Poor Willy Dignam and the Dog

Finally, an episode I enjoyed. 'Cyclops' is set in a pub, and is 'narrated' by an unnamed person. I say 'narrated' as, according to the notes, it's not as straightfoward as that (as usual), apparenlty it is meant to be written down. I noticed as I started reading it that the tense had changed from the previous episodes, this time it was in past tense rather than present tense, as if it was told by someone telling a long, rambling and utterly pointless annecdote about an evening in the pub with a group of random people. Even though I found quite a lot of the colloquial language somewhat impenetrable, with plenty of cryptic references to contemporary events and people, I did enjoy the humour of the episode, for example, Bod Doran calling Christ 'a ruffian' and Alf's "Don't cast your nasturtiums on my character".


 I was also amused and simultanously dazzled by the thirty three parodies of a variety of different styles of writing such as court proceedings, Irish myths and legends and even a newspaper report about dogs reciting poetry. The parodic interludes serve a variety of functions including linking devices to the next part of the narrative, or sometimes as part of the narrative itself. Often, they provide a strong contrast between quite hyperbolic, formal language written in a highly stylised way and the colloquial quick patter and wordplay of the 'narrator' and the other people in the pub. If the action in the pub is getting too serious, the parody will again make an appearence adding humour to the situation with interludes such as Paddy Dignam's seance (written in a Theosophic style) after someone mistakingly thinks they've seen Paddy, and the society event attended by a group of trees when 'the citizen' starts spouting off about the English. 

Some elements of the parody reminded me of a parody of the Homeric style, which inevitably made me think of Pope's The Rape of the Lock. It is not clear if the narrator is supposed to be inserting these passages, I think instead that this is Joyce playing with the reader and the narrator himself. The blend of the comic and the serious in the chapter has come to be called 'jocoserious'.  

I can see why this is the cyclops episode. As well as the polymorphic voices in the pub, with their continual gossiping about different people, there is also the one-eyed one-sided views of the Citizen, an anti-semitic Fenian. 

Again, this chapter engages with the view other characters have of Bloom. Aside from the Citizen's obvious distaste for Bloom, the narrator himself finds Bloom annoying at the very least. Bloom alienates himself not only through his Jewishness but also through appearing too opinionated  and too mean to buy drinks to the men in the pub. Nevetheless, the Catholics hardly get off lightly either, with Joyce satirising the hypocrisy of the attitude to Bloom and the annecdote about the man having sex with a prostitute then apppearing with his wife at Mass the next morning. Though this is a humorous interlude, there is still an undercurrent of unplesantness with the way that Bloom is treated; the contrast of the opinions toward Irish persecution and the persecution of the Jews.  

Taken from The Irish Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand site.

Bloom leaves having defended himself but antagonised the Citizen to the extent that he tries to throw a biscuit box at him. All is not lost, however, as he ascends to heaven like Elijah in a chariot in the final parody of the chapter.

On to the next chapter, Nausicaa, or Joyce has a brush with obsenity.