REPORT ON JAMES JOYCE'S ULYSSES

EPISODE 7--AEOLUS (116-150)

This episode begins at noon, in the combined newspaper office of the Freeman's Journal and National Press (the morning daily) and the Evening Telegraph (the evening daily).

"Bloom's plight" (Kopper 57) begins as he is "working away, tearing away" (117) to secure the Keyes' ad for his newspaper; this task proves difficult as Keyes wants a two month ad subscription but the foreman, Mr. Nannetti, demands that Keyes "give us a three months' renewal" (121). Bloom decides to call Keyes before he "tram[s] it out all the way and then catch[es] him out" (122), and in the ET office, he encounters Ned Lambert, Professor MacHugh, and Simon Dedalus. J.J. O'Molloy soon enters, and these four Dubliners begin talking about "Doughy" Dan Dawson's speech of the previous night (126). Bloom is pondering "why they call him Doughy Dawson" (126) when his editor Myles Crawford "violently" (126) enters the room. Ned and Simon quickly leave to go "to the Oval [bar] for a drink" (130), and Bloom finally makes his call. Bloom, reappearing, insists that he will "be back in no time" (129) and rushes out to meet Keyes, colliding with the newly arrived Lenehan.

O'Madden Burke and Stephen Dedalus arrive, the "Youth led by Experience visit[ing] Notoriety" (131), as Burke proclaims. Stephen's purpose is to deliver Mr. Deasy's paper on foot-and-mouth disease to Crawford for printing. Stephen is quickly immersed in the group's raucous conversations on Ignatius Gallaher and his "farthing press [or sensationalistic]" (139) reporting of the Phoenix Park murders by "the invincibles" (138). Crawford leads this discussion until he is inconveniently interrupted by a phone call from Bloom, who is promptly told to "go to hell" (137). Professor MacHugh turns the conversation to the famous orator John F. Taylor, whose speech, quoted by MacHugh, compares England to the enslaving Egypt and Ireland to the enslaved Israelites.

All leave the office as Bloom returns, announcing that Keyes "will give a renewal for two months" (146) if he is allowed free space in other papers, a request which is denied by Crawford's "tell him to kiss my royal Irish arse" (147). Bloom is left standing alone as Crawford walks on "jerkily" (147) to catch up with the group. The episode ends at Nelson's pillar, after Stephen's telling of his "Parable of the Plums" (149), with the Dubliners' recollections of the adulterous Lord Nelson.

Odysseus and his crew arrive on Aeolia island, home of the "warden of winds" (X.24), where they are "lodged in town and palace" (X.14) until Odysseus asks to continue their journey home. Aeolus graciously gives the hero what he needs, "stint[ing] nothing,/adding a bull's hide sewn from neck to tail/into a mighty bag, bottling storm winds" (X.20-2) and providing favorable wind for his voyage. After nine days of sailing, the crew becomes suspicious of the bag's contents and decides to hoard the suspected treasure for themselves. They instead unleash "every wind/ [which] roared into hurricane" (X.51-2), causing the ship to return to Aeolia. Greeted again by Aeolus, Odysseus begs him to "make good my loss/dear friend! You have the power!" (X.74-5); yet Odysseus is violently rejected by his friend: "Take yourself out of this island, creeping thing/no law, no wisdom, lays it on me now/to help a man the blessed gods detest/out!" (X.77-80).

Like Odysseus, "Bloom, within sight of 'home'--that is, successfully negotiating the Keyes advertisement--is foiled in his attempt by the demanding Keyes and by the irritation of [his] boss, Myles Crawford" (Kopper 55). Bloom, who sees his success with the Keyes' ad as clearly as Odysseus knows his return home is guaranteed, is side-tracked by the squalls of "contrary winds" (Gifford 151) from his Aeolus, Crawford, who does not seem to have the time or patience to discuss the matter with him. Left standing alone to "weigh the point" (147), Bloom must straighten out the matter himself, just as Aeolus discourteously dismisses Odysseus with "out!".

Bloom initially receives the kind words "the world is before you" (129) from Crawford as he leaves to meet Keyes, but this temperament quickly becomes "go to hell" (137) as Crawford comes to detest Bloom's interruptions, a parallel to Odysseus' experience of being first welcomed, then despised, on Aeolia. Bloom experiences the same "peremptory dismissal" (Gifford 152) from Crawford that Odysseus receives from Aeolus as each has a change of heart toward their lesser counterpart: Aeolus demotes Odysseus from friend to "creeping thing," and Crawford transforms Bloom from conqueror to nuisance.

Stephen, who also represents Odysseus, fears that he is caught in a "nightmare from which [he] will never awake" (137). Stephen becomes trapped among the windbags Crawford, Burke, and MacHugh, who pompously spout their opinions over his passive head. He is unable to escape the Dubliners' squalls of "hurrican[ic] contrary winds" (Gifford 151) just as Odysseus is unable to escape the unrelenting hurricane released from his "bull's hide" bag.

Though he does not dominate this episode, Bloom certainly emerges as a figure of isolation. "Bloom is an outsider here and the butt of others' jokes. He has little palpable impact on the events of the episode" (Mikics 535). Bloom remains in the shadows, almost paralyzed by his inability to communicate with and relate to the Dubliners. There are clear signs that there is no room for him in the group, such as when "the doorknob hit [him] in the small of the back" (124) as Lenehan enters the ET office or when Lenehan "clutch[es] him for an instance . . . [in his] suffering grip" (129) after Bloom bumps into him in his haste to leave. Bloom is the unwanted, unnecessary man.

Joyce also makes it clear that the Dubliners depicted in this episode--Crawford, MacHugh, O'Molloy, Dedalus, Lambert, and Lenehan--are paralyzed by past memories and people, too caught up in the way life used to be to live in the present. "The[se] principals in the newspaper office . . . worship the lifeless heroes of the past. The[y] . . . pursue chimeras" (Kopper 57) through their glorification of "the previous generation of Irish orators" (Mikics 545). Just as Dublin is paralyzed by the "motionless trolleys" (149) at "the heart of [its] life: its trams" (Kopper 59), so too are the Dubliners motionless to pursue life in the present day.

John Taylor, the orator glorified by MacHugh, is important to the novel because he continues, and especially verbalizes, the anti-British sentiment popular in Ireland, combining it with religious sentiment and tradition. He presents himself as a modern Moses, trying to lead his people and country away from "bow[ing] their head, bow[ing] their will, and bow[ing] their spirit" (143) to the imposing British. Taylor analogizes that Ireland contains the potential to be submerged in British culture and tradition because England believes Ireland "has but emerged from primitive conditions" (142); thus the British see great potential to demonstrate their power and will upon an unwilling, yet helpless, people. In his Biblical comparison, Israel, "weak and few" (143), becomes Ireland, struggling to resist the tyrannical force of Egypt, "a host [with] terrible arms" (143), or England, who wants to dominate the seemingly uncivilized country. Bloom's unanswered question of "whose land?" (124) heightens the controversy of "whether, and in what sense, Ireland 'belongs' to its Irish origins" (Mikics 538).

Important to the outcome of the novel is the first crossing of paths of Bloom and Stephen, which occurs in the newsroom. As Bloom cannot become part of the Dubliners' group and Stephen struggles to escape "the nets of Irish language and culture" (Mikics 543) the Dubliners represent for him, this episode "forecasts Stephen's movement toward Bloom" (Mikics 535); this movement toward an acquaintance can also be seen in their common keylessness: Stephen having to give his key to Mulligan in Episode 1 and Bloom because he cannot secure the Keyes ad.

Gifford, Don. Ulysses Annotated. Berkeley: U of California P, 1989.

Homer. The Odyssey. Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Maynard Mack, General

Editor. 3rd ed. 2 vols. New York: Norton, 1992. 1:325-27.

Joyce, James. Ulysses. New York: Vintage International, 1990.

Mikics, David. "History and the Rhetoric of the Artist in 'Aeolus'." James Joyce Quarterly

27 (1990): 533-58.