Circe
The story of Circe is an interesting one; Odysseus as usual is trying to get home and not making much headway; he stops off at an unknown island, sees smoke rising from the trees and sends out an advance party to see what sort of people are about. They encounter the goddess Circe, and she waves her magic wand and turns the men to pigs. One sailor escapes, however, and he informs Odysseus of what has happened. Soon after, the god Hermes tells Odysseus how to defeat Circe's magic and get her under his power; he does so and has his men restored to human form.
At this point you would think that Odysseus would beat feet and get the hell away from the sorceress with the wand, but somehow they all forgive and forget and Odysseus becomes Circe's lover for a year. Wait, a year? Really? Yep. What are we to make of this? At every other moment in the book the wanderer is eating his heart out for his lost hearth and home, but after getting another goddess in the sack he figures that that whole problem can be put on hold for a month or twelve. We are never told straight out that he has been enchanted, but one might make a guess; interestingly, Circe is known for her skill at weaving, just like a spider.
Joyce's Circe is far and away the most bizarre section of Ulysses; Bloom has gone chasing after Stephen in the red light district, as he is concerned for the young man's welfare, and the carnival-sideshow, animal-like nature of the people he finds there echoes the transformation in Homer. A series of loopy hallucinations are depicted, some comical, some horrible, some quite shocking; there are nine main ones:
1. Bloom sees or imagines Mrs. Denis Breen, née Josie Powell, first seen in The Lotus Eaters and a friend of Molly's in their youth. They flirt and reminisce about the old days.
2. Bloom is questioned by the watchmen after he feeds a stray dog, and this becomes an absurd dream of persecution which ends in an imaginary court trial for malfeasance and perversion.
3. The dream of persecution changes to one of vindication and adoration. Bloom is handed the keys to the city and many ladies of high standing faint in his presence.
4. Bloom eventually finds the bordello that Stephen has gone into; once inside, he encounters his grandfather Virag, whose pragmatic character is somewhat similar to Bloom's, but who also is a strange chimeric monster who walks on stilts and changes into various animals. It is bizarre, to say the least.
5. When the madame, Bella, enters, there is a gender reversal in which Bella/Bello and Bloom/Ruby enter into a twisted sadomasochistic relationship, with Bloom becoming the woman and having his manhood questioned and derided.
6. Bloom is then visited by the nymph from the picture that hangs over his bed; she upbraids him for his many crimes against goodness and nature, but he eventually breaks free and shows her to be a hypocrite.
7. Stephen then has a hallucination of his dead mother, resulting in a climax in which he swings his walking stick at the phantom and knocks the lights out.
8. Out in the street again, there is an altercation with two British soldiers during which Stephen is punched in the face and knocked to the ground. Interestingly, this final crisis is partly a political one, since Stephen mentions the king in the course of talking about his non serviam philosophy and this incenses the officers. During the row we see imaginary partisans cheering on the champions for England or Ireland.
9. Bloom sees the image of his dead son, Rudy.
In addition to this we see many or most of the incidental characters from the book popping in to echo their words of earlier in the day, even if the two primary characters were not there to hear them at that time; it is almost as if the book itself is dreaming.
It is a crisis for both men, Stephen in his self-destructiveness and Bloom in his broken self-image following his wife's infidelity. In the end, however, Bloom takes charge and saves Stephen with the help of Corny Kelleher, the undertaker from the Hades episode.
The overall effect is a dizzying one; it is outrageous and all-encompassing, with everything collapsing in on itself; the various conflicts with night watches, bordello owners and rowdy soldiers take on a colossal scale. It is a bit overlong, though, and is a test of the reader as well as its two characters.
At this point you would think that Odysseus would beat feet and get the hell away from the sorceress with the wand, but somehow they all forgive and forget and Odysseus becomes Circe's lover for a year. Wait, a year? Really? Yep. What are we to make of this? At every other moment in the book the wanderer is eating his heart out for his lost hearth and home, but after getting another goddess in the sack he figures that that whole problem can be put on hold for a month or twelve. We are never told straight out that he has been enchanted, but one might make a guess; interestingly, Circe is known for her skill at weaving, just like a spider.
Joyce's Circe is far and away the most bizarre section of Ulysses; Bloom has gone chasing after Stephen in the red light district, as he is concerned for the young man's welfare, and the carnival-sideshow, animal-like nature of the people he finds there echoes the transformation in Homer. A series of loopy hallucinations are depicted, some comical, some horrible, some quite shocking; there are nine main ones:
1. Bloom sees or imagines Mrs. Denis Breen, née Josie Powell, first seen in The Lotus Eaters and a friend of Molly's in their youth. They flirt and reminisce about the old days.
2. Bloom is questioned by the watchmen after he feeds a stray dog, and this becomes an absurd dream of persecution which ends in an imaginary court trial for malfeasance and perversion.
3. The dream of persecution changes to one of vindication and adoration. Bloom is handed the keys to the city and many ladies of high standing faint in his presence.
4. Bloom eventually finds the bordello that Stephen has gone into; once inside, he encounters his grandfather Virag, whose pragmatic character is somewhat similar to Bloom's, but who also is a strange chimeric monster who walks on stilts and changes into various animals. It is bizarre, to say the least.
5. When the madame, Bella, enters, there is a gender reversal in which Bella/Bello and Bloom/Ruby enter into a twisted sadomasochistic relationship, with Bloom becoming the woman and having his manhood questioned and derided.
6. Bloom is then visited by the nymph from the picture that hangs over his bed; she upbraids him for his many crimes against goodness and nature, but he eventually breaks free and shows her to be a hypocrite.
7. Stephen then has a hallucination of his dead mother, resulting in a climax in which he swings his walking stick at the phantom and knocks the lights out.
8. Out in the street again, there is an altercation with two British soldiers during which Stephen is punched in the face and knocked to the ground. Interestingly, this final crisis is partly a political one, since Stephen mentions the king in the course of talking about his non serviam philosophy and this incenses the officers. During the row we see imaginary partisans cheering on the champions for England or Ireland.
9. Bloom sees the image of his dead son, Rudy.
In addition to this we see many or most of the incidental characters from the book popping in to echo their words of earlier in the day, even if the two primary characters were not there to hear them at that time; it is almost as if the book itself is dreaming.
It is a crisis for both men, Stephen in his self-destructiveness and Bloom in his broken self-image following his wife's infidelity. In the end, however, Bloom takes charge and saves Stephen with the help of Corny Kelleher, the undertaker from the Hades episode.
The overall effect is a dizzying one; it is outrageous and all-encompassing, with everything collapsing in on itself; the various conflicts with night watches, bordello owners and rowdy soldiers take on a colossal scale. It is a bit overlong, though, and is a test of the reader as well as its two characters.
posted by Joe Gola at 7:58 PM
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