Read till "Womb of Sin." Gabler (3.44), Penguin (46.29)
In this episode, we learn to come to terms with the difficult mode of Joyce's writing, often getting lost but equally often not losing interest in deciphering all that he has offered to us. It is an episode in which we participate in the thinking process of Stephen. It requires two things from us readers: (1) to enter Stephen's mind, his stream of consciousness, (2) to return to reread and to rereread the episode.
The difficulty of the episode - that starts with one of the most memorable sentences of the book, "Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes." - lies not only with the fact that we are trying to understand what Stephen is thinking but also with the demands made regarding the literary knowledge of us, poor readers. In just two pages (Penguin 45 - 46), we encounter Aristotle, Dante, Blake, Kant, Einstein, Berkeley, Boehme, Lessing, Dickens, Swinburne, Johnson and Shakespeare. Each sentence/thought of Stephen leads us to one or the other in this list, and perhaps to many others.
Stephen has left his school and Mr. Deasy as well as his lofty words. He is now walking along the Sandymount Strand.
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Stephen observes the things (seaspawn, seawrack) lying around on the beach. He thinks of the unavoidable limitations of seeing (Ineluctable modality of the visible), of Aristotle (who was referred to by Dante as maestro di color che sanno (master of all those who know), walks on while closing his eyes in order to experience the objects without seeing them. He hears his boot crush crackling wrack and shells. He feels how he keeps one step after another (Nacheinander, alluding to Lessing) and knows that his (Stephen's) feet are in his (Mulligan's) boots at the end of his (Mulligan's) trousers (Nebeneinander; again alluding to Lessing). The fact of his feet in Mulligan's boots and trousers underscore Stephen's poverty. With eyes closed, Stephen wonders whether he is walking into eternity. The shells cracked under his boots make him think of them as the wild sea money.
Stephen opens his eyes to see things afresh. See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall lbe, world without end. There is a world-play here based on the word See/Sea. Stephen opens his eyes and sees. The sea is there all the time. Even when he himself had closed his eyes.
Two midwives coming down the steps make him think of umbilical cords. True to Stephen's thoughts having their own lives, the thought of umbilical cords lead him to think of his own birth, of all the umbilical cords linking back (his umbilical cord having connected to his mother's, hers having connected to her mother's, and so on) to the beginning, to the Garden of Eden, the show-place of the Original Sin. Is that why monks gaze at their navel while sitting in meditation? Would these so linked cords act like a cable connecting him (Stephen) to the Garden of Eden, if he would give to the telephone operator the number: Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one?
Stephen opens his eyes to see things afresh. See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall lbe, world without end. There is a world-play here based on the word See/Sea. Stephen opens his eyes and sees. The sea is there all the time. Even when he himself had closed his eyes.
Two midwives coming down the steps make him think of umbilical cords. True to Stephen's thoughts having their own lives, the thought of umbilical cords lead him to think of his own birth, of all the umbilical cords linking back (his umbilical cord having connected to his mother's, hers having connected to her mother's, and so on) to the beginning, to the Garden of Eden, the show-place of the Original Sin. Is that why monks gaze at their navel while sitting in meditation? Would these so linked cords act like a cable connecting him (Stephen) to the Garden of Eden, if he would give to the telephone operator the number: Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one?
Chandra
Note: Click here to read an essay by The Modernism Research Lab at Yale on this episode.
