In his article \u201cMolly\u2019s Flow,\u201d Attridge argues that \u201cPenelope\u201d epitomizes Joyce\u2019s ability to make readers aware of Ulysses\u2019 textuality because reading the atypical syntax of Molly\u2019s episode forces us to be critically aware of our relationship with the text of Ulysses itself. In my own tracing of the progression of the narration and narrative voice in Ulysses, however, it seems like a common theme all throughout Joyce\u2019s text is this ability to make us as readers aware of the fact that we are reading a physical text as opposed to actually experiencing the events of the novel. While I think Attridge is right to claim that the lack of punctuation in \u201cPenelope\u201d does not cause the narration to \u201cflow\u201d like so many scholars claim it does, I wonder if it is too much of a stretch to claim that \u201cthe term [flow] would be more accurately used of earlier parts of Ulysses\u201d (547). My own observations regarding the narrative structure, while certainly defining a \u201cflow\u201d at certain points, seem to point to the fact that Joyce (or the narrator? Or the arranger?) is constantly at work to disrupt any sort of discernable narrative flow in order to make us as readers question the nature of the structural ground of Ulysses.<\/p>\n
Beginning with Proteus, Episode Three, we see the narrative \u201cflow\u201d of Stephen\u2019s interior monologue interrupted by third-person narration regarding his physical environment \u2013 each time Stephen\u2019s conscience seems to almost entirely consume the narration, we are brought back to reality by a harsh transition to \u201creal time\u201d with a more classic, third person narration such as, \u201cwet sand slapped his boots\u201d (37), \u201cthe dog\u2019s bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back\u201d (38), or \u201che lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks\u201d (41). The sensory details of these third-person passages remind us as readers of the physical realities Stephen is experiencing separately from what he is experiencing in his mind (idea taken from my blog post). While Stephen\u2019s monologues themselves may establish a sort of \u201cflow,\u201d it seems that Joyce intentionally breaks that \u201cflow\u201d in order to keep us as readers from being too consumed by any one form of narration. From the beginning of the novel, Joyce can be seen toying with his readers in an attempt to bridge the divide between what is happening in the novel itself and what our experiences are as readers.<\/p>\n
Just like Joyce abruptly transitions between narrative styles in episode three, in episode eight he similarly uses narrative style to craft a \u201cthen vs. now\u201d dichotomy between Bloom as he sees himself now and Bloom as he existed during the peak of his relationship with Molly (see blog post). Bloom sits and relives a love scene between himself and Molly in his mind and he explicitly defines \u201cMe. And me now\u201d (144), his \u201cdowncast eyes\u201d at present contrasting with his \u201cravished\u201d \u201cwild\u201d state in his memory. By leading us as readers back and forth between these extreme states of being, each characterized by different narrative styles, it seems to me that the narrator creates flow only to eventually disrupt it and place it under our critical eye as readers. It is breaks and transitions in narration like these that bring us into close contact with the characters of the novel and urge us to think about how and what we really can know about them.<\/p>\n
Like Henry Staten says in his discussion of Ulysses\u2019 \u201cdecomposing form,\u201d Onomatopoeia seen early on in Ulysses \u201cundermines the illusory transparency of language, extravagantly calling attention to the textuality of its text\u201d (382). The \u201ctextuality\u201d of Ulysses is a concept that often comes up in scholarship regarding the novel, and, though it may seem only tangentially related to the role of narration, actually serves as a vehicle for narrative voice to become apparent to us as readers. John Somer terms the mechanism behind this narrative style establishment \u201cthe arranger\u201d (65) and explains that \u201cthe arranger uses narrative devices that divert readers from their experiences of the narrative to their experience of reading the text \u2026 it draws readers into such an intense engagement with the novel\u2019s fictive reality that they ironically experience their own pleasure in reading the passage\u201d (74). The passage from \u201cHades\u201d that Somer cites as evidence of this theory occurs in Episode Six, well before the final \u201cPenelope,\u201d furthering my notion that a key aspect of the experience of reading Ulysses is that reading it makes us as readers aware of our own reading process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In his article \u201cMolly\u2019s Flow,\u201d Attridge argues that \u201cPenelope\u201d epitomizes Joyce\u2019s ability to make readers aware of Ulysses\u2019 textuality because reading the atypical syntax of Molly\u2019s episode forces us to be critically aware of our relationship with the text of Ulysses itself. In my own tracing of the progression of the narration and narrative voice […]<\/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-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","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=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/Ulysses16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}