While\u00a0my last post about Beginnings and Endings lacked any specific reference to the actual beginning or ending of each episode, this week it seemed particularly important to at least touch upon the beginning and ending of Episode 7 (Aeolus). Specifically, the item being discussed (tramcars), as well as the parallel nature of the beginning and ending of the episode, seemed to emphasize the overall\u00a0concept\u00a0of a beginnings and an endings (and often how similar they can be). Episode 7 begins by listing\u00a0the different places these tramcars go as well as describing the audible exclamations of their destinations. If it wasn’t evident that there is a double emphasis of beginnings at the opening of this portion, the “timekeeper[‘s]” announcement of “Start, Palmerston Park!” (7.13) surely\u00a0brings to the forefront of how this is the beginning of a journey (actually starting travelling somewhere). Correspondingly, the end of Episode 7 also brings up the image of tramcars, however at this point they are “motionless,” “all still,” and, “becalmed in short circuit” (7.1043-1047). While this portion of the novel began with references to movement and starts, the ending does an expected opposite.<\/p>\n
Another aspect that tied in closely with my exploration of beginnings and endings was how characters entered and exited the room. Because the episode was largely\u00a0theatric in terms of the constant dialogue and flow of characters,\u00a0the fact that entrances were so prominent seemed to be an important contributor to characterization. For example, when Bloom enters the office of the “Evening Telegraph”<\/em> (7. 235) it is explained as “He entered softly.” Although we know that he has a specific task to accomplish and a reasoning for being in this setting, the ways in which he enters a busy situation says a lot about his character–desire to avoid\u00a0being any sort of bother upon entrance. Such characterization seems even more apparent when put in contrast to both the entrance and consequential characterization of J.J. O’Molloy: “The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door was pushed in” (7.280-281). Clearly, this ‘beginning’ (the beginning of our understanding of this character) is indicative of the kind of awareness O’Molloy has of his surroundings and others.<\/p>\n The last example\u00a0is much less obvious but seems crucial to the examination of beginnings and endings. It is the moment during which Bloom is recounting the past and begins asking himself questions pertaining to the permanence of time (and death). First, death as an ending comes up again when the narration (Bloom) states: “When we left Lombard street west something changed. Could never like it again after Rudy” (8.609-610), thus reiterating the recurring theme of death as an ending in multiple ways. However, the permanence that comes along with the connotations death carries is complicated when Bloom ponders: “Would you go back to then?” In a discussion of beginnings and endings, the idea\u00a0one or the other being less than a completely permanent concept is something to look out for moving forward in the novel.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While\u00a0my last post about Beginnings and Endings lacked any specific reference to the actual beginning or ending of each episode, this week it seemed particularly important to at least touch upon the beginning and ending of Episode 7 (Aeolus). Specifically, the item being discussed (tramcars), as well as the parallel nature of the beginning and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}