"Circe"/ Circle/ Cycle

Eishiro Ito

(summary)

     According to the Gorman-Gilbert Schema, "Locomotor Apparatus" is allocated as the organ, and "Hallucination" as the technic to the 15th episode "Circe" of Ulysses.  The purpose of this essay is to reconsider the relationship between them.

     The organ which is most infuenced by hallucination is the eyes.  Stephen vainly tried to reject the "ineluctable modality of the visible" (i.e., color) in the 3rd episode.  But on the contrary, in "Circe," people try to find the (great) light, using the eyes.  Actually, however, Stephen, who plays the most important role in the visionary world of "Circe," rethinks this subject in light of George Berkeley's An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision.

      The chronotope of "Circe" is far different from other episodes:  it has a "peculiar festive character without any piousness."  Such a gay time transforms the linear time-structure of eschatology into the Viconean structure "corsi e ricorsi storici."  It also means that there are many repetitions of descriptions from the previous episodes in "Circe," and this phenomenon is condensed into the words expressing "the mirror."  The phrase "a mirror within a mirror" (U14.1044) shows the real nature of the "Circe" episode.  In the last scene, Bloom, looking down on Stephen (his spiritual son), notices Rudy's (his real but dead son's) presence.

      Thus we finally understand the relationship between the two entries of the schema:  the eyes represent a circle because of the shape of the locomotor apparatus.  The word "Circe" may be a misspelling of "circle" or "cycle."

      In the Viconian context, this "error" means a great deal.  At least judging from the relationship between the two, one of the themes Joyce pursues here is "self-re-cognition."
 
 

The full version is available in Joycean Japan, no.4
(The James Joyce Society of Japan, June 16 1993)




 



 



        


Copyright (c) 1993 Eishiro Ito.  All rights reserved.