“The Wandering Rocks”
“The Wandering Rocks” is divided into 19 sections, each of which focuses on the activities of various
Dubliners between 3-4PM at various points in the city. The fragmentation—signalled by asterisks—
resembles the headline captions in the Aeolus episode. The first section deals with an influential priest,
the Revd Conmee, and the last concludes with the Viceregal carriage, as Church and State pursue their
respective public acts of charity.
1. Master Patrick Dignam, like Stephen, is the eldest son of a family which is sinking even deeper
into poverty after the death of a parent. We learn nothing about the other four members of the
Dignam family, but we do encounter the Dedalus sisters in episodes 4 & 13. What do lines 85880 tell us about Stephen, Dilly, and the Dedalus children as a whole?
2. We don’t get to observe Blazes Boylan with Molly Bloom, but we do observe him interacting
with his secretary, Miss Dunne (p 189), and the shop assistant in Thornton’s (187): what do we
learn about Boylan from these encounters? (Note the date typed by Miss Dunne.)
3. McCoy and Lenehan--who features in “Two Gallants” in Dubliners--attest to Blooms interest in
astronomy (see 10: 528, 568). Last week, I alerted you to several references to temporality in 9th
Scylla & Charybdis episode, as well as to the “parallax” concept displayed by the local /
Greenwich time difference in Dublin. Because the 6.25º longitudinal difference between the
Greenwich and Dunsink Observatories causes a 25-min lapse in their respective distance from the
sun, the ball-drop on the Ballast office clock registers Greenwich time for mariners and the clockface displays local Dunsink time for pedestrians. See 9: 110-15, 571-80. Bloom’s fascination
with astronomy stimulates his interest in parallax, defined “as the apparent displacement or the
difference in apparent direction of an object as seen from . . .two points on the earth’s orbit.” How
does Bloom’s interest in parallax relate to his pluralist ethos? How does the concept of parallax
illuminate the challenge of depicting the myriad simultaneities of space-time through linear
narrative? Hugh Kenner argues that parallax contributes to an “aesthetics of delay”—trivia and
points of correlation are corroborated later in the narrative—and that Ulysses “abounds in
coincidental alignments to such an extent that no one is especially crucial” (“Ulysses” 79).
FYI
Fr. Conmee refers to a real person, the rector to whom Stephen successfully appeals when he is
wrongly pandied at Clongowes, and later the superior of the Gardiner Street Jesuit seminary
where Dedalus would have resided had he pursued the priesthood. The Conmee section intersects
with the story “Grace” in Dubliners, in which Martin Cunningham, Mr McCoy & Mr. Power
persuade the alcoholic Tom Kernan to attend a retreat with them at St Francis Xavier Church in
upper Gardiner St. Conmee presides over the St Francis Xavier Church community in Ulysses,
and Joyce based the preacher at the retreat, Fr Purdon, on the real-life figure of Fr Bernard
Vaughan.
4. “Conmee” sounds like a Dickensian-epithet surname. How do you account for the narrator calling
him “Don John Conmee” towards the end of the episode? (10: 174-80).
5. Fr. Conmee thinks comparatively about several other clergymen and preachers—what do these
thoughts convey about Conmee?
6. Conmee’s errand is to secure a place in Artane industrial school for Patrick Dignam whom we
encounter in # 18. What do we learn about the Dignam father / son relationship in 1130-1173?
From A Portrait of the Artist
After the pandying, his classmates gathered around him declaring that “it’s a stinking mean thing
. . . to pandy a fellow for what is not his fault” and urging him to complain to the rector that he
had been wrongly punished. After Stephen made his complaint successfully, the boys flung their
caps in the air in exultation, crying “Hurroo!” and hoisting Stephen in the cradle of their locked
hands. “And they gave three groans for Baldyhead Dolan and three cheers for Conmee and they
said he was the decentest rector that was ever in Clongowes (1: 1820-32, p 51)
Later Simon Dedalus recounts meeting Fr Conmee, who promised to arrange a scholarship for
Stephen to attend Belvedere:
“Well, as I was saying, we were chatting away quite friendly and he asked me did our friend here
wear glasses still and then he told me the whole story.
-- And was he annoyed, Simon?
--Annoyed? Not he! Manly little chap! he said.
Mr. Dedalus imitated the mincing nasal tone of the provincial.
--Father Dolan and I, when I told them all at dinner about it, Fr Dolan and I had a great laugh
over it. You better mind yourself, Father Dolan, said I, or young Dedalus will send you up for
twice nine. We had a famous laugh over it. Ha! Ha! Ha! (II. 437-448; Norton p 63)