What Did James Joyce Mean When He Wrote Ulysses Anyway ? Part III
what changes is the mode of perception only. Zion forgets Kevin Egan, landlords change, buildings crumble, but things remain the same. Only the way we see them changes. Thus, a number of literary renderings of heroism occur in Cyclops, literary renderings of sexual bantar occur in Oxen. On this level, Bloom and Stephen merge with their literary prototypes: all heroes are incarnations of the values of the civilizations that create them, and have therefore a kind of kinship within a typological tradition. Bloom shares certain virtues of Christ, Elijah, and Odysseus; Stephen shares certain virtues of Satan, Swift, Hamlet, and Shakespeare. The citizen is a metempsychosed Achilles, Lenehan a modern version of Chaucer's Franklin--- both much debased. Molly is Helen, Calypso, and Penelope. But at the same time, all are unique beings, part of their time and culture, and with unmistakably personal attributes. Their individuality is set off against their participation in a world-mind, a collective conscious." (1)
As can be seen Joyce is not only describing one of the transcendental qualities of literature, but he has also created an inherent dichotomy between the two characters Stephen Dedalus and Harold Bloom. Throughout the novel, the two figures play off one another in an almost superhuman contest of ideals and metaphor. The two not only represent a comparison in values, but of literary symbolism that precedes the ages. This is only one of the mechanisms that rest inside Ulysses, waiting for the reader to unearth and discover. There are jewels underneath the sands of his language, lying just below the surface of metaphor and symbolism. Characteristics such as this dichotomy are only one of the qualities that critics and writers search for when they are seeking the glowing gems of the liteary canon. Marilyn French again,
"The allusions---correspondences that reach outside the book---have a function, or functions, somewhat different from the correspondences and mysteries. On the lowest level, they serve to fix character: the esoteric nature of Stephen's allusions, the comic errors and misunderstandings that occur in Bloom's, provide a good deal of our own knowledge about them. On another level, the allusions represent the past or civilization. People may not think about the past as much as Bloom and Stephen do, but it is always with us, lying in our institutions and standards." (2)
It has been stated that Ulysses is composed of three episodes that provide the basic
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