University of Tulsa
Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's "Ulysses"
Author(s): Sheldon R. Brivic
Source: James Joyce Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Fall, 1969), pp. 30-51
Published by: University of Tulsa
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25486804
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Sheldon R. Brivic
Time, Sexuality and
Identity in Joyce's Ulysses
Back of everything magnetism. Earth for instance pulling
this and being pulled. That causes movement. And time? Well
that's the time the movement takes.
? Leopold Bloom in Ulysses1
Time is a function of matter, in a sense, for it is defined in
terms of the movement and transformation of matter. In James
Joyce's Ulysses the close connection between time and matter is
heavily emphasized. Frequent references to mutability are woven
into the texture of the novel, so that the world of Bloomsday Dub
lin is colored by a constant awareness of time, of movement and of
change. A continuum of time and matter is created which is used
to define the positions and natures of the two protagonists of
Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom. I intend to show
how Ulysses portrays the relationships of these two characters to
matter and time and to suggest why these relationships are essential
to the conception and construction of the novel. Viewed in these
terms, a number of apparently diverse elements of the novel may
be seen to form a unified pattern. In particular, the sexual natures
of Stephen and Bloom may be related to their philosophical posi
tions. I will focus my attention mainly on the two early episodes
"Proteus" and "Calypso," which provide succinct and essential
presentations of Stephen and Bloom respectively.
One of the major distinctions between the two characters is
the fact that Bloom is a physical or materialistic person, while
Stephen is spiritual or intellectual. This division between the physi
cal and the spiritual is a principle which governs the construction
of the entire novel rather precisely, as we shall see. One indication
30
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 31
of the application of this principle may be found in Joyce's struc
tural diagram for Ulysses.2 On this chart Joyce assigns an organ
for each episode of the novel except the first three. These three
episodes, the "Telemachia," deal with Stephen, and the only other
episode which Stephen clearly dominates is "Scylla and Charybdis,"
the organ of which is the brain. The episodes in which Bloom is
central, however, are associated with many organs. As the organs
represent the episodes and their subjects, Joyce may be suggesting,
by arranging his work thus, that Bloom has most of his organs
except for a brain, while Stephen is a disembodied mind.
A similar indication is the fact that Stephen, after rejecting
room and board at the Martello Tower early in the novel, never
eats in Ulysses, while considerable emphasis is placed upon eating
and other bodily functions in the case of Bloom. It should be added
that although Stephen doesn't eat after "Telemachus," the first
episode, he drinks a good deal. He seems to be limited to the liquid
level of sustenance, perhaps because it is thought of as a minimum
necessary for life. In "Eumeus," Bloom, after emphasizing the fact
that he is "a stickler for solid food," asks Stephen, who is evidently
famished, to eat something solid. Stephen replies, "Liquids I can
eat," but he asks Bloom to take away the knife, which reminds him
of Roman history (p. 635). In "Oxen of the Sun" Stephen rejects
the bread of the Eucharist and accepts only the wine as his "soul's
bodiment" (p. 391). The distinction between the physical and the
spiritual which is illustrated by this dietary division relates to
many of the other differentiations between the two characters. One
way of explaining this distinction is to say that Bloom's fundamental
attitude toward the material world is one of acceptance and in
volvement, while Stephen's is predominantly one of rejection and
aloofness.3 Moreover, in portraying the material world through
the minds of Stephen and Bloom, Joyce persistently emphasizes its
qualities of transience and flux, the movement and transformation
of matter which constitute time. Thus, the attitude of each of the
protagonists toward his environment is virtually always analogous
to his attitude toward time: Stephen rejects time, while Bloom ac
cepts it.
The different attitudes of the two characters toward the world
and toward time determine the natures of their identities. Bloom's
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32 Sheldon R. Brivic
identity consists of his relation to the physical world. His mind,
which is usually engaged in the sensuous apprehension of the world
of matter, is composed mainly of concrete physical and sensual im
pressions and of feelings which relate to other people and objects.
Bloom's thinking on more abstract levels is quite limited, and is
composed largely of inert cliches and spiritless banalities. His ideas
are often compared to physical phenomena. Thus, for example, in
"Lestrygonians," the technique of which Joyce describes as "peris
taltic" on his structural diagram, Bloom's thoughts are expressed
in prose which imitates digestion (see pp. 169-176). Similarly, in
"Hades," the technique of which is "incubism," and in "Nausikaa,"
one of the techniques of which is "detumescence," Bloom's thinking
undergoes physical processes.
Except for his reactions to his body, which abound, Bloom has
very little sense of self. His personality tends to be composed of the
sum of his social position, his possessions, his background, his home,
his relations to those around him, his job, his scientism (which
strives for objectivity) and so forth. Indeed, it is difficult to identify
Bloom's personality except in terms of his positive relation to his
physical environment: most of the terms which characterize him,
such as open, warm, sensual, practical, thrifty, adaptable and re
sourceful, describe this very relationship. Bloom exists in relation
to everything, for he accepts all, but, ironically, he doesn't exist at
all, for his position is one of self-negation. He is "Everyman or
Noman"(p.727).
Stephen, on the other hand, is virtually never positively en
gaged in the sensuous apprehension of matter in Ulysses. All of his
observations of the material world are colored by bitterness and
repulsion. He rejects the imperfection and mutability of the world
and turns inward to concentrate his attention upon his own selfhood
and the abstractions of his mind. "You suspect," he says to Bloom,
"that I may be important because I belong to . . . Ireland . . .
But I suspect . . . that Ireland must be important because it be
longs to me" (p. 645). Stephen apparently has scarcely any posses
sions except for his hat and staff. He gives up his job and his home,
and his personality exists outside of his relations to family and
society. While Stephen possesses a certain creative power or poten
tiality because he has cultivated the freedom and individuality
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 33
of his personality, the selfhood that he possesses cannot express
itself and is in danger of self-destruction or perversion because of its
opposition to all sensible phenomena. It cannot exist in a vacuum.
The attitudes of Stephen and Bloom to time and to the world
are analogous to their relations to the opposite sex. This analogy is
soundly based upon a major convention of modern European litera
ture whereby the attitude of a man toward a woman is equated
with his attitude toward the world, perhaps because woman re
presents the essence of man's earthly attractions and attachments.
Since Petrarch, this convention has grown to be such a common
place that even the "kinetic poet" Bloom uses it in a poem which
he writes to Molly in his youth: "Dearer far than song or wine/You
are mine. The world is mine" (p. 678). Unfortunately, Molly and
the world no longer belong to Bloom at the time of the novel's
action. Throughout Ulysses both of the protagonists are continually
preoccupied by thoughts of the transience of the material world,
and they are similarly preoccupied by thoughts of the inconstancy
of human love. The spiritual Stephen, however, tends to be more
concerned with the abstract concept of mutability and with a
ghost, while Bloom is disturbed by the concrete physical problem
of his wife's adultery.
The love of Stephen's life, thus far, has been his mother. Joyce's
biography tends to confirm this, as does Stephen's statement that
"amor matris . . . may be the only true thing in life" (p. 207).4
But Stephen has rejected his mother, and she has died. Joyce does
much to associate Stephen with Prince Hamlet in the first third of
Ulysses. Hamlet, in the early part of his drama, is intensely pre
occupied with the inconstancy of his mother, which he associates
with mutability and with all of the imperfections of the world.
("Frailty, thy name is woman!") Hamlet's disillusionment is height
ened later in the play when he learns of the murder of his father.
According to Stephen's interpretation of the play, however, the
father need not necessarily be dead. "What is a ghost?" Stephen
says, "One who has faded into impalpability through death, through
absence, through change of manners" (p. 188). Stephen calls
Shakespeare himself "a ghost by absence" (p. 189) because of the
bard's supposed cuckoldry, and Bloom is presumably in the same
category. By his tendency to deny the actual murder Stephen em
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34 Sheldon R. Brivic
trayed him, by dying. She has committed a sort of adultery by
it was his mothers infidelity which disturbed Hamlet before he
knew of his father's murder. It is, in fact, suggested that the wom
an's crime includes the other in one of the few lines actually spoken
by Shakespeare in Ulysses, "Weda seca whokilla farst" (p. 568),
or "None wed the second but who kill'd the first."5 As this line
suggests, and as "The Dead" tends to confirm, Joyce thinks of in
constancy and of the lack of love as serious analogues for death.
Stephen's reaction to his mother's death is complex: there are
several levels of feeling, some of them contradictory. One of these
levels is a resentment aimed at the mother herself. When Stephen
indicates his anger at Mulligan's statement that May Dedalus is
"beastly dead" and Mulligan replies that he "didn't mean to offend
the memory of" Stephen's mother, Stephen replies:
? I am not thinking of the offense to my mother.
? Of what, then? Buck Mulligan asked.
? Of the offense to me, Stephen answered, (pp. 8-9)
Why should Stephen take his mother's death as an offense to
himself? In Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man he expressed resentment of his mother's religiousness, which
he felt as an infidelity to himself. In the earlier work he accuses
her of going "behind my back" to a priest,6 and in the Portrait "a
dim antagonism gathered force within him and darkened his mind
as a cloud against her disloyalty" because of her religion.7 Now
Stephen feels that his mother has been unfaithful to him, has be
trayed him, by dying. She has committed a sort of adultery by
becoming "beastly dead" with the willingness of devout religion,
for she has left his side and gone over to the side of the dio boia
or hangman god,8 submitting herself to the medical world of Mul
ligan. When Stephen is confronted by his mother in "Circe" he ex
presses, among other feelings, an antagonism, a sense that she
stands in opposition to him on the side of the God of mutability:
THE MOTHER
. . . Repent, Stephen.
STEPHEN
The ghoul! Hyena!
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 35
*
?
?
4
?
THE MOTHER
. . . Repentl O, the fire of hell!
STEPHEN
(Panting.) The corpsechewer! Raw head and bloody bones!
? ft ? o ?
THE MOTHER
. . . Save him from hell, O divine Sacred Heart!
STEPHEN
No! No! No! Break my spirit all of you if you can!
Ill bring you all to heel! (pp. 581-82)
Because Stephen tends to take this resentful attitude, a parallel
between his concern for his mother and Bloom's concern for his
wife is reinforced. Stephen's mother's mutability is equated with
infidelity, and we shall see that Bloom's wife's infidelity is equated
with mutability.
The death of Stephen's mother is associated with time in the
following riddle, which is repeated twice and referred to many
more times in the novel:
The cock crew
The sky was blue:
The bells in heaven
Were striking eleven.
Tis time for this poor soul
To go to heaven, (pp. 26, 558; Joyce's italics.)
Mrs. Dedalus' death, which, of course, is inherendy represen
tative of time, is closely related to Stephen's bitter recoil from the
world of matter to the world of spirit. Stephen's initial feeling for
his mother, which resembled the standard oedipal pattern of psy
choanalysis, was a refusal to accept time in that he clung to the
old, maternal ties and could not be happy with a mate of his own
generation. His mother's death, forcing time upon him, has forced
upon him a deep disillusionment with life. The world reminds him
of her death and he finds it repulsive. This is established in the
first episode: ". . . he saw the sea hailed as a great sweet mother
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36 Sheldon R. Brivic
by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and skyline held
a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl . . . had stood beside her
deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up
from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting" (p. 5).
The personal worlds of Stephen and Bloom are both founded
upon the same objective reality, and although Stephen's god is the
cannibalistic monster or vampire, the dio boia, while Bloom's is the
benevolent Natural Phenomenon,9 both men are describing the
same God, the power that rules the world as it is. Many of the
central patterns of this world are effectively set forth in "Proteus,*'
where Stephen's attitude toward the world is depicted.
The transformations of "Proteus" take place along a scale of
mutability which is based upon the traditional conceptions of the
Church and of neoplatonism. Spirit, which is not subject to time,
is at the top of this scale; mutable matter is at the bottom. Life is
poised between the two extremes, partaking of both and tending
toward both. Stephen's reluctant passage through the "ineluctable
modality of the visible," his conscious life itself, is represented as
a process in which his mind continually strives to move upward
into spirit while his body and his senses constantly move downward
into matter. The movement into matter is concretely represented
by excretion, the most obvious instances of which occur when
Stephen urinates and picks his nose (pp. 49-50). He also worries
about his rotting teeth (p. 50). But these are not the only instances
of the movement into death presented.
It might seem that Stephen's tendency toward spirit is repre
sented by the stream of his consciousness, his constant creation of
thought, but this is not entirely so. For Stephen is aware that
language itself, because it has physical qualities, can stand for
material things, and it can solidify into cliche, can constitute a sort
of inanimate matter. (Bloom's often does.) Stephen says, "These
heavy sands are language tide and wind have silted here" (p. 44).
At another point he describes his language as "monkwords, mary
beads twhich] jabber on their girdles" (p. 47). He also describes
the sound of his micturation as "a fourworded wavespeech" (p. 49),
and later, in "Scylla and Charybdis," he sums up his intellectual
discourse by the Latin for urination, "Mingo, minxi, mictum, min
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 37
gere" (p. 205) and conceives of the library as "coffined thoughts
... in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words" (p. 193). In the
light of this association between words and matter, it may be seen
that the poem which Stephen writes in "Proteus" and many of the
passages of ornate prose virtuosity in this episode are to be con
sidered examples of excretion. Thus, Stephen writes the poem by
stilling the stream of his consciousness with a pin (p. 48) and
setting his vital thoughts down10 on the same rock upon which he
later deposits his snot. This poem is about the transformation from
life to death: "He comes, pale vampire, through storm his eyes, his
bat sails bloodying the sea, mouth to her mouth's kiss" (p. 48). A
bitter mockery of love, it portrays the dio boia in the act of kissing
someone, probably Stephen's mother.11 (Stephen imagines God
kissing his mother as Bloom imagines Blazes kissing Molly.) Simi
larly, in such verbal gymnastics as the elaborate prose poem on his
urination (p. 50) Stephen is well aware of the spiritual emptiness
of his words. He ironically indulges the excretions of his mind, just
as he indulges the excretions of his body, both being inevitable;
but part of him is somewhat aloof from all this, as if his spirit were
observing it from a distance.
The world, then, as Stephen sees it, is a system of continual
transformation in which even thoughts may tend toward lifeless
matter. Stephen's spirituality is manifested in his bitterness and
dissatisfaction and in the desire, always implicit in his thinking, to
soar above the limitation and transience of all sensible realities,
including even those of language. Throughout Ulysses he re
peatedly expresses a desire to fly and a fear of being pulled, forced
or tied down. Thus, in "Proteus," he hears voices saying, "Descende
calve . . ." and "Get down, bald poll!" (p. 40). He sees "unwhole
some sandflats . . . [waiting] to suck his treading soles, breathing
upward sewage breath" (p. 41). He thinks of himself as a "son
of a wild goose," or expatriate (p. 41) and remembers Mulligan's
"My father's a bird . . " (p. 41). He resents the attempt of the
revolutionary movement to tie him down: "To yoke me as his yoke
fellow ..." (p. 43). Stephen fears the image of that which he
cannot redeem because he refuses to immerse himself in life: "A
drowning man. His human eyes scream to me out of the horror of
his death. I , . . With him together down ... I could not save
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38 Sheldon R. Brivic
her ft. e. mother!!" (p. 46). At the end of "Proteus" Stephen asso
ciates himself with Satan who was also forced downward: "All
bright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect ..." (p. 50).
Throughout "Proteus" references to death, time and mutability
recur frequently. There are several on almost every page. Some of
them are very strong indeed: "God becomes man becomes fish be
comes barnacle goose becomes featherbed mountain. Dead breaths
I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a urinous offal from all
dead*' (p. 50). Bloom, in "Calypso," also devours a urinous offal
from the dead (p. 55), as we shall see; but he enjoys it.
The first page of "Proteus" is an essential presentation of
Stephen's position. Bitterly preoccupied by the idea of the succes
sion of sensory impressions in duration, the nacheinander, which
is Bloom's chief delight, Stephen attempts to make the sensory
world disappear by closing his eyes: "Open your eyes now. I will.
One moment. Has all vanished since? . . . See now. There all the
time without you: and ever shall be, world without end" (p. 37).
This last idea is quite close to a thought from which Bloom derives
one of his strongest consolations, the idea that there is a regularity
and continuousness in the inconstancy of the world, even though
situations and individuals change. This, of course, is no consolation
for Stephen, for whom self is all. For him, as for Hamlet, the world
without end is a corrupt, decaying prison. "History," he says, "is a
nightmare from which I am trying to awake" (p. 35). On the first
page of "Proteus" Stephen speaks of "signatures of all things I am
here to read . . ." But here, as often throughout the episode and
the novel, he is being ironical. He later says, "I never could read
His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock
Ha fish with a black spotT' (p. 562), and in this passage of "Proteus"
the only signatures that he sees are those of disorder, time and
decay:" . . . seaspawn and sea wrack, the nearing tide, that rusty
boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs" (p. 37).
Stephen's thoughts of his mother are so closely interwoven
with thoughts of mutability that it is often difficult to separate
them, as we have seen in his poem and bis vision of the drowning
man (pp. 46-48). Even when he seems to be thinking about some
thing else altogether, a line like "weak wasting hand on mine'*
(p. 44) will suddenly emerge through association. Bloom's
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 39
thoughts about Molly's adultery follow a similar pattern, and in
Bloom's case the inconstancy of Molly is similarly analogous to the
inconstancy of the world. But Bloom's attitude toward inconstancy
and the passage of time differs greatly from Stephen's, as we shall
see.
Stephen's attitude toward sex is curious and complex. Theoreti
cally, he recognizes the value of sex in "Oxen of the Sun" and else
where, just as he theoretically recognizes the value of contact with
"the now, the here" at the start of "Scylla and Charybdis" (p. 186).
Stephen's acceptance of the world, however, is purely theoretical,
and although he inveighs against continence in the name of the
". . . Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise . . ." (p.
389), he has no positive feeling for love. He seldom thinks of
women, and when he does he reveals deep-seated fear and repulsion
with regard to them. Thus, at various times, the following images
of women occur to him:
Eve. Naked wheatbellied sin. A snake coils her, fang in's
loss, (p .199)
She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her
hips, on her gross belly flapping a ruby egg. (p. 241)
We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked So
crates. Even the allwisest stagyrite was bitted, bridled and
mounted by a light of love. (p. 432)
. . . la belle dame sans merci, Georgina Johnson . . .
(p. 433)
One of all [little Harry Hughes3, the least of all, is the
victim predestined ... It [the Jew's daughter!] leads him to
a strange habitation, to a secret infidel apartment, and there,
implaceable, immolates him, consenting, (p. 692)
Although Stephen apparently has no feeling of love, he en
gages in a rebellious libertinism. His basic attitude of opposition,
however, makes sex a painful experience for him. One of the few
references to his sexual activity occurs in "Scylla and Charybdis,"
when he thinks of the pound that he borrowed from A. E.: "You
spent most of it in Georgina Johnson's bed, clergyman's daughter.
Agenbite of inwit" (p. 189). Stephen has selected a prostitute who
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40 Sheldon R. Brivic
is a clergyman's daughter, and his relations with her are evidently
painful to him. In "Circe" Stephen talks about his experiences with
prostitutes in Paris. He seems to have sought out repulsive and
painful forms of sex there too, if his account is indicative of what
actually happened. He tells how he went to see a "perfectly shock
ing terrific of religion's things mockery . . . vampire man debauch
nun very fresh young ..." (p. 570). In attempting to reject all
of the imperfections and injustices of the world, Stephen also re
jects all of its positive values and goes against his basic human
needs; thus, his opposition to religion turns him against humanity
here.
Stephen's addiction to prostitutes constitutes a life of sexual
activity without love. He is unable to participate in real, creative
love because he has rejected the world outside himself and is un
able to attach himself to any object. Similarly, on the intellectual
level, Stephen engages in a great deal of mental activity which is
meaningless and sterile because he is out of touch with, the real
world. Because Stephen hurts others through his selfishness, he
may seem like a sadist. But he hurts himself most of all by his
opposition to physical reality: his love life and his intellectual life
are painful and futile. His attitude of denial is ultimately equivalent
to masochism. Thus, Stephen's attitude is ironically similar to
Bloom's, in effect, although the two characters start from such
widely differing premises. Their positions with relation to the time
matter continuum are ironically self-destructive in both cases, al
though Bloom accepts the world while Stephen rejects it. The ironic
parallel between Bloom's position and Stephen's is a major thematic
point of Ulysses. Let us now turn to Bloom.
In "Calypso" Bloom is just as preoccupied with time as Stephen
is in "Proteus," and his sexual interests reflect his relation to time
and to the world. Because Bloom is more strongly attached to mat
ter and to time than Stephen is, his sexual nature is far more sub
stantial and extensive in its manifestations than Stephen's. There
are three basic aspects to Bloom's desires. His absorption in tem
poral and material phenomena is represented as an interest in the
movement downward into inanimate matter, a sexual attraction
to excretions and other inanimate objects, fetishes, such as photo
graphs and lingerie. Secondly, Bloom's acceptance of the incon
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 41
stancy of the world is shown by his position as a cuckold who, de
spite occasional misgivings, is contented, and, in fact, titillated
by his lot.12 Lastly, the self-negation of Bloom's involvement in the
external world and the self-destruction inherent in his acceptance
of time are ironically portrayed as masochism.
Even in the relatively slight "Calypso" we can find most of
these themes suggested or foreshadowed. There are a great number
of references to time in this episode, but these are not as notice
able as those of "Proteus" because they are not discordant. They
are often trivial phrases, such as "another time" (p. 60), but they
show Bloom's harmonious involvement in time and his desire to
make use of it. Such phrases, of course, are absent from Stephen's
monologues. While Stephen is hardly ever shown anticipating any
thing, Bloom is very often seen in this attitude. On the first page
of "Calypso" he awaits his tea, thinking, "Cup of tea soon" (p. 55).
A bit below he reflects that Thursday is not a good day for mutton
kidney at Buckley's. Going out, he tells Molly that he will be back
in a minute and thinks of her father, who was smart enough to
make a "corner" in stamps: "Now that was farseeing" (p. 56). The
art of this episode is economics, and Bloom's attitude toward time
as well as toward matter is economical. We see how economies of
time and matter go together when Bloom tries to calculate the sum
of money made by a pub owner in a month.
Like the busy bee, Bloom constantly studies to "improve the
shining hour" (p. 647).13 His mind is filled with plans for counter
acting the effects of the passage of time and for making the most
efficient use of time. These plans range from such relatively noble
preoccupations as the desire for a son and a vague conception of
the cyclical repetition of history (pp. 377 etc.) through a pro
fusion of various vacation and money making schemes to such ap
propriate interests as metempsychosis and scientism, which give
hope for the future, and mnemotechnique and Sandow's exercises,
attempts to save the past; and finally they include such nonsense as
recording the voices of those who are about to die (p. 114) and
the industrial utilization of human excrement (p. 718). Ironically,
Bloom's compulsive planning, while it is an effort to oppose the
effects of time, actually increases his involvement in time, placing
his goals in the future and thereby making him so much more open
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42 Sheldon K Brivic
to the injury and loss that time can inflict. Moreover, he wastes his
time by daydreaming.
The first of these plans occurs to Bloom not long after the be
ginning of "Calypso": ". . . early morning: set off at dawn, travel
round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep it up
for ever never grow a day older technically" (p. 57). This, of
course, is one of Bloom's more ridiculous plans, but it should be
remembered, lest we overly idealize Bloom and fail to understand
the principles according to which he has been created, that all of
Bloom's plans, even such seemingly profound thoughts as his cycli
cal conception of history, are essentially cut from the same cloth.
They all serve to represent Bloom as a figure who strives to make
the best of the passage of time, and they are all, ironically, useless
to him, although they are profitable in so far as Bloom contents
his mind by thinking of them.
On the next pages we get our first glimpse of Bloom's char
acteristic sexual tendencies as he enters the shop of the pork butcher
Dlugacz. It seems appropriate that these tendencies are unveiled
in a setting of dead meat and the smell of blood: Bloom is sexually
attracted by the tendency of life toward inanimate matter. He is
also a masochist. He takes an interest in the girl next to him par
tially because he thinks of her "whacking a carpet on the clothes
line. She does whack it by George. The way her crooked skirt
swings at each whack" (p. 59). In addition, she is attractive to him
because he associates her with meat. On this page and on the fol
lowing one Bloom refers to her as "new blood," "sound meat,"
"moving hams" and "prime sausage." She also makes him think
of the cattle market, where he used to work. As Bloom believes
that his former boss at the cattle market, Joe Cuffe (see pp. 97,
315) has seduced his wife Molly (p. 731), his sexual stimulation
here may be associated with his cuckoldry. The passage on the
cattle market, moreover, suggests masochism and coprophilia, for
he thinks of " . . the beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep,
flop and fall of dung, the breeders in hobnailed boots . . . slapping
a palm on a ripemeated hindquarter, there's a prime one, unpeeled
switches . . . the crooked skirt swinging whack by whack by
whack" (p. 59). When the girl leaves, Bloom is mildly excited by
a fantasy of yielding her to another: "The sting of disregard glowed
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 43
to weak pleasure within his breast. For another: a constable off
duty cuddled her in Eccles Lane" (pp. 59-60). This is one of the
earliest indications of the sexual pleasure that Bloom derives from
being cuckolded. All of these elements of Bloom's sexuality repre
sent his involvement in time. During his visit to Dlugacz Bloom also
weaves one of his plans for combatting time. Hoping to "pay ten
down and the balance in yearly instalments," he dreams of "quiet
long days" in Agendath Netaim, a land where things are "always
the same, year after year" (p. 60).
At this point a cloud passes over the face of the sun, and Bloom
now visualizes Jerusalem as a grey wasteland. Like most of Bloom's
thinking, this passage is heavily influenced by the sensual and the
physical. After the cloud has turned his thoughts grey, an old
woman passes before him, giving him the principal image of "the
grey sunken cunt of the world." Throughout the day Bloom has
several such realizations of the terror of mutability, but his reactions
to them, which are always similar, are quite different from Ste
phen's brooding, bitter rebelliousness. He characteristically changes
the subject, transferring his thoughts to practical considerations
(see pp. 113-14, 164). This is the same pattern that he follows
when unpleasant thoughts of Blazes Boylan occur. In the present
instance he dismisses the subject in the next paragraph by blaming
his thoughts on his physical condition and turns to one of his prac
tical plans for counteracting the effects of time: "Well, I am here
now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of the bed.
Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. On the hands down"
(p. 61). Joyce ironically represents this particular plan as an
obeisance that Bloom makes to time and to the dio boia. For in
"Circe" Bello reepats more sharply the direction of this exercise.
"On the hands down!" (p. 531).
Bloom now arrives home and has breakfast. The morning
meal consists of a kidney, one of his favorite delicacies because of
its "fine tang of . . . urine" (p. 55) and bread, which he eats in
the form of "dies" (p. 65). The word die, which is used twice, sug
gests both day and death. In addition to eating his daily bread,
Bloom serves "our daily press" (p. 647). During breakfast Bloom
reads Milly's letter, which brings up an issue related to time, that
of her growth, separation and fall. We learn elsewhere that Milly
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44 Sheldon R. Brivic
has been seduced by Alec Bannon (pp. 21, 39tf, 427). Bloom does
not know this, but he is suspicious. His reaction is typical: "Destiny.
Ripening now . . . Will happen, yes. Prevent. Useless: can't move
. . . the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to move now**
(pp. 66-67).
Now Bloom goes to the outhouse, and he practices the same
economy here that he practices with regard to all matter and time.
"No great hurry," he says, "Keep it a bit* (p. 68). On the next page
Bloom recalls how he used to time his wife while she dressed. Bloom
often consults his watch, whereas Stephen evidently has none. At
this point Bloom thinks of Boylan, who, as we shall see, comes to be
equated with time, of the dance of hours, which appeals to Bloom,
and of Paddy Dignam's funeral (pp. 69-70), three elements which
are related to each other by the common factor of time. The bells
now toll the hour, Bloom characteristically hearing them as "Heigho!
Heigho!"
We have seen that there is a remarkable amount of emphasis
placed on time and mutability in the course of "Calypso." Refer
ences to the theme of time continue to appear in profusion through
out the novel, and many of the important patterns suggested by
"Calypso" are developed more extensively later. Let us examine a
few of the highlights of the presentation of these patterns in suc
ceeding episodes.
"Calypso" has suggested to us the way in which Bloom's sexual
attitudes parallel his relations to matter and time. It is clear that
Joyce is thus making an ironic statement about Bloom's position,
and this is important, if only because the sexual side of Bloom is
so heavily emphasized. Bloom's incessant daydreaming defines him
as a man so strongly driven by desire that he is unable to effect
a real contact with the objects of his desires: lost in fantasies, he is
always planning but never achieving. Similarly, Bloom's charac
teristic sexual activity is ejaculation without entrance. Thus, if
Stephen leads a life of intercourse without love, Bloom leads one
of love without intercourse. This is shown most prominently in
"Nausikaa," the episode in which Bloom masturbates. In "Ithaca"
we learn that Bloom has not had normal relations with his wife in
over ten years (pp. 735-36). As I have indicated, there are three
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 45
basic elements in Bloom's sexuality: his masochism, his cuckoldry,
and an attraction to inanimate matter and to the tendency toward
inanimate matter in life.
The last of these is brought out at great length and in great
variety. Not only are Bloom's clothes fetishism and coprophilia
abundantly evident,14 but, for example, Joyce even has Bloom re
flect on "love among the tombstones" and necrophilia in "Hades'*
(pp. 107-08). Bloom also goes to the museum at the end of "Lestry
gonians" to investigate the mesial grooves of statues.
The scene with Gerty MacDowell in "Nausikaa" treats Bloom's
interest in matter and excretions with notable elaborateness. As
this scene occurs at Sandymount, the scene of "Proteus," it seems
likely that Gerty is sitting upon the same rock upon which Stephen
deposited his snot and his poem. The rock, of course, represents
lifelessness. Bloom apparently is not excited by Gerty in this scene
as much as he is by her lingerie: "A dream of wellfilled hose . . .
Lingerie does it" (pp. 368, 382). It is notable that Gerty is men
struating while Bloom observes her. The sentimental narrator points
this out: ". . . he was looking all the time that he was winding his
watch or whatever he was doing to it and then he put it back and
put his hand back into his pockets . . . that thing must be coming
on because the last time too was when she clipped her hair on
account of the moon. His dark eyes fixed themselves on her . . .
literally worshipping at her shrine" (p. 361). We soon learn that
Bloom is aware of Gerty's menstruation, evidently because of her
complexion (p. 368). Masturbation and menstruation go together
well to constitute a sort of anti-coition, an apotheosis of sterility.
Menstruation is meaningful here not only because it represents
the passage of life downward into inanimate matter, but also be
cause it is a periodic phenomenon.
In the passage just cited the close linkage between Bloom's
winding of his watch and his masturbation is significant, for his
sexual excitement represents his involvement in time, a worshipping
at the shrine of matter. Bloom's thoughts on the stopping of his
watch are worth quoting. His watch stopped at the time that Blazes
and Molly were supposedly making love:
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46 Sheldon R. Brivic
Very strange about my watch. Wristwatches are always
going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic influence between
the person because that was about the time he. Yes, I suppose
at once. Cat's away the mice will play . . . Also that now is
magnetism. Back of everything magnetism. Earth for instance
pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement. And
time? Well that's the time the movement takes. Then if one
thing stopped the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. Be
cause it's arranged. Magnetic needle tells you what's going on
in the sun the stars. Little piece of steel iron. When you hold
out the fork. Come. Come. Tip. Woman and man that is. Fork
and steel. Molly, he. Dress up and look and suggest and let
you see and see more and defy you if you're a man to see that
and, like a sneeze coming, legs, look, look and if you have any
guts in you. Tip. Have to let fly. (pp. 373-74)
Crude as it may seem, this passage constitutes a central state
ment of the Bloomian metaphysic. The force behind the universe
is the natural phenomenon of magnetism or desire. Because this
logos causes all material movement and change, it causes time; and
therefore time, as a function of matter, is a function of desire. This
is why the state of Bloom's watch is so intimately related to his
emotional life. Bloom's world is a field of matter and time driven
by desire and he is interested in keeping his watch wound.
To return to Bloom's sexual interest in matter, perhaps it would
be well to give Molly the last word on this topic. In "Penelope" she
recalls one of Bloom's higher flights of spirituality during their
courtship: ". . . his mad crazy letters my Precious one everything
connected with your glorious Body everything underlined that
comes from it is a thing of beauty and of joy for ever something
he got out of some nonsensical book . . ." (p. 771).
Another aspect of Bloom's sexuality is his cuckoldry. I have
already suggested the reasoning behind the association of Bloom's
cuckoldry with time by indicating that Molly's inconstancy is as
sociated with the inconstancy of the earth and that Bloom is de
voted to both. The action of his cuckolding is therefore linked with
time and with the tendency of matter toward death. This is sug
gested in "Hades," when the carriage with Bloom among others in
it passes Boylan:
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 47
? Blazes Boylan, Mr. Power said. There he is . . . the white
disc of a straw hat flashed reply: passed.
Mr. Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those
of his right hand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him
that they she sees? Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. . . .
My nails. I am just looking at them: well pared. And after
Ci.e., after she has made love to him]: thinking alone. Body
getting a bit softy. . . . But the shape is there. The shape is
there still. Shoulders. Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing.
Shift stuck between the cheeks behind.
He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied,
sent his vacant glance over their faces, (p. 92)
In attempting to distract himself from thoughts of Blazes by
gazing at his nails, Bloom is only compounding his mortification,
for his nails are "excrescences" (p. 703), and represent his own
passage into death. Before retiring for the night in 'Ithaca" Bloom
ritualistically breaks off a piece of his toenail and inhales "the
odour of the quick" (p. 712). Thoughts of Blazes lead Bloom
to think of his wife's mutability as well as his own in this passage.
At this point he evokes one of his favorite formulas for consolation,
the idea that there is a certain constancy within change ? in this
case, the constancy of Molly's figure even though she is getting
older. Bloom is now "satisfied," and whether it is because of the
vicarious thrill that he got from the thought of Blazes or from the
contemplation of his nails or from his rational victory over mu
tability or from the thought of his wife's buttocks, it little matters,
for they are all aspects of his acceptance of time and matter.
Bloom's encounter with Boylan at the end of "Lestrygonians"
similarly leads him to intensify his engagement in time. When
he sees Boylan, he rushes ahead into the museum, thinking, "Quick.
Cold statues: quiet there. Safe in a minute. No, didn't see me.
After two" (p. 183). Blazes Boylan and Molly's adultery are asso
ciated with time in Bloom's mind because he knows the hour, four
o'clock, at which the illicit meeting is supposed to take place. This
is illustrated most forcefully when Nosey Flynn, after inquiring
about Molly's projected singing tour, asks, "Isn't Blazes Boylan
mixed up in it?" (p. 172). Bloom reacts in the following manner:
"A warm shock of air heat of mustard haunched on Mr. Bloom's
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48 Sheldon R. Brivic
heart. He raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two.
Pub clock five minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two.
Not yet." In "Sirens," when Bloom encounters Boylan again,
thoughts of adultery are again accompanied by thoughts of "clock
hands turning" (pp. 260, 263-64). When Bloom realizes that it is
four o'clock he knows that Boylan is on his way to Molly. Thus,
the action is so framed as to suggest that Bloom is actually being
cuckolded by time itself. Bloom's cuckoldry is also linked to time
by prominent references to cuckoo clocks (pp. 382, 469).
The connection between Bloom's masochism and the pleasure
that he derives from his cuckoldry is clear. In the two major scenes
of masochism in "Circe," the trial scene (pp. 455-72) and the scene
with Bella-Bello (pp. 527-44), Bloom imagines himself taunted for
his perversions and derided for his cuckoldry during fantasies in
which he is physically abused. Downward motion into matter is
suggested in both fantasies when Bloom bends down for punish
ment. His masochism is a physical representation of the self-abase
ment inherent in all aspects of his position.
We have seen, then, that even though the attitudes of Stephen
and Bloom are in direct opposition to each other, their positions
are finally and ironically parallel. Both are self-destructive and
sterile. Both represent imperfect modes of relationship to life and
to time. Bloom is excessively attached to matter, time and woman,
while Stephen is unhealthily repulsed from them. The ideal rela
tion to life would seem to be midway between the two extremes, a
position of unified sensibility which would be vital both materially
and spiritually. Such a position would be in tune with time and
matter because it would balance the involvement of Bloom with
the distance, objectivity and intellectual understanding of Stephen,
the unselfishness of the former with the self-assertion of the latter.
This middle position corresponds to what S. L. Goldberg, adopting
a term which Joyce employed early in his career, calls, "The classi
cal temper."
Whether or not Joyce intends to suggest that either Stephen or
Bloom or both men will ever attain such a position, it is clear that
they do not do so within the novel; nor do they even substantially
improve their attitudes. While Ulysses as a whole presents both
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 49
sides of its thematic dualities, it presents them in a state of dra
matic contrast. It seems to me that Joyce creates Stephen and
Bloom, juxtaposes them, and defines their positions as widely and
rigorously separated in order to dramatize a conflict within himself
and within humanity between certain essential elements which he
is unable to reconcile.15 I do not find any serious evidence of a
union or reconciliation between the two figures. Indeed, it is after
Stephen and Bloom part in "Ithaca" and while they are walking
away from each other that we are given one of the clearest, sharpest
and most concise contrasts between their positions:
What sound accompanied the . . . disunion of their (re
spectively) centrifugal [.Stephen] and centripetal [Bloom]
hands?
The sound of the peal of the hour of the night . . .
What echoes of that sound were by both and each heard?
By Stephen:
Lttiata rutilantiumi Turma circumdet.
Iubilantium te virginum. Chorus excipiat.
By Bloom:
Heigho, heigho,
Heigho, heigho. (p. 704)
Both characters continue to apprehend time as they did at the
start of the novel: the sound of time is a cheerful one for Bloom
(cf. p. 70), but Stephen hears it as a bitter reminder of his mother's
death (cf. p. 10). As this passage suggests, Stephen and Bloom
are parted by time. Time separates them not only because it is
late at night, because their meeting is temporary and accidental,
and because one is almost a generation older than the other, but
also because time itself is the factor which prevents the reconcilia
tion of their ontological positions. It is time itself which constitutes
the essential difference between spirit and matter, and therefore
it is time which holds apart the internal and the external and pre
vents the attainment of the ideal relationship between subject and
object. Thus, a reconciliation between Stephen and Bloom, if such
a thing could occur or last, would constitute a triumph over time;
and the separation of Stephen and Bloom, which is what Ulysses
shows us, represents the fallen, temporal state of life.
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50 Sheldon R. Brivic
In the pages of "Ithaca" which immediately precede the exit
and separation of Stephen and Bloom, the text asks what factors
render problematic for Bloom the realization of his proposals to
see Stephen again. The answers, which are illustrated at length,
are, "The irreparability of the past . . . the imprevidibility of the
future . . /' (p. 696). After this the text asks, with Bloom's mind,
whether human life could be "infinitely perfectable." This question
is equivalent to the previous one, for the union of Stephen and
Bloom would presumably produce the ideal state of life represented
by a balanced compromise between their two attitudes. The answer
given is similar to the answer to the previous question. A list of
natural conditions which prevent the perfection of life is presented.
This list describes life in terms of the temporal and the accidental:
". . . the painful character of the ultimate functions of separate
existence, the agonies of birth and death: the monotonous men
struation of . . . females extending from the age of puberty to the
menopause: inevitable accidents . . . painful maladies . . . cata
strophic cataclysms . . .: the fact of vital growth, through convul
sions of metamorphosis from infancy through maturity to decay"
(p. 697). Thus, Joyce indicates that time is responsible for the
failure of communication between Stephen and Bloom. Time has
enslaved Bloom and driven Stephen to revolt, and neither is capable
of the attitude of harmonious equanimity necessary for a proper
and fruitful relationship to time and to the world.
Temple University
NOTES
1. (New York, 1961), p. 374. Subsequent references to this edition will
be given in parentheses in my text.
2. Reproduced in Hugh Kenner, Dublins Joyce (London, 1956), pp.
226-27, and in A James Joyce Miscellany:Second Series, ed. Marvin Mag
alaner (Carbondale, 111., 1959), p. 48.
3. Samuel Louis Goldberg, The Classical Temper: A Study of James
Joyce's Ulysses (London, 1961), p. 178, says, "where Stephen . . . rejects,
Bloom accepts." This distinction between the two figures has been recognized
since S. Foster Damon, "The Odyssey in Dublin," Hound and Horn, III
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Time, Sexuality and Identity in Joyce's Ulysses 51
(October, 1929), 7-44, reprinted in James Joyce: Two Decades of Criticism,
ed. Seon Givens (New York, 1948), pp. 227-34.
4. See Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (New York, 1959), pp. 302-307.
5. Ham III.ii 190. Identified in William York Tindall, A Readers Guide
to James Joyce (New York, 1959), p. 213.
6. (Norfolk, Conn., 1963), p. 209.
7. (New York, 1964), p. 164.
8. Dio boia (p. 213) is Stephens term for his conception of God as a
monster or vampire who eats up human flesh through the media of time
and circumstance (see pp. 419-20). This concept is never far from Stephen's
mind in Ulysses, just as Blazes Boylan is never far from Bloom's. For a
good treatment of Stephen's relationship to the dio hoia, see William M.
Schutte, Joyce and Shakespeare: A Study in the Meaning of Ulysses (New
Haven, 1957), pp. 104-117.
9. Natural Phenomenon is personified as Bloom's deity on p. 395, and
the phrase is associated with Bloom's values on pp. 304, 529, 549, 643 and
694. The separate words natural and phenomenon occur even more frequently
in Bloom's thought.
10. Stephen's "My tablets" (p. 48) suggests its context: "My tables ?
meet it is I set it down . . ." Ham., I. v. 107. There is also an autobio
graphical reference here to the tablets that Joyce himself carried about with
him to take notes.
11. Robert Martin Adams, Surface and Symbol: The Consistency of
James Joyce's Ulysses (New York, 1962), p. 120, indicates another aspect
of the lifelessness of Stephen's poem by pointing out the fact that it is not
an original work, but an imitation of one of Douglas Hyde's Love Songs of
Connacht (see p. 198).
12. Stanley Sultan, The Argument of Ulysses (Columbus, 1964), pp. 407,
431ff., argues persuasively that Bloom is thoroughly responsible for his
cuckoldry, that he virtually forces Molly to be unfaithful. Thus, he creates
his own situation because of false and distorted attitudes.
13. Isaac Watts, "Against Idleness and Mischief," Divine and Moral
Songs for the Use of Children (London, 1720), begins:
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
14. Examples of Bloom's coprophilia occur on pp. 467, 537-38, 777, 781,
etc.; references to his interest in lingerie on pp. 168, 180, 536, 746, etc.
15. In "Scylla and Charybdis" Stephen portrays Shakespeare as a man
who includes within his personality two opposing aspects, as suggested by his
movement between Stratford and London: "He is the ghost and the prince"
(p. 212, q. v.). Although the bard can portray both sides feelingly in his
plays, he is unable to reconcile the conflict within himself. Thus, he is "un
taught by the wisdom he has written" (p. 197).
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