James Joyce's "The Sisters": chalices and umbrellas, ptolemaic Memphis and Victorian Dublin

Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1995 by Susan Swartzlander

In Egyptian accounts, the deceased, the Osiris, seeks an escape from paralysis and "pleads with all his dumbness that his mouth may be opened, or, in other words, that his memory, which he has lost awhile, may be given back to him" (Massey 208). The Egyptian Books of the Dead include incantations for the deceased to proclaim "my mouth is firm," which Budge glosses as "I know how to utter the words of power which I possess with vigor" (Budge 216). Those seeking a reward of eternal life sought to be declared "true of voice" (Budge 176); typical epithets for Osiris included "true of speech" (Frazer 389). The Egyptian priests paid particular attention to the mouth, adopting a formal ceremony, the "rite of opening the mouth," to ensure that the mummy would have the power of speech, a prerequisite for resurrection. Here again archaeologists relate details of Egyptology and Christianity. Massey, for instance, noted that

this rite of `opening the mouth' is still performed in Rome. It was

announced in a daily paper not long since (the Mail, August 8th,

1903) that after the death of Pope Leo XIII and the coronation of

Pius X, `a consistory would be held to close and open the lips of

the cardinals newly created' or newly born into the purple. (Massey

208)

Eliza reminds the reader twice of the priest's brooding silence: "You wouldn't hear him in the house any more than now"; "He began to mope by himself, talking to no one" (16-17). Descriptions of Father Flynn's open mouth suggest no power or vitality, but only underscore his feebleness. Although the boy recalls that Flynn used to tell him stories, the reader pictures the priest not as animated narrator but as a grotesque parody of the silent communicant: "When he smiled he used to uncover his big discoloured teeth and let his tongue he upon his lower lip" (13). Eliza describes how she would often find her brother, "Whenever I'd bring in his soup to him there I'd find him with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and his mouth open" (16).

Although this Dublin Osiris's most significant enemies are physical and spiritual paralysis, Joyce adds a touch of humor by providing a symbolic Set in the story. The Egyptian Set is described as the fertility god's exact opposite. Considered the "wicked God of desiccation," Set "shriveled up harvests with his burning breath" (Durant 200). Old Cotter, puffing away on his pipe (a detail repeated four times in little more than a page of text), spitting "rudely into the grate," and fixing the boy with "his little beady black eyes," talks appropriately of "faints and worms" (10). In an interesting bit of wordplay, Old Cotter becomes the "old cutter" responsible for having Osiris hacked to pieces.

For Ebers, as for Joyce, the mythological elements yield to the flesh-and-blood people who suffer the effects of a "creed outworn," a religion that rings hollow for its time and its people, entrapping, victimizing, and paralyzing. In both the short story and the novel, religion has become a theatrical show, emphasizing the superficial, the appearance over substance. In Ebers's The Sisters, the high-priest of the temple installs a device at the altar to ensure a fine "performance": the priest explains that "Any temple servant, hidden here behind the altar, can now light or extinguish the lamps without the illusion being detected by the sharpest." The high-priest tests the device, crying in a chanting voice: "Thus he commands the night, and it becomes day, and the extinguished taper, and lo! it flames with brightness. If indeed thou art nigh, oh, Serapis! manifest itself to us." At these words a bright stream of light flashed from "the holy of holies," and again was suddenly extinguished when the high-priest sang: "Thus showest thou thyself as light to the children of truth, but dost punish with darkness the children of lies." The priest insists that such trickery is not deception: "We only present to short-sighted mortals the creative power of the divinity in a form perceptible and intelligible to their senses."