Tucker Alley
Ulysses: Imperialism and Conflict in Nestor
Many scholars, philosophers, and historians analyze and describe the past
and present conditions of human nature and the human experience within the
contexts of the physical, cultural, and individual social and emotional conflicts that
arise by virtue of human interaction. To this end, science offers parallel insights into
the philosophy that governs human endeavors through its rhetoric of the struggle of
life; the incessant battle to protect the precious gift that existence and as a result
sentience offers the living organism from the apparent hostility of the natural world.
Within the Nestor episode of his Ulysses, James Joyce addresses the diverse range of
conflicts that govern human psychology and actions on their respective personal,
cultural, and international scales. Using concise symbolic language Joyce focuses
primarily on issues regarding English imperialism and its subjugation of the Irish
people while also commenting on the general societal infrastructures that incite and
groom citizens for war and its subsequent effects and implications. Throughout the
chapter, and indeed the entire book, Joyce also establishes a thematic connection
with The Odyssey that specifically and interestingly interacts with the chapter's tone
and purpose.
Introducing concepts of militarism within the chapter's first passage, Joyce
establishes war as a central theme to be repeatedly addressed throughout the scene.
Within the episode, Joyce associates the school with the societal and governmental
mechanisms that inspire and produce soldiers; a metaphorical boot camp. Teaching
of historical battles, Stephen perpetuates the psychology of warfare within the
minds of the new generation, training his students for their inevitable dooms: more
cogs in the machinery of war. Asking his students about their knowledge of Pyrrhus,
Stephen recalls the concept of Pyrrhic victory: "Another victory like that and we are
done for," (20). A modern rephrasing of the original quotation, Joyce evokes
imagery of the casualties associated with warfare, drawing comparison between the
loss of life in battle and those sacrificed to the gaping maw of cultural mechanisms.
Relating Stephen to a leader instructing and ordering his subordinates, "a general
speaking to his officers" (20), Joyce again presents war and its mechanisms in a
negative light: "All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter...In a moment they
will all laugh more loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papas pay,"
(20). Portraying the military as an undisciplined (himself in the role of unpracticed
and ineffectual leader) and socially burdensome institution (as school fees
represent taxes and bonds), Stephen reveals his contentions with both the causes
and effects of militarism, despite his role within the systems that support it.
Joyce also intelligently uses hockey as the episode's direct representation of
violent conflict. Equating war with schoolyard games or sports, Joyce draws to mind
the selfish and immature notion of war as recreation; "playing at war." Called to
battle by cheer of "Hockey!" (22), the students drop everything to choose sides and
compete with one another in this test of physical strength and testament to team-
based effort. Contemplating the connection between competition and all-out war,
Stephen envisions the hockey field as battlefield, and players as infantry.
Again: a goal. I am among them, among their battling bodies in a medley, the
joust of life. You mean that knockkneed mother's darling who seems to be
slightly crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock by shock. Jousts,
slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of the slain, a shout of
spearspikes baited with men's bloodied guts. (27)
Using intense imagery while also comparing life's basic struggle for survival with
human power struggles, Joyce demonstrates the primitive aspects and bitter
repercussions associated with war. Also important is Joyce's repeated use of
jousting imagery throughout the chapter. Within this passage the phrase "joust of
life" is introduced, a parallel discourse to the cross-discipline rhetoric of life's
inherent will to continue living; the struggle for survival; as a fellow sentient
organism, Stephen relates to the schoolchildren on instinctual and biological levels.
The joust concept is closely associated with Joyce's hockey metaphor: both serve as
competitive cultural displays of strength and skill. Joyce favors this battle of wills
rhetoric as he later provides Deasy with another line concerning this head-to-head
conflict: "I like to break a lance with you, old as I am," (29). Mr. Deasy is incapable of
dissociating himself from new means, causes, and ideas with which to wage
philosophical war.
Addressing the catastrophic mortality of war, Stephen contemplates
existence and death. Using the pitiful character of Cyril Sargent (the name's blatant
symbolism used to great effect), Joyce presents an individual human element into
the theater of war. The figure of mother here used to evoke sympathy for war's
arbitrary waste of human life, Joyce contemplates the personal, societal, and
existential implications of mankind's violent nature and actions: "Yet someone had
loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. But for her the race of the world
would have trampled him underfoot, a squashed boneless snail." Commenting on
the fragility of life and the futile indiscriminate self-destruction elicited by war,
Joyce presents the case of the individual, a device to portray humanity's obsession
with gratuitous violence. The loss of the child, an established and morbid motif, is
here utilized to allude to the unjust realities of conflict.
To frame the episode within its Homeric context, Joyce introduces the
character of Mr. Deasy to fill the titular role of Nestor. A good spirited leader of men
(in this case young students), Deasy mirrors Nestor's role as King of Pylos. Also like
Nestor, Deasy showers Stephen with hospitality and gifts, given the form of wisdom
and advice within Joyce's text. Just as in The Odyssey, however, Deasy's stream of
'gifts' is both undesired and ineffective. Deasy continually offers Stephen his
wisdom and advice, eliciting in turn Stephen's resistance, disbelief, and disinterest.
Questioned about his future, Stephen reveals his opinion of the futility of attempting
to work or learn from working with or under Mr. Deasy: "And here what will you
learn more?" (29) Disgusted by the gross volume and grosser nature of Deasy's
opinions, Stephen realizes that no future awaits him under Mr. Deasy, like
Telemachus is averse to Nestor's overflowing hospitality.
If the school is the student-army's boot camp, then Deasy is its commander in
chief. Abiding principles of militaristic chain of command, Deasy gives orders to his
officer (Stephen) who in turn directs his student-soldiers. Waging intellectual
warfare on everything from the cattle trade to Judaism, Deasy attempts to rally
Stephen to his causes. Ideas of chain of command are again relayed as Stephen
continually respects and obeys Deasy, answering as officer responding to superior,
in most cases a simple "Yes sir." Asked to serve as the instrument in Deasy's new
battle with the cattle trade, Stephen obliges without providing any outward desire
or motivation to do so, perhaps as a result of an unspoken sense of duty.
Within the scene of Stephen's payment, concepts of imperialism take form
and begin to dominate the text. The coins themselves, with their symbolic
appellations, 'crown' and 'sovereign', serve as reminders of the monarchy and
accompanying government infrastructure that dominates the country and indeed
much of the world. Joyce draws attention to these seemingly benign details in order
to achieve two important rhetorical purposes: both as symbols of English
imperialism and as reference to Deasy and Nestor's similar roles as kingly figures.
This representation of money, the ultimate emblem of power and influence within
western culture, draws attention to both the subtle and overt dominating aspects of
imperialistic rule. Deasy, benefactor of government institutions, apparent
anglophile, and symbolic monarch, embodies the imperialist tradition, furthering his
claims and desires by exploiting his subjects under the guise of generosity. In
language concerning the importance of money and its effects on England's cultural
and Imperialist mindset and actions, Deasy ascribes to the contemporary selfgratifying logic adopted by Imperialists: "But one day you must feel it. We are a
generous people but we must also be just," (26). Deasy here clearly aligns himself
with the English imperialist mindset, referring to himself and his fellow Irishmen as
"all kings' sons," (26) a distinction Stephen resists. The idea of the 'civilizing
mission,' (here demonstrated) Joyce asserts, is one of the most impersonal and
pretentious concepts adopted within imperialist discourse. Deasy goes on to admit
an even more atrocious mentality of imperialist guiltlessness and of his resulting
unwavering devotion: "Many errors, many failures but not one sin," (29). Resisting
anti-imperialist discourse, Deasy combats the stigma associated with the term, and
as a result, avoids incriminating himself.
An episode pitting mankind and its individual members against aspects of its
own culture, natural processes, and its other members, the battle metaphor is
overwhelmingly present within Nestor. Joyce explores the concepts that both incite
and perpetuate conflict, and in so doing, establishes competing discourses on the
nature of humanity's struggle against its environment and itself. Joyce asserts the
immorality and injustice of warfare, but does so through subtle allusion and
metaphor. He holds a mirror to the aspects of human society in which he sees the
root of or certain parallelisms in regards to warfare.