Joycene Creed: Last Word

So, to wrap up Catholicism and Ulysses I’ll give a run down of the major Catholicism scenes in the chapters (I focus more on the early chapters, because my thoughts have significantly changed since those first posts), the themes that have emerged, and what I’m still looking for in scholarly sources. (Post finish: Sorry, this took me an unexpected amount of time to compile. Warning, long).

Telemachus introduced the idea of people standing in for Saints and Heretics right off, with Stephen and Buck as Arius (18), and Chrysostomos (1). Here we watch as Buck paints Stephen as the “gloomy jesuit” (14) which defines what Stephen spends the rest of the book attempting to reject. In fact, Stephen, in the very first chapter, begins to define himself by what he rejects, as mentioned by George Castle in Ousted Possibilities (Castle 309).

Looking back retroactively, I can also see that Stephen is more attracted by the delivery of the idea, rather than the idea itself, looking at his relationship to Buck/Chrysostomos. St. Chrysostomos was another fiery theologian, with theories that Stephen must have been inundated with at school. However, he would now reject them as a good heretic. His attraction to Chrysostomos/Buck, therefore, is an echo of his attraction to both Arian and Aquanian theory. He dislikes the person, but likes the performance, or passion of their delivery.

In part, this goes back to our discussion of Sirens, where Bloom can enjoy the musical output of Simon and Ben without being repulsed by their personalities (225). I’m actually not certain that this is what Joyce wants us to take away from Ulysses. Buck is an awful influence on Stephen, and does not really care for him; Simon is as poisonously uncaring of Bloom in Hades. While it’s good that both Bloom and Stephen can put their abuse behind them in exchange for pure intellectual stimulation and pleasure, these are not healthy relationships, and it might be best for them to break off ties with their friends. Indeed, I love that Bloom really dislikes Buck (does he even have anything good to say about Malachi Mulligan?), while Stephen has broken off all ties with his father. They are only half free of those negative influences, and in an awkward way, it benefits both by the end of the night, for if it was not for Buck trying to give Stephen the slip, and Bloom’s connection to Simon, the two would not have crossed paths significantly, and this would have been a shorter book.

Not that this supposition has anything to do with Telemachus, or my obsession. Nestor only continues the saints as people theme, mostly focusing on Stephen as Columbanus: “Was that then real? The only true thing in life? His Mother’s prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode” (23).

However, Nestor is also important as it is the first point where I noted trinities. “The same room and hour, the same Wisedom: and I the same. Three times now. Three nooses round me here” Stephen thinks, telling himself that he can break them any instant (25). He cannot. At best, he only succeeds in denting the lampshade in Circe (477). The nooses hearken back to Telemachus where Stephen is the servant of three masters, Britain, the Catholic Church, and Ireland, “who wants [him] for odd jobs” (17). Taken in the context of the Trinity, Britain takes the place of the Father, domineering, in control, and patriarchal in Joyce, usually, as can been seen in Aeolus, Scylla and Charybdis, and Wandering Rocks, to name a few examples. The Catholic Church becomes Jesus in this trinity, which if viewed in relation to Britian on the national stage, acts just as several other Jesuses that litter the pages of the novel — Best, Bloom, right off the top of my head, although there are so many more. That is to say, the Catholic Church is ineffectual, and likely to become crucified in accordance with the will of the Father.

This is probably one of the stronger arguments against a Roman Catholic Irishness that Joyce returns to in the form of the ineffectual, disconnected Father Conmee of Wandering Rocks (180-184). Finally we have the almost forgotten Ireland, hovering on the edge of Stephen’s consciousness as the Holy Spirit. Stephen is not yet prepared to face the questions of the Holy Spirit, signaling his distance from Irish Nationalism, yet it tantalizes him, and haunts him through out the novel. The Trinity cues the relationships we are supposed to observe through out the novel, and also points to the secret questions/mysteries with which the characters are grappling when the Holy Ghost appears.

Ghost is an appropriate, really. Much of the time we see the Holy Ghost, it has to actually do with the dead, as in a lot of ways, Ulysses is all about mourning gone awry, and how death should be dealt with. The afterlife of the soul, clearly stated in Christian Dogma, is once again acting as Jesus, to the Catholic Church’s role as God for the characters of Dublin. Heaven and Hell are secondary thoughts for the living, no matter how the Church imposes its doctrine of Hellfire. The ghost of this morbid trinity is how the living are supposed to go on living after the dead have taken over their lives. No one really knows, and none of them handle it well. We have Simon Daedalus, incapable of getting over May, Stephen wrapped up in his guilt, and thus haunted by his mother, in scenes that turn May into a Holy Ghost herself. As part of Stephen’s search for the answers to the Holy Ghost, he is desperately searching for the way to forgiveness, and lifting of his guilt over his mother’s death (474).

Beyond this Trinity of death, we have the death of Rudy spinning both Molly and Bloom into damage control and denial. As for Rudy’s older sister, Milly becomes the ignored Holy Ghost. She is not physically present in the novel, her needs basically ignored by both parents, who merely react to what she says and does (630). Bloom, the father, controls her location, but does not seem to think that she would do better as a young girl with her parents. Molly, taking the Jesus role, crucified by Rudy’s death (640) and incapable of motherly acts since then, merely responds to Milly’s growing restlessness with knee-jerk reactions (631-632). What neither of them see is that they have Milly, a real living child, who is the future, as we’ve talked about, with her continuing the line through her “technical Jewishness” (Simpson November 16, 2009). Through Milly, the Holy Spirit can be vividly something desirable, and forgotten/ignored by those who need it the most.

Trinities that I’m still uncertain of:

– Trinity of the dead: May Goulding, Paddy Dignam, and Rudy Bloom. I haven’t figured out how these three all work together, and play off each other in the novel, but as they are all involved in other living/dead trinities, and there are three of them that are named, I want to say that they are one of these Father, Son, Holy Ghost trinities.

– Does Rueben J. Dodd’s son (curiously unnamed, yet conspicuous in a similar there/not there way that I associate with the characters acting as Holy Ghosts) fit into this?

Proteus is a mine for looking at Stephen theologically. I’m still plowing my way through the library books on consubstantiality, the Arian idea that Stephen entertains so happily, in the fact that it’s a heresy. I’m not prepared to wrap that up yet. While in a way, it seems to be displacement activity as Stephen avoids considering the Holy Ghost, because the nature of Jesus’ divinity is an easier concept to grasp, it’s still a really fascinating heresy. I’m hoping that once I understand the underpinnings, and logic behind it, I’ll be able to apply it to the microcosm that it wraps up and affects.

We also get an pre-echo of the arguments on the nature of the soul (37), in many theological discussions completely wrapped up in the Holy Ghost, that will appear throughout the novel, culminate in Molly’s theology in Penelope (643). Stephen is prefers to pin his soul on Aristotle, saying that “[his] soul walks with [him], form of forms” (37). This gives us a very intellectual soul that is part of the miracle of transubstantiation, which is based on Arisotolean thought. The conversations that we’ve had about cannibalism and the Eucharist, “those white corpuscles” (3) coming from “Corpus: body. Corpse” (66), center around the conflict of whether transubstantiation is real or not, which is also one of the critical points of the Reformation, as Protestants rejected the idea that the Eucharist was a miracle. Here, Stephen, in accepting that his soul is the original form, is accepting Catholic thought, even as he is trying to turn himself into a heretic. Oh Stephen.

For those who don’t remember what the theological argument of the transubstantiation of the Eucharist is I have a quick run down about how this connects Aristotle and miracles using dinosaurs: Okay, so you have a dinosaur that changes into a chicken. Everything that we can perceive about the dinosaur is now telling us that it is a chicken. However, the dinosaur still knows that possesses dinosaur-yness. This is normal and could possibly happen given enough evolutionary quirks. Or it is possible that the dinosaur actually knows that it is a chicken after the external change has taken place. Indeed, the natural change has changed dinosaur-yness into chicken-yness. Both options work. What doesn’t work without a strange amount of hocus-pocus is a dinosaur remaining physically a dinosaur, but thinking that it is a chicken. This is a miracle according to Aristotelian thought. The Eucharist takes place with bread and wine that rejects dinosaur-yness for chicken-yness. Protestants had a lot of issues with this idea, because the bread seemed to remain bready and full of awesome bread-yness.

Calypso hasn’t become any more of a helpful chapter in retrospect. We have Catholicism doing a lot through out the book. The “middle” up to Naausica focuses most obviously on the Catholic church as a controlling institution, and comments on it’s growing power over Irish Nationalism. With Circe, everything is all over the map, but we get a lot of everything. My posts pretty much cover everything that I skimmed over here.

Things to be aware of:

– Joyce’s comment on the growing Catholic nationalism = it’s a bad idea

– Trinities act as a pointer to interpreting character actions and placing them in a larger national context, or interpersonal actions

– No real difference between saints and heretics = call for perspective, moderation, and re-examination of race/gender/what makes people people.

– Circularity does not mean completion, or strength. Triangles/threes/trinities are the key!

Issues I still am having issues with:

– How does the cult of Mary fit into this to make a cohesive whole?! It’s just kind of off there in the background, relating female and male characters to the various aspects of the Virgin.

Associated Sainthood

Well, Scylla and Charybdis on its own is filled with lots of fun heresy and Catholic imagery. However I guess I should start with Saint Augustine and Stephen back in Aeolus. Stephen will freely associate himself with the fathers of the church when he is trying to prove his intellectual prowess, and more importantly, when he isn’t near Buck. He thinks of Augustine in the Press room, surrounded by the older men he is trying to impress, and uses the arguments of the Saint to reinforce his determination to keep himself from being completely tied to the nationalist movement (117). Later in the day, he asks specifically: “Ignatius Loyola, make haste to help me!” as he argues his point with the other librarians and literary luminaries (155). Obviously he is calling on the Jesuit discipline that he learned at school, but the fact remains that Stephen turns to the saints of his Catholic childhood in times of trouble. The saints are used in his shared intellectual endeavors, unlike in Proteus, where his mind felt for Arius and Sabellius. Agustine and Loyola are the tools he uses among his intellectual peers to win them to his side.

However, once Buck enters the picture Steven reverts to heretics. In one sense this makes Buck a creative force. His presence, or even the shadow of his presence, forces Stephen out of his ingrained childhood thought patterns, as Stephen unconsciously chooses to rebel against being associated with the Jesuit teaching of his childhood. Here Buck calls his friend “you peerless mummer! O, you priestified Kinchite!” and Stephen’s thoughts respond by turning in more pagan, heretical directions. “Oisin with Patrick” recalls pre-christian Ireland as well as “his image, wandering” recalls the diaspora, the Jews who are heretics before the church (164). In another sense, however, Buck forces Stephen into a situation where Stephen belittles himself. As Stephen imagines the brood of mockers once more, recently surprised by the “enemy” Buck, “psuedo Malachi” is his dismissal of that enemy (162). However, in five pages Sephen becomes “Mocker” in his own script (167). Not only is he repeating exactly what makes him contemptuous of Buck, Mulligan is actual a single, identifiable heretic personality in Stephen’s mind, while Stephen is just one of the brood of mockers.

It is possible that he realizes this. As soon as Stephen goes back to the sainthood association by buttressing his Hamlet arguments with Tomas Aquinas he can be seen “smiling” and far more relaxed (169). Earlier Buck had already stated that he wasn’t equal to Thomas Aquinas (15), and Stephen uses the intellectual father as his defense against his enemy (169). Although Buck still tries to interrupt Stephen, no more mentions of Jesuit, or direct attacks on Stephen’s intellectualism follow. Buck, it seems is running scared of Aquinian theory.

In fact, once Stephen picks up Aquinas his arguments begin to put the combative Eglinton, and waffling Best to rout. However, he cannot win without the arguments of Sabellius, in conjunction with Thomas Aquinas. They force Eglinton to flatter Stephen (171), and the assistant librarian does not try to put forward his own arguments, again. When Stephen is finished, Aglinton captitulates with “[t]he truth is midway, he affirmed. He is the ghost and the prince. He is all in all” (174). All three of the men Stephen is trying to convince, Eglinton, Best, and Lyster, begin to listen in an intellectual trinity (“They list. Three. They.” pg. 171) as Stephen makes use of Sabellian theory as well as Aquinian to make his argument. For all that Eglinton tries to claim that the truth is midway, he has come to complete agreement with Stephen’s real argument. Shakespeare, like God, like Jesus, like the Ghost, is all in all.

Muck like Stephen, actually. Stephen is his own creative god, the mourning ghost, and the crucified Jesus. If we take the ashplant he carries as a crucifix, the way Blamires would like us to (9), Stephen appears to be the heretical Jesus, enemy of Judiasm’s Pharisees. Compared to Bloom, who, although seemingly crucified in Hades (76), tends to take on the role of Jesus the Healer, Stephen’s relationship to God is generally the angry, jealous God of the old testament. Bloom, oddly, seem to be the return of the gentler son of God who will die for mankind’s sins. His acts are benign, such as helping the blind stripling cross the street (149). In this scene he’s both Jesus and the good Samaritan, helpful, and not interested in help in return.