the window and saw two dogs copulating, she had desire for sex). No detail is casual: we have an old woman looking out at the funeral and then a young woman looking out of the window. The first is looking at death; the second one is looking at two dogs having sex (origin of life). Here we have death and life (birth) always connected. A discourse of death which is always a discourse of life. Life and death are connected. It is a circular vision of human life and history. A living son, he thinks of a dead son and then of birth. This circle will continue throughout the book and the episode. Give us a touch, Poldy. God, I'm dying for it. How life begins : Molly here is very sensual, but she had sex with another man. Molly and Bloom have not had sex since the death of Rudy 11 years before prima. 11 is the number of Rudy. Bloom clearly understands her betrayal, it is connected to this element of absence of intercourse between himself and his wife. Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her. I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn German too. Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she's a dear girl. Soon be a woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too. Life. Life. He remembers her pregnancy and even Molly, who's a singer, had to refuse a concert because, as Bloom said, my son inside her. He's thinking about a life with this son: he wanted him to be indipendent and wanted him to learn German. Bloom, in this case, supports the thoughts of death and also makes them thought of life the comedian proclaims the precedence of life over the principle of death which is tragic (the comic has the last words). Bloom jumps from ideas or situations connected to death to the very opposite: theme of life, conception and birth. The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying. Then we have a small talk: they talk about how the carriage is so uncomfortable. Undertaken: pompe funebri. Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better. Mr Bloom's glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scanning the deaths. Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what Peake is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne's? no, Sexton, Urbright. Inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper. Thanks to the Little Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief of his. Aged 88 after a long and tedious illness. Month's mind. Quinlan. On whose soul Sweet Jesus have mercy. Here the text begins to take the form of an obituary (necrologi), yet another of those rituals that we automatically go through when someone dies. It is a public announcement, that involves the public for a death which Ariès has somehow investigated. They have their own language, there are specific formulas which we use when we write them. They have their own style that we adopt when we publish. An extremely intense representation of people dying: inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper (alliteration, the idea of the spirit). Thanks to little flower. Sadly missed : snipped of fragments of obituary language. I tore up the envelope? : representation of public death practice which is the writing of an obituary. How death, the dying is represented in these specific texts. Obituaries are texts, with a language that nobilities after-life and the dead. Again, in obituaries the word “dead” is never mentioned, it is tabood. We go through metaphors: highly metaphorical language. Why? What does this express? What sort of cultural (forbidden death, Ariès) is forbidden? It's the element related to social language: language is so socially and culturally connoted. Obituary are an example of this. Where did I put her letter after I read it in the bath? He patted his waistcoat pocket. There all right. Dear Henry fled. Before my patience are exhausted. Henry is what inspires the next part of Bloom'’s stream of consciousness. Henry is the name he uses in his erotic correspondence with a woman, Martha (they do not each other), he adulteries in a textual form. They have this form of adultery. He receives the letter (in the morning, he went to the post-office, he has read the letter in a previous chapter and the name he uses is Henry Flower. Something gothic: Henry is a dead in that part. He tores it up because he doesn't want Molly to find it. He takes out Martha'’s letter: she is not well educated, she makes language mistakes. It becomes part of the comic part of the book. National school. Meade's yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding. Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round with a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their hats. A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a tramway standard by Mr Bloom's window. Couldn't they invent something automatic so that the wheel itself much handler? Well but that fellow would lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job making the new invention? Antient concert rooms. Nothing on there. A man in a buff suit with a crape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law, perhaps. The hazard : costeggio delle carrozze. Then, he sees a pointsman’s back (addetto agli scambi, tirava la leva per il tram). The ancient concert rooms : the advertisement for musical, concert, comedies, her songs. Plasto's. Sir Philip Crampton’s memorial fountain bust. Who was he? How do you do? -- Who? Mr Dedalus asked. -- Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff. Molly is a singer, Blazes Boylan is the entrepreneur who organizes a concert. Philipp Crampton is a statues. Image, icon of someone who was alive and is dead. Bloom, in this case, is feeling something that is shocking: it’s like a dejavu. The other 3 occupants of the carriage see places in the street. Bloom thinks about the man with whom his wife is betraying him and he appears. Just that moment I was thinking. Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: passed. Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right hand. The nails, yes. Joyce here represents the moments when you are embarrassed and you divert the mind to something painless. We already encounter nails when Mrs Fleming (connected to death) cut the nails of the corpse, which is prepared for the burial (shampoo and cut the nails). It's a very tight, precise architecture that he prepares. Nails are neutral and are connected to death. He remembers his wife body: she's getting old and soft, and it’s a sign of time passing that is a message that she's approaching death. The three men begin to ask him question about his wife, because they saw the man with whom she cheats on Bloom, so these 3 men start asking some questions about her. People are aware of what is happening. He is aware himself too. Smith O'Brien. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there. Woman. Must be his deathday. For many happy returns. The carriage wheeling by Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees. Smith O'Brien is another statue. All the statues are figure of Irish nationalism. It is also a political statement: all that is left of Irish nationalism are the statues. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers : more ritual of death. Women are in Bloom's mind naturally connected to death and rituals. He keeps thinking about Molly. His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's goodlooking face. Greyish over the ears. Madame: smiling. Ismiled back. A smile does a long way. Only politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the woman he keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it told me, there is no carnal. You would imagine that would get played out pretty quick. Yes, it was Crofton met him one evening bringing her a pound of rumpsteak. What is this she was? Barmaid in Jury's. Or the Moira, was it? They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator's form. Why they are mentioning Molly after seeing that man? They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator’s form: a little bit as Garibaldi. Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power. A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the corner of Elvery's elephant house showed them a curved hand open on his spine. This figure bent on a stick. He's a Jew, that's the moment of the tribune Reuben J. The anti-Semitic atmosphere begins. Immediately after the insult of the horns that his wife makes him (she cheats on him), it comes a more important attack from the point of view of identity that has to do with the fact that he's Jewish. Mr Bloom began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions' faces. -- That's an awfully good one that's going the rounds about Reuben J. and the son. -- About the boatman? Mr Power asked. -- Yes. Isn't it awfully good? -- What is that? Mr Dedalus asked. I didn't hear it. -- There was a girl in the case, Mr Bloom began, and he determined to send him to the isle of Man out of harm's way but when they were both... -- What? Mr Dedalus asked. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it? -- Yes, Mr Bloom said. They were both on the way to the boat and he tried to drown... -- Drown Barabbas! Mr Dedalus cried. I wish to Christ he did! Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils. -- No, Mr Bloom said the son himself... Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely. -- Reuben J. and the son were piking it down the quay next the river on their way to the isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly got loose and over the wall with him into the Liffey.