Rereading 'Ulysses': "Ithaca" and modernist allegory - book by author James Joyce

Twentieth Century Literature, Fall, 1997 by Stephen Sicari

In this passage, the "Ithaca" narrator reflects on earlier moments in Bloom's day and "rereads" them. What is the relation of the version of events in "Ithaca" to earlier versions, especially to the one described at the end of "Lotus Eaters" when Bloom inadvertently gives Bantam Lyons the tip about Throwaway, the dark horse who wins the Gold Cup? Unknowingly and accidentally, Bloom predicted the winner, and he is perhaps amused and bewildered at this coincidence. The "Ithaca" narrator, however, is not confused but understands it in a way that Bloom, the character in a realistic novel, does not. For the last lines quoted above depict Bloom walking away from Lyons in a very different way than was described at the end of "Lotus Eaters." There, "Mr. Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap in it, smiling.... He walked cheerfully toward the mosque of the baths" (5.543 - 44, 549); in "Ithaca," he is seen "with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction." The narrator in "Ithaca" sees more and differently than the narrator in "Lotus Eaters." The earlier narrator can only see the "realistic" content of the event, what actually happened in what we can call the "literal dimension of reality." The "Ithaca" narrator, however, is responding to and recording a different dimension of reality, what we can call the "allegorical dimension of reality." Both are equally valid and truthful, and they do not cancel each other or stand opposed. As "Lotus Eaters" has it, Bloom "walked cheerfully" to the baths; this is what occurs in the literal dimension of reality, and Bloom's interior monologue betrays no sign of the solemn and awesome powers ascribed to him by the later narrator. Yet what "Ithaca" presents is equally valid, for the significance of that earlier event is only felt now - in the penultimate episode - is only understood now, and can only be expressed now. The "Ithaca" narrator can see, in the Bloom of 10 o'clock in the morning, "the light of inspiration shining in his countenance." It was there, at that time, when Bloom walked to the baths; but only the later narrator, who is in the position to reread the event, can see it.

This passage from "Ithaca" is Joyce's way of giving us the exegetical clue about how to read his novel. The later narrator is more privileged than the earlier one in that he can see what "Lotus Eaters" depicted, but also more, the "truth" of the earlier episode's event. The "Lotus Eaters" narrator is like the authors of the Old Testament, offering precise accounts of actual "historical" or "literal" events; but this narrator, like those authors, is blocked from a full understanding of what is narrated. The train of events that began with the inadvertent tip is fulfilled when we say that Bloom is an "advertising Elijah," an ad canvasser with prophetic powers.

It is difficult to determine exactly how Joyce came to the decision to write Ulysses in this manner, but the way he establishes his allegory in "Ithaca" suggests that Dante's example is crucial. For Joyce presents Bloom's and Stephen's exit from 7 Eccles Street with the background music of the 113th Psalm, the very psalm Dante uses to describe his method of writing allegory.(3) Charles Singleton effected a revolution in Dante studies when he advanced the poet's own distinction between two kinds of allegory, what Dante calls the "allegory of poets" and the "allegory of theologians," arguing that he writes the Commedia using the latter: