REPORT ON JAMES JOYCE'S ULYSSES

EPISODE 8--LESTRYGONIANS (151-183)

As the episode begins, at 1 p.m. on Thursday, June 16, 1904, we see Leopold Bloom wandering the streets of Dublin, hungry for his midday meal, "the thought of food much in mind" (Blamires 60). He passes a shop which sells sweets and then encounters a young Y.M.C.A. man, who hands him a newspaper containing a reference to "Blood of the Lamb." Bloom at first glance expects the "Bloo" to complete itself as his name, "Bloom." The implied connection between the "cannibalistic" symbolism behind the Christian ritual of communion and Bloom as modern Odysseus is made.

Bloom continues his lunchtime journey, catching sight of Dilly Dedalus, Stephen's younger sister, and this glimpse of her undernourished form triggers a rush of sympathetic thought in Bloom's mind. He ponders the recurrent pattern of large Roman Catholic families: "Increase and Multiply" (Joyce 151). Bloom's sincerity and kindness as he contemplates Dilly's plight is one example of a continuous exhibition of sympathy and kind behavior throughout the episode, as Bloom distinguishes himself from the brutishness of the diners around him.

Bloom crosses a bridge over the River Liffey and purchases some cakes with which to feed the hungry gulls. He continues to consider issues relating to food and the consumption of it, reflecting to himself about the consumption of swan-meat by Robinson Crusoe (another wandering figure) as the gulls feed. Bloom's thoughts move to the Liffey itself as he muses "life is a stream" (Joyce 153). Bloom is caught up short by what appears to be a moment of fear over the possibility that Blazes Boylan, his wife's lover, might have venereal disease, but he immediately dismisses the idea as impossible (Blamires 61).

Bloom passes the city ballast office and begins to ponder the meaning of the word "parallax," which reminds him of his wife's earlier puzzlement over the meaning of metempsychosis. As he, ironically, considers the parallel between his word and hers, he spies a line of men advertising the stationer Wisdom Hely's. He crosses Westmoreland Street, and the image of the Hely's ad-men sets him to thinking of his earlier life with Molly, when he himself was employed by Hely. As he walks along, he meets an old sweetheart, Mrs. Breen, who has become "feeble-minded" (Blamires 63) over the years. He plays a bit on her sympathy as he tells her of Paddy Dignam's funeral and has news from her of the labor of Mina Purefoy, an acquaintance of his and Molly's. As Bloom and Mrs. Breen converse, the eccentric form of Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell passes.

Bloom walks past the offices of the Irish Times, which provokes a series of thoughts about his correspondence with the young woman Martha, and a stream of sympathetic thoughts for Mina Purefoy's childbirth pangs. A flock of pigeons flies overhead, causing Bloom a moment's humorous consideration of the "fun" it must be for them to defecate on passersby from above (Joyce 162). As Bloom passes the statue of Thomas Moore and a group of Dublin policemen, he recalls some personal conflict with the authorities during his involvement with an anti-Boer war demonstration in his youth (Gilbert 202). A cloud passes over the front of Trinity College, momentarily darkening his mood, and as the sun re-emerges he catches a glimpse of Parnell's brother, John Howard Parnell, passing by. He feels a sense of disdain over the political machinations surrounding the Parnells: "Let them all go to pot" (Joyce 165). Next Bloom notices the literary figure A.E. and a young woman, whom he imagines to be Lizzie Twigg, with whom he corresponded briefly (Blamires 68).

The display of binoculars in the window of Yeates and Son sets forth a reverie concerning astronomical patterns and their implications. Bloom sees Bob Doran (of "The Boarding House" in Dubliners) on his annual drunk, stumbling into the Empire pub. As he heads towards Grafton Street, Bloom recalls the termination of his full marital relationship with Molly upon the death of their infant son Rudy, ten years prior. He observes a series of window displays of lingerie and women's clothing, thinking to himself of a potential gift for Molly. Finally overcome by hunger, he enters the Burton restaurant, and is confronted by images of ravenous diners sloppily consuming their lunch: "See the animals feed" (Joyce 169). He is so repulsed by the savagery of the patrons that he re-enters Grafton Street, moving on to Davy Byrne's pub, where he orders a glass of red wine and muses to himself about the idiocy of the "Plumtree's Potted Meats" advertisement in the newspaper, just below Paddy Dignam's obituary. An acquaintance, Nosey Flynn, asks after Molly's singing career, and Bloom responds politely, though it is extremely painful for him to be reminded of the connection between Blazes Boylan and his wife. Davy Byrne and Flynn converse over racing matters, which Bloom listens to distractedly and with a mild sense of moral disapproval, thinking "Fool and his money" (Joyce 174).

The glass of wine relaxes Bloom a bit, and this gives rise to a stream of thought including various dining habits and proclivities, his own and those of various peoples around the world. These thoughts lead to a remembrance of the passionate kiss with Molly during their first sexual encounter. He's struck hard by the contrast between his relationship with Molly then and now. On a window nearby, two stuck flies repeatedly buzz, emphasizing the stasis of his sexual connection with her now.

Bloom finishes his wine and leaves Byrne's pub. After his footsteps can no longer be heard, the inhabitants of the pub discuss him briefly, noting his status as a freemason. They remark upon Bloom's relative temperance and order another round for themselves. Bantam Lyons mistakenly thinks Bloom has given him a tip concerning an afternoon horse race. Bloom heads towards Dawson Street and then at Duke Lane notices a terrier coughing up a bit of food. He sees a blind youth standing on the curb and helps him across, providing the youth with specific directions as to where he is and thinking of the various physical implications of the young man's handicap. As he contemplates the ramifications of blindness, he runs his hands over the contours of his own person, considering its colors and textures.

Sir Frederick Falkiner enters the freemasons' hall in front of Bloom, and Bloom feels a surge of annoyance over the judge's snobbery and skewed sense of justice. An advertising placard puts Bloom in mind of Handel's Messiah, and in conjunction with this thought a flash of light illuminates a straw hat, tan shoes, and turnedup trousers, which Bloom imagines to be Blazes Boylan's. Sadly, he turns to the museum, trying to avoid meeting up with Boylan. As he puts his hands in his pockets, he comes across a cake of soap which he has put there. The episode ends as Bloom reaches the museum gate, "Safe!" (Joyce 183) from the image of Boylan, as well as the cannibalistic connotations of the brutish diners in the Burton and the dull Dublin sensibilities of the drinkers in Byrne's pub.

In Book X, the Laestrygonians episode of Homer's epic The Odyssey, we see Odysseus on his journey home to Ithaca encountering a band of cannibalistic creatures "not like Men, like Giants!" (Fagles 234) who kill and devour a number of his crew.

As Odysseus and his crew leave Aeolus' island, they sail forth for nine days and nights, only to be blown back by fierce winds to the island. Finally they set forth again and reach the land of the Laestrygonians, where they encounter a young woman, the daughter of Antiphates, King of the Laestrygonians. As Odysseus' shipmates ask her of their whereabouts, she indicates her father's palace nearby. As Odysseus' crew enters the palace, they are attacked by the husband of the princess, and "the king let loose a howling through the town that brought tremendous Lestrygonians swarming up from every side" (Fagles 234). The fierce, brutish cannibals slaughter and eat a number of Odysseus' crew.

Frantic to get away, Odysseus marshals his remaining crew, and they flee. "In terror of death they ripped the swells--all as one--/and what a joy as we darted out towards open sea, clear of those beetling cliffs . . . my ship alone" (Fagles 234).

The Homeric parallels here concern then the symbolic understanding of the bestiality of the diners in the Burton and the drinkers in Davy Byrne's pub, but additionally they include an examination of much of Dublin society, with its Catholicism and its lack of personal restraint, as animalistic, unrefined, and threatening. Joyce's Lestrygonians episode is full of the imagery of constant consumption, both on the part of Bloom and on the part of those humans and animals surrounding him, but the distinction between his dining habits and those of the others illuminates him as more fully human, as the wanderer who is threatened by the cannibalistic nature of those he encounters on his travels.

The episode is full of references to blood, beginning with the "Blood of the Lamb" early in the episode. Sacrificial imagery attends Bloom's consciousness throughout, as he thinks, walking towards the Liffey, "All are washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood sacrifice. Birth, hymen, martyr, war . . . Our Savior. Wake up in the dead of night and see him on the wall, hanging" (Joyce 151). It is Bloom's own continuous hunger which symbolizes the pitiless King Antiphates, and the visions and aromas of the food he encounters parallel the "decoy" figure of Antiphates' daughter. In a literal sense, the Lestrygonians are symbolized by the body part of the teeth, as well as by those creatures throughout the episode who consume food (Gilbert 210).

Bloom's vision of the diners in the Burton parallels Odysseus' view of the ravenous, cannibalistic Lestrygonians: "Stink gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slop of greens. See the animals feed" (Joyce 169). Upon leaving the Burton, Bloom begins pondering the merits of vegetarianism as images of animals being slaughtered for consumption assail him, much like the Lestrygonians themselves attack Odysseus and his crew. He thinks, "Famished ghosts," and we're reminded of the ghosts in Book XI of The Odyssey, who must drink from a trench of blood before they can speak (Gifford 144).

Joyce's episode parallels Odysseus' escape with his decimated crew from the cannibals with Bloom's safe arrival at the museum gate after having fled the ravenous diners of the Burton, the coarse ways of the drinkers at Byrne's pub, and the images of blood sacrifice that surround him in the Dublin streets. The fact that he is passing from the roughness of these streets to the more refined, artistic demesne of the museum signals a movement into a realm more concerned with art than with the functions of the body (Kenner 251).

Finally, the constant examples of Bloom's kindness in this episode--his sympathy for the undernourished Dilly Dedalus, his desire to feed the hungry gulls, his consideration of Mrs. Purefoy and her labor pains, his assistance of and concern for the blind stripling--parallel what Homer shows us of Odysseus' concern for his crew, his family, and his underlying sensibility as a figure of great kindness and generosity.

Throughout this episode Joyce shows us a recurrent pattern of Bloom as the heroic wanderer trapped amidst the more animalistic citizens of Dublin. In conjunction with the theme of food is the theme of cannibalism as manifested in the ritualistic "blood" sacrifice of Catholic communion. This underscores the Homeric parallels of the episode, but it also distinguishes Bloom, as the wandering Jew, as one apart from the ritualized blood ceremonies of Catholicism. Bloom's perspective on the Church is one which transcends its tenets to take into account the wellbeing of its human members, as in his contemplation of the "Increase and multiply" edict of Genesis 1:28 (Gifford 127).

As the kindly Bloom shakes the crumbs from his hands upon feeding the gulls, he thinks of the River Liffey: "It's always flowing in a stream, never the same, which is the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream" (Joyce 153). This analogy gives the reader a foretaste of the stream-like structure of Molly Bloom's soliloquoy in the final episode of the book.

There are constant pairings of food imagery with religious symbols and images ("Pillar of salt" and "Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel"). These contribute further to Bloom's sense of singularity as the virtuous wanderer surrounded by ravenous brutes. Still, despite Bloom's repulsion at the animalistic appetites of those around him, his hunger forces him to eat, to move into the stream of hungry humanity himself.

Bloom's encounter with the blind stripling as he is passing towards the museum gate is important for many reasons other than as an example of his kindness. His acknowledgment of the blind man causes him to consider the physical effects of such a disability: "Sense of smell must be stronger too. Smells on all sides bunched together . . . Tastes. They say you can't taste wines with your eyes shut or a cold in the head" (Joyce 181-182). He runs his fingers through his hair and over his own body, and as he does so he grounds himself ever more firmly in that stream of humanity. This is his parallel gesture to Stephen Dedalus' consideration of "the ineluctable modality of the visible" (Joyce 37). He is here laying claim to his own completion as a man, grounding himself in the temporal and the physical just before his passage into the safety of the museum (where, ironically, he will examine the goddesses' statues to see if, like live women, they have anuses) (Bowen 473). Bloom locates a cake of soap, the ad which has been in his coat pocket (Agendath Netaim, reminscent of the East, of escape to an exotic Edenic locale), and his potato, which grounds him geographically in the context of Ireland. Having thus reassured himself, he moves on, "safe" for the moment.

Blamires, Harry. The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses. New York:

Routledge, 1996.

Bowen, Zack, ed. A Companion to Joyce Studies. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1984.

Fagles, Robert, trans. The Odyssey. Homer. New York: Penguin, 1996.

Gifford, Don, and Robert J. Seidman. Notes for Joyce: An Annotation of James Joyce's

Ulysses. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1974.

Gilbert, Stuart. James Joyce's Ulysses. New York: Vintage, 1958.

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

Kenner, Hugh. Dublin's Joyce. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.