James Joyce Ulysses

Question 1

[Buck Milligan] ‘laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Steven’s peering eyes.
- The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If only Wilde were alive to see you.’
Drawing back andpointing, Steven said with bitterness:
- It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant…
- Cracked lookingglass of a servant…if only you and I could work together, we might do something for the whole island. Hellenize it.’

Answer 1

Mirror stage - though preceding Lacan’s theorisation, it anticipates the importance of mirrors in childhood identity formativity. This trope is a classical one - eg Narcissus

• Recalling Caliban - half man/half monster from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Wilde - suggests that Milligan is drawing on tradition rather than innovation. THis is further emphasised by his call to ‘Hellenize’ Ireland - though liberating from English tradition, still reliant upon another culture’s narrative
  Hence why Steven insists upon status as ‘servant’?

Question 2

[Buck Milligan] ‘I remember only ideas and sensations’

Answer 2

proves a foil to Steven - who is aware of the cultural roots of much of his thinking and memories, and thus aware of his status as ‘servant’

Question 3

‘Pooh! Buck Milligan said. We ahve grown out of Wilde and paradoxes….[Steven] proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather…’

Answer 3

Steven’s attempts to rewrite classical texts point to a desire to reinterpret (though also pointing to a dependence on classical narratives and cultural heritage). This reinterpretation’s use of ‘algebra’ is particularly striking - not even a linguistic/language-based reinterpretation, but attempt to reject language altogether in lieu of mathematics
suggests an innate suspicion of language - resentment of the English tongue?

Question 4

Steven feels himself ‘servant…fo two masters, an Enlgish and an Italian…the Brisih imperial state…adn the holy ROman catholic and apostolic church’

Answer 4

Although this shows his own self-division and servitude, it also highlgihts how the cultures of England and Rome, particulraly the religious tradition, is itself fundamnetally divided

Question 5

‘Of course I’m a Britisher, Haines’ voice said’

Answer 5

Telling that his VOICE, not his PERSON says it - dominated by language, distanced from the person itself (imperalist language colonisation)

Question 6

‘History, said Steven, is a nightmare from which I’m trying to escape’

Answer 6

nationality, culutre, tradition

Question 7

;The Irishman’s home is his coffin. Embalming…mummies, the same idea’

Answer 7

Shows cultural universality rather than difference, whilst also asserting specifically Irish identity - deep ambivalence

Question 8

What is Part III called?

Answer 8

Nostos - meaning homecoming

signficiant as return to Irishness seeming inevitable?

Question 9

What is Part 17 called and what does it do?

(Which Part is it in?

Answer 9

Ithaca
Question and answer ending in unanswered question ‘where?’
(In Part III - Nostos)

Question 10

Episode 17: Ithaca

‘because’ answer to why ‘ a second departure…was perceived’

Answer 10

Highlights the subjectivity of all narrative, and how it prescribes intention which may not exist/be accurate
Also questioning why reveals the question-driven nature of narrative, and questions how fruitful this itself is

Question 11

Episode 17: Ithaca ending

Answer 11

ends with unanswered question ‘where’ - showing how palce, and by extension nationality, is an acute part of perception but cannot be definitively pinned down nor answered

Question 12

‘Universality’ of ‘water’ - ‘90% of the human body’

Answer 12

Attempts to seek a common origin - not culturally specific

However, as part of episode 17 this is an assumed/ascribed intention; it does not emerge organically but is imposed

Question 13

‘God becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed’

Answer 13

Ridiculous inversion of hierarchies – move from barnacle to goose without a ‘becomes’ also disrupts chain of causality
Religion

Question 14

[Mr Deasy] ‘the Jew merchants are already at their work of destruction Old England is dying…

• A merchant, Steven said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew or gentile…
• They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said…they are wanderers on earth’

Answer 14

Steven separates religion from capitalism - pointing out that not all categories are mutually exclusive

Question 15

What does the Wordsworth Classics edition ed. Cedric Watts not provide?

Answer 15

Part or Episode names - what do you miss from this?

(Eg not knowing Part 3 is called ‘Nostos’?) Misses many of the Odyssey/journey allusions