In tracking the narrative paths of both Stephen and Bloom over the course of the novel, I found it notable that in Circe, particularly in the final scene, both men finally exist together within the same narrative and physical space.<\/p>\n
After being totally emasculated by his hallucinatory interactions with Bello in the second half of the episode, Bloom reclaims his masculinity in the \u201creal time\u201d narrative by taking on a father-like role toward Stephen at the end of the episode. Bloom’s paternalistic instincts lead him care for Stephen, and he \u201c(undoes the buttons of Stephen\u2019s waistcoat) <\/em>To breathe\u201d (l. 4936), and caring for Stephen leads him to hallucinate an image of his own son (\u201cRudy!\u201d [l. 4961]). Bloom appears quite powerful at the conclusion of the episode as he \u201cstands erect \u2026 holding the hat and ashplant\u201d (l. 4945). Bloom\u2019s masculinity seems to be in part fueled by the possession of the physical ashplant \u2013 \u201cthe ashplant marks his stride\u201d as he leads the \u201cpack of bloodhounds\u201d (l. 4328) \u2013 implying that Bloom\u2019s masculine identity is materially dependent on Stephen\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n While in previous chapters Stephen\u2019s and Bloom\u2019s narratives have been relatively distinct, here we see their identities start to become connected and balance each other out when their paths meet. Stephen\u2019s mother is \u201cbeastly dead\u201d (l. 4170), we know from her \u201cemaciated\u201d (l. 4157) spirit that rises through the floor, and Bloom\u2019s son Rudy is dead as well. It seems that, in this final scene, Stephen and Bloom balance each other out by each fulfilling the role of the missing person in their lives, Bloom as Parent and Stephen as Son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In tracking the narrative paths of both Stephen and Bloom over the course of the novel, I found it notable that in Circe, particularly in the final scene, both men finally exist together within the same narrative and physical space. After being totally emasculated by his hallucinatory interactions with Bello in the second half of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":409,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions\/409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}