Stately plump Buck Mulligan is a jackass. Early on in the novel Joyce repeatedly points out Buck’s selfishness, egoism, and demeaning attitude. One of Buck’s first faults is his stereotypical mindset. While this attribute borders with bigotry it has a different quality. He frequently calls Stephen a Jesuit, usually carrying negative connotation. Also he complains about “those bloody English. Bursting with money and indigestion” (4). This demeanor stems from his medical background. Buck says that if everyone had the wholesome food he has, the country would not be “full of rotten teeth and rotten guts” (15 line). His ability to pass off the blight of the poor, unlike Buck who claims to be both civilized and “salty,” shows the milkmaid that he is a medical student. This shows how Buck is able to substitute sympathy with rationale. And like the organisms he studies, he groups all types of people according to similarities, even stereotypes. This portrayal of a scientific thinker as arrogant and self-admiring contradicts some facets of modernism. But beyond having negative qualities related to his method of thought, Buck is sincerely terrible. Stephen Dedalus is too often the recipient of Buck’s demeaning. The obvious example of this idea in this scene is when Buck says, “it’s only Dedalus whose mother is beastly dead” (8). Over the next few lines we see Buck’s attitude toward the comment move from denial, “did I say that?,” to rationale, “what harm is that?,” to pride, “I suppose I did say it. I didn’t mean to offend the memory of your mother” (8). And when Buck learns Stephen is the one offended, he has no need for discussion. But Buck just looks silly when one remembers that he was the one asking what was bothering Stephen. Buck’s original concern is one-way Joyce sets up that Buck and Stephen’s companionship is good for both of them. Buck, when not tormenting Stephen, invites him to be his partner to “Hellenise” the city (7). Going the other way Buck is “Mercurial,” and in the Odyssey Mercury helps Odysseus leave Calypso’s Island. And also Buck rambles on about how he knows Dedalus so well, and thereby can call him “Kinch”. Although I’ll just have to wait to see what happens with these two.
On another note there has been one intricately developed metaphor with “the mother” and the sea. It is here that Joyce ties together Stephen’s emotion, connections to The Odyssey, the Irish identity, and wonderful imagery. Buck first calls the sea “a grey mother” (5). Not even a page later Stephen gets absorbed into one of his daydreams. In this dream Stephen sees the see as “a great sweet mother” (5). Something peculiar is happening here because Dedalus uses the image that Buck gave, yet changes it. Also in this dream he remembers “the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver” (5). This again draws from Buck, how he called the see “snotgreen.” The emotional connection to his mother in this image is found a little later on. He notices the “white breast of the sea,” another maternal image (9). This all ties to the Odyssey because the sea is Odysseus’s main rival. And all the while these young persons, trapped in this olphamos, are inevitably molded and termed “Irish” for being on this island.
Questions:
Some of the difficulties from reading this text lie in the seamless shift between other voices, times, and realities. I think this is Joyce trying to really place the novel in the minds of his characters. Out of curiosity, what do you find most difficult?
What do you make of Haines? Both characters initially seem frustrated with him, but he doesn’t come off as so wicked.
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