What Did James Joyce Mean When He Wrote Ulysses Anyway ? Part V

"The Chrysostomos that Stephen has in mind is St. John Chrysostomos, the Church father famed for his rhetorical skill (in Joyce's schema he designates theology as the 'art' of the chapter), but the irony lies in the metallic gold in Mulligan's affluent mouth; by contrast, Stephen's mouth is full of decayed teeth. Mulligan's epithet for him, "Toothless kinch'(22.28), reverberates in his mind several hours later when he contemplates his rotting teeth: 'My teeth are very bad. Why, I wonder ? Feel. That one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to a dentist, I wonder with what money ? That one. Toothless kinch, the superman. Why is that, I wonder, or does it mean something perhaps ? (50.34) That it is St. John Chrysostomos, rather than the secular Chrysostomos, is proved when we learn Buck's full name, Malachi Roland St. John Mulligan (417.40) and since one Christian John suggests another, Buck is also playing the role of the Precursor, John the Baptist. Buck precedes Stephen (whose name is derived from the Greek for 'crown') up the tower, summons him forth blesses him, and predicts that together they could bring forth marvellous changes." (1)

Chrysostomos brings forth the passion of youth running around the ruins of the ancient Grecian empire. Dadelus referring again to the Greek mythology of old; but at the same time he uses a set of contradictions to present a rather odd Christian analogy in this scene. Buck Mulligan will take on the role of a sort of taunting John The Baptist figure playing the opposite of the youthful Dadelus, who becomes and resonates as a Christlike personage in the text. The text forms a gilded tapestry moving from a secular world into the world of a spiritual Christian realm. Joyce included several rivers springing from the Western tradition in this piece of prose, and brings up at the same time the issue of Irish independence, reminding Dadelus of his ongoing severance to his friend Haines. Stephen s metaphorically reprsenting a subjected Ireland to British rule; making the references by Joyce to Greek independence even more pertinant. Hence, the reason for the Greek flag on the first editorial copies of Ulysses. Joyce was always full of surprises; helping to add to the power and depth of Ulysses.

Such wonderous references to the literary genre of the Western Canon gave the novel more a sense of falavorable essence, sinking into the

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