Narrative Summary
There’s really very little that actually happens in this Episode. Dedalus goes for a walk, intending to visit his Aunt Sara, but because he’s involved in his own thoughts, misses the turn and ends up walking on the beach. He passes some people, and sees the carcass of a dead dog. He is alone the whole time, there is no dialogue except for scenes he imagines or remembers. The episode, a little more than fourteen pages, is a recording of his thoughts as he walks, almost pure stream of consciousness.
At the beginning of the walk, he thinks about the “ineluctible modality of the visible,” the Aristotelian concept that what we think we perceive through sight is not really what is there but what we are conditioned or expect to see, based on our past experience. Daedalus closes his eyes to try to experience the world around him without being misled by sight. He relies on his hearing and other senses to guide him for a bit, wondering if the world around him will be gone when he opens his eyes. He opens them and the world is still there.
He sees two women who he recognizes as midwives, carrying something wrapped in cloth, what he thinks is a “misbirth”, with the umbilical cord trailing, and he thinks of birth, and how we are all linked by the nature of our creation. He thinks about his own “creation”, how his parents’ coupling brought him into being but that he exists now and cannot be willed away. This is the first mention of Dedalus’ father in the book.
He imagines what the visit to his aunt’s home will be like, and constructs a conversation. The “conversation” reveals that Dedalus was once very religious, and thought of becoming a priest; that his relatives think he had rather grandiose plans when he was younger — he said would write books with only letters for titles. The relatives’ “conversation” implies that Dedalus hoped to impress girls with his accomplishments.
Dedalus realizes he’s passed the turn-off to his Aunt’s house, and decides to walk to the pigeon house instead. He thinks back to when he was in Paris, events that happened there, conversations he had with friends or acquaintances, girls he met.
In the distance, he sees the tower he has been living in and thinks again that he will not sleep there that night. He walks further along the beach and sees the dead dog’s carcass, and the remains of a boat emerging from the sand. He is a bit frightened by a live dog that comes near to him, and he thinks of death again, how Mulligan saved a man from drowning, and he feels guilty that he himself would probably not be able to do so because he is a weak swimmer. His fear of the dog compares poorly to Mulligan’s bravery in saving the drowning man.
He imagines what has happened on this beach in centuries past — battles, invasions, the Irish conquered from the sea. . .
The dog that frightened him belongs to a couple who are gathering cockles in the surf, and they pass him on the beach, the woman walking behind the man. Dedalus stops to write down something he has thought of and doesn’t want to forget, sees his shadow on the sand, and thinks about a girl. He contemplates his own person — the boots he wears that are hand-me-downs from Mulligan, who he “disloves.” He thinks of Oscar Wilde’s love “that dare not speak its name” and that “He (Mulligan?) will now leave me.”
He watches seaweed floating in the water and thinks of the man who he heard had drowned the day before whose body has not yet been recovered. He imagines how they will bring in the body.
The sky becomes cloudy, and he begins to turn back to town. He realizes that he gave his handkerchief to Mulligan and lays snot picked from his nostril on a rock. He turns around to see if anyone is behind him and sees a three-masted ship off-shore.
Thoughts and Impressions:
It was very hard to understand what was happening in this Episode. It sounds simple — he takes a walk — but the way it’s written is not simple at all. While reading it the first time, I had the feeling that I had to write down what I was experiencing right away, and so rushed to the computer as soon as I finished reading the Episode. Here is what I wrote:
Don’t know what’s going on, picking up bits, is he talking to himself or someone else, is he visiting an uncle or is he walking on the shore, seeing same people over again or different ones, is he in the past now or present? Beautiful words, understanding some, a clue here and there, while I read I think about whether I’m understanding it, so I’m thinking about what I’m reading and something else at the same time, and then my mind wanders. My own stream of consciousness rather than Dedalus’ or Joyce’s. I’m missing what he’s written because I’m thinking my own thoughts. I understand more when I concentrate more but then I think my own thoughts less . . . Is this Joyce’s way of showing the true nature of our lives? That we never completely understand each other because we are in our own minds? That we have to give up part of ourselves to understand another even a little? Genius to make me experience this . . . What else will he show? Go back, read again.
I didn’t even know that the “visit” to the aunt and uncle’s house only happens in Dedalus’ imagination until I read an annotation.
There is, of course, a lot of symbolism, things meaning other things, things I’m sure I didn’t catch. Perhaps reading Ulysses is like a rorschach test — what you notice and pick up on (and what you don’t) has more to do with who you are than what you are reading.
Parts I loved:
When Dedalus stops to write down his thoughts, I couldn’t help but think that Joyce had done that countless times as well. Then Dedalus, pondering the transient nature of his own life, thinks: “Who ever anywhere will read these written words?” — The burning question for all writers, including even Joyce.
Towards the end of the Episode, when he’s thinking about Mulligan leaving him (for Haines), he thinks “And the blame? As I am. As I am. All or not at all.” — The insistence that love must accept us whole, as we are, and that when (if?) love fails it is because this is not possible.
Note: Some may see the fact that I haven’t yet mentioned the links between Ulysses and The Odyssey, Hamlet, and how Christians view the relationship between God and Christ as a grave oversight. At this point, however, I am aware of those parallels because of reading about the book, rather than because of the content of the Episodes I’ve read so far. Those themes, I think, become more clear once the book is seen as a whole, and are only hinted at in the beginning Episodes. While it may not be a very scholarly approach, and I may not entirely succeed, I am trying to write about Ulysses as I experience it, and not write what I am supposed to know about it.
Blogging Ulysses 