i cant figure out whether i like the ending of the book or if i was just so excited to finish it anything would have been ok with me. Not to say that i didn't enjoy reading it, because i did. What i mean by being so excited to finish it is that i am now able to say i read Ulysses.
Molly is a little over sexed and superficial and vain. she is completely opposite of what i expected her to be. Although i realize that the chapter was an uncensored inner monologue, Joyce writes her as unappealing as the citizen and deazy and the press gang. I wonder why he would do that? or am i misinterpreting it? It seems to me that molly represents the sorta lady Macbeth, or the Eve, or the Madam Bovary. i mean, she is no good.

After Circe, i would have liked to see Steven and Bloom (united) realize there importeance to one another and get one with the problem solving. But Joyce avoids this cleche. Joyce doesnt give the reader the satisfaction of having a defined conflict or solution. The closest he comes to such a cleche is the writing. This chapter is writen in the most obvious tone, a neutral narrarator, cleche catch frazes (i.e. "none the least", "what so ever", "not to put to fine a point on it" and ect.) Joyce antisipates the want of the reader but stresses the use of language instead of the plot. Very keen of him. But also really awkward and annoying.

Plot wise, we see in this chapter how steven has made a realization quite like blooms. Where bloom, in circe, realizes he must become the father figure for steve, Steven realizes he must become the son figure for bloom. Steven gives bloom the responsiobility of taking care of him. The two trade glances in a instinctive way. and also Steven asks bloom to to take the knife off the table. Metiphorically speaking, steven asks bloom to take charge or to take up arms, and protect him.

In the Circe chapter Joyce has a good time. But what I found most interesting is how Joyce really confuses the Steven for Bloom and visa versa. We see Bloom “wearing the hamlet hat”, he is visited by the ghost of his father and also he says the famous “to be or not to be” line on page 499. Further, Bloom (though he does give birth) turns into a child himself. On the other hand, Steven act more like Bloom, he gets into a fight, he is drunk, and he is very witty. Steven’s character in this chapter reminds me of Bloom in the Cyclops chapter. Both key (no pun intended) characters in this play are mixed around. I would like to argue that Steven and Bloom are connected, as is evident in this chapter, on a higher level than just the figurative father and son. It seems that one completes the other.

The oxen of the son chapter dances around the literary concept of the “Eternal Woman”. As with other great works of literature (such as Faust!) Ulysses perceives the woman as embodying the creative force. As we discussed in class, the different uses of style and technique in this chapter as are parallel or in some analogous relationship to the stages of childbirth. This is a very interesting idea, especially if you think about Steven and Bloom. Both characters have forsaken their woman. In the case of Steven: his mother. In the case of Bloom: Molly. But also, it may be argued that their forsaking of their “Eternal Woman” is the cause of their literary impotence.

Look at the connections between Stevens mother and the reason Steven, as Buck Mulligan says, cannot or has not become a poet. Steven, as Buck Mulligan says, is incapable of fulfilling his literary destiny because he is to strung up on religion. In other words, Steven cannot deal with either the guilt of being an atheist or the contradictions of being a believer. For whatever reason, Steven would not pray for his mother at her death bed. He did not pray because he didn’t believe it would help, not because he hated his mother. But as in so many cases Buck Mulligan is correct and Steven has become detached from his creative force because of his religious problems. Essentially, Steven’s mother is the manifestation of Steven’s creative force, which he forsook by not praying for her at her death bed.

The Cyclops chapter was exciting. The collage effect of Joyce’s writing becomes more and more apparent in this chapter (especially because in juxtaposition with the Sirens chapter.) Joyce exercises a technique of writing, which stresses not only the moral perspective of a character, but also a mental perspective. The beginning of this chapter is written in a way that describes a myopic perspective of the world (the discussion between the narrator and Joe) and then concludes with an equally narrow minded perspective of the Cyclops (a.k.a the citizen). In other words, Joyce is keen on assigning a writing style and rhetoric to the perspective of the character. Here, more than just dislocating his fingerprints from the story, Joyce upholds the idea of perspective in the most modern way. As Conrad says in his heart of darkness (I use this quote to much but it is so usefull!!!) “we live as we dream, alone.” That is- the world of words is false. And to the same degree the world in our own eyes is false because it may not be true to another.

This idea is important to modernism, but is an echo of the poet Ovid, who dealt with issue very much in his Metamorphoses. In stories such as (I don’t know the exact title) Agamemnon and Odysseus argue over Achilles’ armor and Nestor’s omission of Hercules, the reader is confronted with the art of rhetoric and its inherent deception. For example, in the argument between Agamemnon and Odysseus, Odysseus has no use for the armor but he wins the argument because although he is not a warrior, he is a mightier rhetoratician. More on this point, in the Nestor story he completely omits Hercules’s role and when asked why he says its because he doesn’t like Hercules. Its funny, but its true. The part of the brain where language is formed is the same part of the brain where lies are formed.

The Sirens chapter reads the best out of anything we have read so far. I was really surprised by this. Thought it makes complete sense, I didn’t think Joyce would create such an obvious connection. Not just the arrangement of words, which sounds amazing next to each other, but also the imagery. In particular I like the lines on the bottom of page 263 “Wise Bloom eyed on the door a poster, a swaying mermaid smoking mid nice waves. Smoke mermaids, coolest whiff of all. Hair streaming: love-lorn.” Joyce, as a narrator, writes very lyrically, almost sing songy. For example on page 269 “…He ate with relish the inner organs, nutty gizzards, fried cod’s roes while Richie Goulding, Collis, Ward, ate steak and kidney, steak then kidney, bite by bite of pie he ate Bloom ate they ate.”
Bloom is ignored completely in this chapter. He asks questions that are not answered. It is almost as if he doesn’t exist, or is not even there. Though the chapter is in his perspective, he is just a spectator; the only person that notices him is Pat, who is deaf anyway. The ear is upheld very strongly in this chapter, the sounds of the music and the other conversations are the main sensory intake.
A couple things I didn’t really understand, I know that it is four o’clock but why does that number keep coming up. Bloom says “four” then he says beware of nineteen four and then some other people say four. I wonder what this means?
Also, its only four O’clock and it is the third meal Bloom has had today. Further it is his second kidney. What’s with this guy and Kidney’s. I have a theory about the kidney and Prometheus, the one who brought fire and knowledge to man!!! The light of knowledge!!! Then Prometheus was condemned to have his Kidney eaten out for eternity because he was immortal and it would grow back. But the Hercules saves him.

This, being the middle of the book, made me both content and anxious. Though I am excited that I have gotten thus far in reading such an important piece of literature, I am terrified that I still have half the book to read. But god be praised. The bridging chapter was not a tuffy. As like some of the chapters we have seen in the past. This one was a walk in the park, or a walk in Dublin for that matter. I saw this chapter really as a breath of fresh air. Coincidently “The Wandering Rocks” is an episode in the Odyssey where Ulysses avoids an inescapable violence. So, at the end of the chapter I sort of felt like Ulysses having just dodged an esoteric bullet.

On another topic, the text. I found one passage in particular to be quite illuminating, where Haines and Mulligan are talking about Steven and how he will never become a poet. “They drove his wits astray, he said [Buck Mulligan], by visions of hell.” “Eternal punishment, Haines said, nodding curtly.” (p.249) Mulligan and Haines agree that it is Stevens religious upbringing that keeps him from his poetic destiny. I agree with this completely. Steven lacks emotional experience. Like Faust, who lived in the book, by the book, Steven needs to take a step into reality. He needs to feel love and heartbreak. Steven needs to walk in Blooms shoes.