Chapter 7

Joyce juxtaposes the intense death imagery of the "Hades" episode with the chaos of daily life: the first images in Chapter Seven are of speeding omnibuses. Joyce tightens the focus on the Post Office in the second segment, ending with the image of shoe cleaners. Then in a radical twist in the third episode "Gentelman of the Press", he draws it even closer, to an advertisement. The image is just as life like as the preceding ones, except it is unchanging, as evidenced by the palindromic repetition with which Joyce describes it.

The progression between these segments draw attention to a paramount theme in the chapter, as oratory and the art of convincing others is so prominent here, and in fact in the work in general: representations as they relate to the thing being represented. We've talked in class a little about Ulysesses' realism: that the stream of consciousness is not actually very realistic. I agree, but I don't think it's failure. The work I think is not supposed to invisibly or seamlessly capture reality, but rather, Joyce draws attention time and again to the fact that the novel is an artifice, and so is inherently limited.

In "Clever, Very", in describing/thinking about Myles Crawford's mouth, Dedalus observes/writes "Why did you write than then?" The line confounds an easy explanation, just as it's tough to describe the novel as realistic or constructed (the title of the segment underlines its slippery meta qualities). Moreover, the hard work of decoding this chapter, even at the simple level of recognzining who is speaking, draws further attention to the problem. Most obviously pointing to the artifice of writing and the constructed qualities of writing are the headlines marking each episode

The characters are deepened somewhat, Bloom as a target, pushed aside by the opening door, and harassed because he is actually working; and Stephen as awkard in his abilities (Pisgah Palestine and the Parable of the Plums) and undecided if he wants to join the "press gang". But I think more important here than the character and the progression of the plot is the verbal volleys and an examination of discourse.