Unlike many previous episodes, beginnings and endings in “Circe” are slightly less obvious. However, tracking these markers throughout the episode helps to decipher when one portion ends, and another begins. Due to the prevalence of hallucinations that take place throughout the episode, characters are not always introduced or blatantly described exiting. Instead, readers are sporadically given details that afford such information, but not reliably.

The beginning of the episode itself quickly brings to the forefront how this section of the novel will function. It becomes evident that this parenthetical portion serves a similar purpose to that of stage directions (and scene depictions) from theatrical scripts. As such, beginning the episode in this way immediately clues readers in to a change in perspective and writing form that will continue on throughout Circe.

Entrances and exits are presented in a similar parenthetical way, another clear marker of a beginning and/or ending. These moments of description such as, “He disappears into Olhausen’s” (15.155) and “He springs off into a vacuum” (15.2164), deliver certain contextual and characterizing details that describe the occurrences throughout this episode in clearer ways than have been seen formerly. In contrast to various previous episodes to this point, this feature specific to Episode 15 gives readers a slight upper hand in terms of understanding characters present and relevant. However, the unreliable nature of these indications nearly cancels out such an upper hand, in that keeping track of characters present is often more complicated than simply reading the parenthetical sections. This complication is epitomized by the periodic personification of objects such as “The Waterfall” (15.3347) or “The Fan” (15.2754), ‘characters’ that have no entrance (thus, no beginning) yet exist in speaking roles.

Similarly to other episodes, “Circe” complicates the understanding of parentage and fatherhood. In discussing such in the context of beginnings and endings, these themes inherently relate to the process of birth and new life. While various moments throughout this episode call this idea to mind, the discussion of Bloom as a mother specifically does so: “He is about to have a baby” (15.1818) and “I so want to be a mother” (15.1817). This scene continues on to complicate further the idea of lineage by stating, “Moses begat Noah begat Noah begat Eunuch[…]” (15. 1855). Not only is the lineage of Bloom’s family being complicated, but also beginnings and endings and middles of historically significant families as well.

A theme that has seemed particularly relevant to the exploration of beginnings and endings, is the ways in which this novel toys with the ideas of life (as the beginning of life) and death (as the ending of life). “Circe” is no exception to this trend, rather, it builds upon it. In contextualizing the amount of time until Bloom can be told a particular joke, Zoe uses references to moment of life (marriages) and death as a timespan: “Before you’re twice married and once a widower” (15.3833). In keeping with the idea of death as a significant life marker, this episode has continued using it an acceptable and specific way of keeping track of life. Similarly, in all the chaos of the last sections of this chapter, Stephen’s drunken ambitions are made surprisingly explicit: “it is I must kill the priest and the king” (15.4436-7). Stephen may not be able to get across much coherently, but this is a substantial exception.

Lastly, on the theme of death and endings, it seems incredibly important to point out the presence of Rudy. In an episode filled with hallucinations and improbabilities, it would not have been surprising if a deceased character returns (–in fact one does). However, there seems to be a certain emphasis put on the return of Bloom’s son, in that it comes at the end. While he has no ‘lines,’ this ending has almost served a oppositional dualistic purpose: it has restarted (new beginning) a life, and re-introduced Rudy as a ‘living’ character…at the end.

This episode featured an unusual format, in that it resembled a play, with each character’s speech being preceded by their name. This different formatting allowed for inanimate objects to have a “voice” as well, which was particularly interesting to my obsession of the unspoken, as these inanimate objects truly cannot speak.

Other than the moment where Stephen speaks to his hat and it replies, the other instances are usually objects that speak sort of nonsense sounds or nonsense words. The Bells say “haltyaltyaltyall” (15.181), which is later followed by The Soap singing “We’re a capital couple are Bloom and I. He brightens the earth. I polish the sky” (15.338-9). Almost all of the examples that I found seem to fall into these two categories; the objects either simply “spoke” a sound they were likely to make, or they said some short little nonsense sentence. The objects that said little phrases were far more interesting, but I was unable to discern a pattern from them.

Below are some more examples of inanimate objects speaking, specifically the second category I mentioned, where they say a short nonsensical phrase:

• The Wreaths: Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of Sin (15.656)
• A Deadhand: (writes on the wall) Bloom is a cod (15.1871)
  • unsure if this actually might be a person?
• The Buckles: Love me. Love me not. Love me (15.2009)
• The Gramaphone:Jerusalem! Open your gates and sing Hosanna(15.2171-3)

I, and I’m sure hundreds of others first exposed to Circe, found the episode to be thoroughly challenging due to the rambling and random nature of Bloom’s various dramatic hallucinations.

However, despite the section’s experimental strangeness, I was able to parse out some possible topics of discussion that relate to Bloom’s Judaism. Previously in class, we talked about how Bloom’s Jewishness distanced himself from much of the Irish populace despite the fact Ireland was his home. This episode once more taps into that conflict of identity, but in a more flustered and anxious manner, Bloom being affronted in multiple different hallucinated scenarios.

Even though Circe is an utterly unclear episode, I believe it allows a deeper inspection into Bloom’s character and some of the seeded insecurities that orient his position as an other in Ireland. Not only is Bloom not ethnically Irish, but he is also culturally removed from his Jewishness, “Are you not my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold who left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham and Jacob?” (15 U. 260-262).

Much of Circe’s hallucinations involve Bloom being accused of various unsavory behaviors and characteristics, a cuckold, an anarchist, even a woman according to Buck Mulligan. Based upon Joyce’s description of Bloom’s identity, these imagined persecutions seem to originate from Bloom’s abjectly diffident demeanor.

In an effort to understand Episode 15 of Ulysses, unfortunately, looking at the mess through sports and competition offers few answers to the many questions and great confusion created by the text. I’ve been noticing a trend in this episode that is somewhat similar to previous episodes, where mentions of sports/competition, which up to this point there are roughly a handful of in episode 15, pop up as brief little islands in the text, appearing in a sentence only to be quickly forgotten. As a result, until I can make additional conclusions about the purpose of these references more generally in the whole text, I aim to understand some of the references in the text now on an isolated level.

In Episode 15, Joyce brings us two cyclists racing past Bloom (15.179), but the fact that cyclists are included is diminished considering that “urchins” are what alerts Bloom of their coming. The topic of cycling later returns at line 233, when Bloom makes reference to the Irish Cyclist publication.  A few lines after the urchins, we have what might be a merely coincidental sports terms, when the Motorman mentions “Are you doing the hat trick?” (15. 194). Thinking about the reference to one player scoring three goals  alone, however, does not make much sense immediately in the context of the quote.

One of the more substantive moments of competition occurs at line 277, when Bloom mentions “They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I slipped.” Instead of claiming and owning up to his loss, Bloom blames his athletic shortcomings, and likely perceived lack of masculinity and strength on the quality of the ground. In this instance, the theme of Bloom’s masculinity in question continues to reappear, as we have seen in previous episodes.

Another instance of note, and one of the last competitive moments so far is the highly ironic horse racing conversation around line 547, where Bloom talks about Molly winning seven shillings on a horse named “Nevertell.” This name is especially ironic that she is deemed a winner with “Nevertell,” given that she’s never explicitly told Bloom about her affair with Boylan, but still can seem to “win” by being able to maintain both relationships.

Since this episode is narrated largely through drunken hallucinations, I had to rely on the Bloomsday book to keep track of exactly what was happening in terms of specific narrative identities.

I’m interested in looking more at the moment on line 2491 where “Virag truculent, his jowl set, stares at the lamp. Grave Bloom regards Zoe’s neck. Henry gallant turns with pedant dewlap to the piano.” Blamires describes this moment as “the Bloom trinity” made up of “Bloom the knowledgable (Virag) … Bloom the grave … and Bloom the gallant (Henry)” (179). By viewing the individuals in Bloom’s hallucinations as projections of his own different self-identities, the character of Bloom becomes more complex and it becomes harder to understand him as one cohesive identity. By witnessing Bloom respond to the (hallucinated) personal critiques of different individuals in his life, we get the idea that his identity shifts depending on the circumstances in which he finds himself.

I’m also interested in looking at the different Blooms that appear in his first two hallucinations — Bloom on trial (“I am a man misunderstood” (l. 775)) and Bloom the politician (“I, Bloom, tell you verily it is even now at hand” (l. 1541)). Both of these Blooms use first person narration, but the specific identities diverge from each other.

“Why, look at the man’s private life! Leading a quadruple existence! Street angel and house devil” (l. 852)

“He addressed me in several handwritings” (l. 1045)

Forms

organ, organisation, organise, organiser, streetorgan, mouthorgan, organgrinder, organism, organic, organtoned, stillorgan

Related Terms

Flesh, Host

Explication

In Ulysses, the word organ takes on many different meanings, from musical, to scientific, to sexual, with the ambiguity between these meanings highlighting the blurring between the bodily and the artistic/spiritual in the novel. The very first sentence about Leopold Bloom in Ulysses characterizes him as someone who “ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls”(4.1). This is also the book’s first occurrence of the word organ, here in its most fleshly sense as “a part of an animal or plant body that serves a particular physiological function”(OED).

Definitions and Examples

I. Organ, n. (OED n.1 2a) A musical instrument (usually large) consisting of a number of pipes, supplied with compressed air, sounded by keys, which on being pressed down let air into the pipes by opening valves.

“Not going to be any music. Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make that instrument talk, the vibrato: fifty pounds a year they say he had in Gardiner street”(5.394-397)

II. Organ, n. (OED n.1 3a) With distinguishing word. Any of various instruments resembling an organ in sound or construction. See also barrel organ n., hand organ n., mouth organ n. 1b.

“The noise of two shrill voices, a mouthorgan, echoed in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted on the doorsteps”(7.425-426)

III. Organ, n. (OED n.1 5c)  A periodical which serves as the mouthpiece of a particular political party, cause, movement, etc.

“HOW A GREAT DAILY ORGAN IS TURNED OUT”(7.84)

IV. Organ, n. (OED n.1 7a) A part of an animal or plant body that serves a particular physiological function

“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls”(4.1-2)

V. Organ, n. (OED n.1 8) The human organs of speech; the human voice.

“Sure, you’d burst the tympanum of her ear, man, Mr Dedalus said through smoke aroma, with an organ like yours”(11.536-537)

VI. Organ, n. (OED n.1 10)  The penis.

“The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would, according to the best approved tradition of medical science, be calculated to inevitably produce in the human subject a violent ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres of the genital apparatus, thereby causing the elastic pores of the corpora cavernosa to rapidly dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood to that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or male organ resulting in the phenomenon which has been denominated by the faculty a morbid upwards and outwards philoprogenitive erection in articulo mortis per diminutionem capitis”(12.468-478)

VII. Organise, v. (OED v. 2d-e) To make arrangements or preparations for.

“—My wife? says Bloom. She’s singing, yes. I think it will be a success too. He’s an excellent man to organise. Excellent”(12.994-995)

VIII. Organisation, n. (OED n. 4a) An organized body of people with a particular purpose.

“How long since your last mass? Glorious and immaculate virgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul. More interesting if you understood what it was all about. Wonderful organisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants to”(5.421-425)

IX. Organism, n. (OED n. 3a) An individual animal, plant, or single-celled life form.

“His project, as he went on to expound, was to withdraw from the round of idle pleasures such as form the chief business of sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town and to devote himself to the noblest task for which our bodily organism has been framed”(14.650-654)

X. Organic, adj. (OED adj. 2b) Having the characteristics of a living organism

Related Topics

Bodies, Music, Medicine, Science, Politics & Media

Tooth

Forms 

toothless, toothache, toothsome, gaptoothed, toothed, buckteeth, dental, dentist

Related Terms

shell

Explication

Teeth are mentioned many times over the course of Ulysses. Most notably, Buck Mulligan frequently refers to Stephen as “toothless Kinch.” Stephen also muses on his poor dental hygeine in Episode III: “My teeth are very bad. Why, I wonder. Feel. That one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to a dentist, I wonder, with that money?”

Throughout the text, teeth serve as symbols of power and carnality [cite annotation from Ep. 1]. In Episode II, Stephen refers to stone lions as “toothless terrors.” When Bloom is disgusted by the meat-eating men in Laestrygonians, he observes how one man has “no teeth to chewchewchew it.” Blazes Boylan keeps a red rose “between his smiling teeth” (10.?).

Teeth are also frequently associated with animals throughout the text. In Episode 5 Bloom encounters a horse’s “gently champing teeth,” and in Episode 3 he contemplates his cat’s “milkwhite teeth.”

Teeth also serve as indicators of health and hygiene (In Episode I, Buck Mulligan describes Ireland as a “country full of rotten teeth and rotten guts”).

Definitions and Examples

I. tooth, n (OED 1.a) “In plural, the hard processes within the mouth, attached (usually in sockets) in a row to each jaw in most vertebrates except birds (but also in some extinct birds), having points, edges, or grinding surfaces, and serving primarily for biting, tearing, or trituration of solid food, and secondarily as weapons of attack or defence, and for other purposes; in singular, each of these individually.”

“Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the red flower between his smiling teeth.” (10.?)

(OED 2.b) “Referring to biting or gnawing; hence denoting a hurtful, hostile, destructive, or devouring agency or quality.”

“Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail.” (8.?)

(OED 3.a) “As an artificial structure, in an implement, machine, etc.; e.g. one of the pointed projections of a comb, saw, file, rake, harrow, fork, etc.; a prong, tine; one of the series of projections on the edge of a wheel, pinion, etc., which engage with corresponding ones on another; a cog.”

“He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth.” (15.?)

“Eeltraps, lobsterpots, fishingrods, hatchet, steelyard, grindstone, clodcrusher, swatheturner, carriagesack, telescope ladder, 10 tooth rake, washing clogs, haytedder, tumbling rake, billhook, paintpot, brush, hoe and so on.” (17.?)

Gold

1. The most precious metal: characterized by a beautiful yellow colour, non-liability to rust, high specific gravity, and great malleability and ductility. Chemical symbol Au.
2. The metal regarded as a valuable possession or employed as a medium of exchange; hence, cold coin; also in rhetorical use, money in large sums, wealth.
3. fig. With allusion to the brilliancy, beauty, and transcendent preciousness of gold. Often in phr. Of gold = golden adj. heart of gold: a noble-hearted person; a kind and noble heart.

a. the metal as employed for coating a service, or as a pigment; gilding.

4. The metal as used for the ornamentation of textile fabrics; gold thread; in early use often with the place of manufacture specified.
5. The colour of the metal: a bright golden yellow.
6. Archery. The gilt centre or bulls-eye of a target. To make a gold: to hit the bulls-eye.

“Gold” appears in several contexts throughout Ulysses: as a noun, it’s synonymous with money and wealth; i.e., Dedalus goes to Deasy’s “strongroom for the gold” (29), where he’s lectured (very pompously) on the value of saving money. As an adjective, it’s used for lyrical, almost pastoral descriptions of the sea and surroundings: the “gold light on the sea” complements the “slender trees” and “lemon houses” Dedalus walks by (42); he thinks of “a girl with gold hair on the wind” (61), “tumbled beauties, shattering with gold teeth chaussons of pastry” (42), and “Danevikings, torcs of tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the collar of gold” (45). In each mention, gold is associated with opulence—the decadence of gold teeth and pastry—or loot, like Deasy’s strongroom or the Danevikings’ plunder. Death floats around some of these allusions: “It’s all the same,” Bloom thinks on the way to the funeral. “Palbearers, gold reins…pomp of death” (100). The use of the word ‘gold’ seems to gild the concept of death and decay, but the effect is one that heightens rather than eases the narrative’s descriptions of death. “Poetical idea pink, then golden, then grey, then black…Day, then the night,” thinks Bloom (69). Even the idealized “greengoldenly lagoons” Dedalus notices on his walk seem indicative of an idealized decay and sickness that pervades his conception of Ireland.

CROWN (line numbers forthcoming)

Forms

crown, crowns, crowned, crowning, Crown

Related terms

head, royal, coronation, king

Explication

Crown is used in a wealth of different ways in Ulysses. While the definition with the largest number of uses is 8 (the coin), it only makes up one-fourth of the total uses. Many of its usages evoke the British monarchy – there are lots of mentions of “the crown” and the Crown” which are both synecdoches that refer directly to British rule. More symbolically, Bloom’s “sham crown Derby” teacup – a gift from Milly – is mentioned four separate times. Crown Derby is a real English porcelain manufacturer which is still in business today.

Crown also tends to carry a spiritual association – “crown of thorns,” “saint Stephen’s iron crown,” etc. Considering this double association – with English royalty and with Christian religion – crowns and crowning seem to be tied to national (and personal) identity.

An interesting property of crown is that it has a range of definitions wide enough that it can almost be considered one of the self-opposite words that we’ve discussed Joyce being so fond of. Crown can be used to represent the highest power in a country (and perhaps the world), but it can also denote something as common and working class as the foam on the top of a glass of beer. Similarly, while only one person in a nation can wear the crown as it refers to monarchy, everyone in a nation possesses a crown as it refers to the top of one’s head.

Definitions and Examples

(n.) 1. An ornament for the head, and immediately derived senses. (also: Christian crown of thorns)

“Crown of thorns and cross.”

(n.) 2. A wreath or circular ornament for the head symbolizing victory.

“And all came with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae, bearing palms and harps and swords and olive crowns…”

(n.) 3. The sovereignty, authority, or dominion of which a royal crown is the symbol; the rule, position, or empire of a monarch.

“The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said.”

(n.) 4.  fig. Something which adorns or adds distinction like a crown; a chief or crowning ornament or achievement.

“But Gerty’s crowning glory was her wealth of wonderful hair.”

(n.) 5. Esp. in names of constellations: a group of stars likened to a crown; usu. with distinguishing word or phrase; spec. = Northern Crown

“Whence, disappearing from the constellation of the Northern Crown he would somehow reappear reborn above delta in the constellation of Cassiopeia…”

(n.) 6. The top part of the skull; the top of the head.

“He put his boot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along it, and bent, showing a rawskinned crown, scantily haired.”

(n.) 7. The top part of a hat or other covering for the head.

“The sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto’s high grade ha.”

(n.) 8. Any of various coins, originally one bearing the imprint of a crown. b. A British or English coin (latterly silver) with a face value of five shillings or (now) 25 pence, now minted only for commemorative purposes. Hence: a monetary unit based on this, the sum of five shillings (now hist.).

“”He shot from it two crowns and two shillings.”

(n.) 9. In reference to the Royal Crown Derby Porcelain Company, the oldest remaining English porcelain manufacturer. (not found in OED)

“He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown Derby, smiling.”

(v.) 10. To place a crown, coronet, etc., on the head of, as a symbol of newly acquired sovereignty or royal status; to invest with sovereignty or regal power by coronation. Also: to place a crown, etc., on or around (the head).

“…he reflected about the errors of notorieties and crowned heads running counter to morality such as the Cornwall case a number of years before…”

(v.) 11. To cover, surround, or occupy the head or summit of, as a crown does, usu. so as to add beauty or dignity.

“The face of William Shakespeare, beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.”

(v.) 12. To add the finishing touch to; to be the triumphant culmination of.

“Davy Stephens, minute in a large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with a roll of papers under his cape, a king’s courier.”

Bar

Forms:

Bar (N), Bar (V), Bars (N)

Related:

Barmaid, Fivebarred, Debarred

Explication:

Bar appears in terms of its musical definition as a unit of measurement of a written piece of music. It has a literal meaning as a physical line used to measure music on a page, as well as is used to refer to a section in recital. In this form, it is used as “He drones bars of Ferrando’s aria di sortita,” (U. 3.) to refer to the brief excerpt whistled to Stephen, not written on a page. The frequent act of recalling and singing brief pieces of songs tends to invoke this use of the word, even if Joyce does not explicitly use it.

Bar is used frequently in Episode 12 to refer to The Bar in a legal sense, as a profession. An amalgamation of this meaning and the musical meaning is found in the moment when the Irish singer Caruso Garibaldi is described, and it is said that “His superb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly enhanced his already international reputation, was vociferously applauded by the large audience among which were to be noticed many prominent members of the clergy as well as representatives of the press and the bar and the other learned professions” (U. 12). Here, the obvious use of the bar is in reference to the profession. However, in describing the skill of this singer, saying that other musicians, or representatives of the bar in this different sense of the word also noticed his skill would also get the point of his skill across.

OED Definitions:

16. Music. ‘A vertical line drawn across the stave to divide a musical composition into portions of equal duration, and to indicate the periodical recurrence of the accent’ (F. Taylor in Grove Dict. Music); also, the portion contained between two such lines, technically called the ‘measure.’ double bar: two parallel vertical lines, marking the close of a strain or section. attrib. in bar-line.

†24. A barrier or partition separating the seats of the benchers or readers from the rest of the hall, to which students, after they had attained a certain standing, were ‘called’ from the body of the hall, for the purpose of taking a principal part in the mootings or exercises of the house. Obs. See barrister n.   Hence the phrases:— to be called to the bar: to be admitted a barrister. †to cast over the bar: to deprive of the status of a barrister, to disbar; gen. to reject.¶After 1600, when utter-barristers, as well as sergeants and apprentices-at-law were allowed to plead in the law-courts, bar in these phrases seems to have been popularly assumed to mean the bar in a court of justice, outside of which ordinary barristers appear to plead, while King’s Counsel and Sergeants-at-Law have places within it. Hence the mod. phrase to be called within the bar: to be appointed King’s (or Queen’s) Counsel.