Ulysses: Changing into an Animal

Author(s): Maud Ellmann

Source: Field Day Review , 2006, Vol. 2 (2006), pp. 74-93
Published by: Field Day Publications

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30078637

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1 lam Jo X. se/tided
ette,, ed. Richard
11Iniann \c%
26(v, hercalter
cited as Si
2 1 rank liudtzen, lames
1,..e and the fakinif
.0.1ord,
2 14
Si 2.-1; Richard
1 Ilmann,jamesloyee,
2nd cdn. \c'
I'2 ()-: hereafter
cited a,jI. Sec al,o
hri,tinc Froula,
'Iodernism's Itody: Se.v.
ti//tire. and lova. :\e'
).)rk, 1906,, 1
4 SI , 2-1, tran%lated from
.1,1%,.c., Italian: 'ill1 min
nialedttis.qino
ilunanzaccimie.: Letters
nfianies Joyce, %ol. I .
ed. Stuart (iilhert
)ork, I4fi
complaining
James jiriCe,I iy:.SeS, cd,that 'Circe is punishing me inventors.
/Ian, \\alter Gabler ct
al, .1 ondon, 1 9s(). 100,
line In-: licreafter cited
a, 1 , follimvd I page
and line numbi,.-r.
Michael 1 arrell
/ass, and James bryce au
ale de flore. as told to me
by lark 'Iortinier in (ate;
de I Ion L.19St
I 44
1.11or
Ulysses
Changing into an Animal
Maud Ellmann
For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress
For a cat.
James I() cc I t ./ysses `Ithaca" ), 17.1034-351
*Evelything speaks in its (nen way' do with the pianola a machine that
operates itself with 'nobody playing' Does
'Circe' have the power to mechanize, as well
Joyce had a terrible time %%riting the 'Circe'
episode of Ilysses. He told his friend Frank
as to bestialize its (mil creator Joyce's
Budgen that 'Circe' %s as 'the last adventure,
complaints about the episode suggest that
thank God', but just %%hen he thought the
riting is dehumanizing in a double sense,
novel as coming to an end, 'Circe' began first because it goes on writing regardless of
to %%rite itself, like the pianola in Bella the writer, like the robotic music of the
Cohen's brothel 'What a fantastic effect!'player piano, and second because it
joy cc e.claimed to Budgen as the listenedanimalizes its creator, reducing the author
to a beast in the machine.
to a tinkling pianola in a cafe. 'That's Bella
Cohen's pianola. ... All the keys mining and
Of course, writing is normally regarded as
nobody playing:2 Similarly, the machinery
of 'Circe seems to operate itself, the humanising rather than animalizing, since it
is language that supposedly distinguishes the
hallucinations bursting forth vkhether there
human species from dumb animals and
is anyone to press the keys or not. As the
three months that Joyce had allotted tomindless mechanisms. Or so we like to
think, despite increasing evidence that
%%riting the episode lengthened into seven,
primates can communicate symbolically, or
he found its 'dreadful performance' growing
% ilder and worse and more involved', that computers can out-verbalize their own
for My contention is that 'Circe'
ha'ing written it.' 1 his troubles did not opens
end up another scene, comparable to the
Freudian unconscious, in which language
%%hen the chapter was complete: four typists
coalesces
refused to transcribe the manuscript, while a vs ith the animal and the
fifth had to rescue it from the fire where mechanical.
her In the topsy-turvy dreamscape
outraged husband had thrown it. Joyce, of `Circe', human beings change places with
animals and machines, each of which
calling lysses his 'damned monster-novel',
as if the book itself had succumbed to 'speaks in its own way', as Bloom says of
the printing press in the 'Aeolus' episode.
Circe's bestialising charms. protested that
'Circe has changed me too into an animal:4
Human superiority is exposed as a delusion,
based on the repression of the animal and
A hat does it mean for a now to change
the mechanical. repressions that return with
into a monster, or to change its novelista into
vengeance in 'Circe' to overthrow the
an animal A hat does the animal ha'e to baseless fabric of humanity. Reason.
FIELD DAY REVIEW 2 2006
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HELD DAY REVIEW

consciousness, free will those envisage Ulysses from the perspective 6 See SL, 318: 'One great
part of every litaman
4wideawake' attributes supposed to elevate of oxen.
existence is passed in a
the human over the inhuman give way to state which cannot be
animal drives and mechanical compulsions, Next to be consiclet-ed is the, role that Joyce rendered sensible by the
assigns to cats arid dogs, those pets ase of wideawake
while language, rather than transcending
language, cutanddry
those automatisms, dances to their epilepticanititaux familiers that 'blur the ,bound'ati,
grammar and goahead
rhythm,6 If language automatizes, it also between human and itihumau. plot' (letter to Harriet
annualizes insofar as it subjects the mind tochallenging this boundary, Joyce is joining a, Shaw Ikraver, 24 Nov.
the body, to the muscles of the mouth and `theri-ophilic' or beast-admiring 1926).
hand, as well as to mechanical prostheses philosophical tradition stretching back jacquos-Lacan, The. Four
Fundamental Concepts
such as pen or type that make machines outthrough Rousseau arid VoVaire;to of Psychoanalysis, ed.
of those muscles. In Joyce's 'Circe', as in Renaissance scholars such as Montaigne Jacques-Alain
Lacanian psychoanalysis, the speaking and Giovanni Battista Gelli, the author' of a ti-ans. Alan Sheridan

series of dialogues called' 'Circe' (1549; (Loricton, 1977), 100

subject is seized in a function whose
8 The term `theriophilic'
exercise grasps it', entrammelled in the blindEnglish translation '17(2), in which the men was coined by George
machinery of language, which goes on that Homer's Circe converted into animals Boas in The Happy Bea_st
speaking whethe there is anyone to mouth insist on the superiority of beasts to in French Thought of the
the words or not.7 hurnankind.8 After a brief sketch of Sezienteeth Century
(Baltimore, 1933, v and
Montaig,ne's and Gelli's defences of the
passim.
But 'Circe is not the only episode to animal, the final section of this essay retairris. 9 I use 'setniotiC' in Julia
to Joyce's 'Circe', in which language is
challenge the supremacy of man; throughout Kristeva's sense, in which
it is associated with the
Ulysses, machines and animals encroach revealed as the witch that changes human
rhythms, tones, and
upon the heroes' consciousness, fraying the beings into animal-machines. movement of
edges of the human universe. Among the signification; in
animals that Bloom and Stephen encounter Most readers, when asked about the role of Nietzsche-an terms, the
or imagine on 16 June 1904 is the sacrificial
animals in Ulysses, immediately think of semiotic is aligned with
the 'Dionysian' principle
ox, whose image haunts Bloom's reveries Bloom's cat, who is given the first speech in
of sonority as opposed to
throughout the day. The ox is not a the Calypso' episode: `Mrkgnaor This the 'Apollonian'
newcomer to Joyce's fiction.; remember thatunpronounceable transliteration of the cat's principle of rational
form.
Stephen Dedalus's journey in A Portrait of meow accentuates the otherness of aninials,
10 In the MS Early Notes
the Artist begins with the story of baby their resistance to the anthropomorphic
recently acquired from
tuckens and the moocow.. Moreover Joyce'simpulses of Bloom, who sweet-talks his pet the Paul Leon estate by
surprising solicitude for oxen extends car in lieu ofhis unfaithful wife upstairs. the National Library of
beyond his fiction, inspiring two of his rareThrough this displaced tenderness. Morn Ireland (NLI, MS
36,639/2/A),,jOyce notes:
forays int0 journalism, both concerned with transforms the cat into a sphinx, half-cat, In the sense of touch
contemporary farming practices, whose half-woman, while also revealing a desire to man is far above all
brutalities evoke an undercurrent of disquiettransform his women into cats. The latter other animals and hence

in Ulysses. Such practices, according to transformation takes place in Ithaca', when he is the most intelligent
animal. I Men with
Jacques Derrida, reveal the 'unprecedented the narrator identifies Mitty Bloom with a
tough flesh do not have
proportions of the subjection Of the animal' `neckarching mousewatching much intelligence. I The
that has transpired in the last two centuries. earwashing hearthdrearning car'. U, flesh is the intermediary
for the sense of touch.'
Derrida's point is made in different terms by17.896-9061 Moreover, the cat's 'Mrkgnao',
In the last phrase Joyce
1. M. Coetzee's fictional novelist Elizabeth placed at the beginning of Bloom's odyssey, substitutes touch for
Costello, the militantly vegetarian author of alerts the reader to the fact that the 'gelid though[t], which is
a modern classic called 7 Eccles Street, light and air' of 7 Eccles Street are fess crossed out.

described as a re-writing of Ulysses from thetransparent than they seem. The naturalistic 11 Tim Ingold, ed., What is
an Animal (London,
perspective of Molly Bloom. Making use ofsurface of 'Calypso', which comes as a relief
1988), 3
Derrida's and Coetzee's work on animals, after the self-reflexive verbal density of
the first part of this essay attempts to re Troteus", is disrupted by the onomatopoeic

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ltSee Rene Descartes,
Discours. ott Method
0637), pt: 5, in
Discourse on Method
and the Meditation.s,
trans. F. E. Sutcliffe
(London, 1968), 61-76.
13 This is notto ignore the
radical, political uses to
which the idea of the
Cartesian animal
automaton was put by
writers like La Mettrie in
L'homme machine
(174g). The claim that reveal that words themselves are sphinxes,
humans were, at one and hybrids of the animal, the human, and the
the same time, animals
(in .vitrue of their natural
instincts and machines
(in viztite of their bodily
functions and of their
Onsciousiiess which arid the sea yelp, the 'slit' of paper spewed
was made of 'sensations'
waii repudiated with fury
by the Church but in their own way, yet participate in the
remained within the same orchestration as the human voices
writings of the 'atheists',
La Metrrie, Helvetius,
liolbach and others. See
L. C. Rosenfeld, From
Beast-Machine to Man
Machine: The Theme of
Animal Soul in French
Letters from Descartes to
La _Mettrie (New York,
1941).
14 Hornet; The Odyssey,
trans. Richard Lattimore
(New York, 1999), bk.
10, lines 100-16,154-55
15 James Joyce, Finnegans
Wake (London, 1964
119391), 170, line 5,
hereafter cited by FW,
followed by page and
line numbers.
wordplay characteristic of the previous
episode, in which 'everything speaks in its
own way', even the surf: 'Listen: a
fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss,
rsseeiss, 000s'. I U, 3.456-571 'Mrkgnao'
could therefore be understood as a
password to the 'semiotic' underside of
Joyce's novel, to the sounds that threaten to
overwhelm the sense of words, dissolving
meaning in a swell of wavespeech.9.
Inhuman. voices the waves', the cat's
inorganic, for speech is fashioned out of an
acoustic substrate that we share with
animals, as well as with machinery and
waves. Unliving voices the sea howl
out of the printing press all these speak
of Ulysses.
Joyce's interest in the murky division
between man and animal reaches back to
his Paris notebooks of 1904, where he
makes careful notes on Aristotle's theory of
the animals, especially the philosoPher's idea
that good minds depend upon thin skin, the
human mind growing stronger in
proportion to the weakness of the human
hide, its naked porosity to influence.10 With
this ingenious case for the cognitive benefits
of furlessness, Aristotle launched philosophy
on a ceaseless quest for the quintessence of
humanity, the unique endowment that
ensures man's superiority over the animals,
be it reason, language, consciousness, free
will, or opposed thumbs. In the history of
philosophy, Tim IngoId has observed, 'Every
attribute that it is claimed we uniquely have,
the animal is consequently supposed to lack;
thus, the generic concept of 'anitnal' is
negatively constituted by the sum of these
deficiencies.'it Nonetheless, a theriophilic
counter-tradition in philosophy, epitomized
in Montaigne's Apology for Raymond
Selland, relentlessly attacks this human
arrogance. This tradition persists in. animal
YSa S
rights philosophy today, which tends to
blame Descartes's conception of the animal
machine for all the crimes inflicted by
humanity on other species, crimes that now
endanger the survival of the planet, not to
mention the welfare of our fellow beasts.a
The proposition I shall test, however, is that
Joyce's 'Circe' out-Descartes Descartes, in so
far as it endorses the Cartesian conception
of the body as an animal-automaton, but
extends this automatism to,the human
mind, laying bare the animal-machinery of
consciousness .11
fl Aker smoviiqr
Owen in Ulysses
In challenging the distinction between the
human and the animal, Joyce is revisiting a
theme in Homer's Odyssey, where this
distinction has to be reinstated every time
Odysseus arrives at a new island and must
determine whether the inhabitants are men
or beasts or something monstrous in
between. The litmus test is hospitality:
strangers who feed their guests are human,
whereas those who eat their guests are
monsters. What makes them monsters,
however, is the fact that they are cannibals,
which means they must be human, not
animal. In the land of the Lestrygonians.
Odysseus sends forth scouts to determine
'what rnen, eaters of bread, might live here
ill this country', but the inhabitants prove to
be eaters of men; their king wastes ,ito time
in barbecuing Odysseus's men for 'ioylo6
feasting', while their queen has grown big
as a mountain peak' on this barbarous
diet.1.4. Yet despite their gigantism, the
Lestrygonians are depicted as humanoid; so
are the Cyclops, despite their monocrilarity:
and even Scylla is humanized, in that she is
named and endowed with motiveless
malignity, which identifies her as .a cannibal
rather than a random terror of the sea.
In Finnegans Mike Shem the Penman poses
the riddle, 'when is a rriall not a mani0
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FIELD DAY REVIEW

Cattle being driven along

North King Street, Dublin,
1953. Photograph: Neva
Johnson 0 RTE Stills Library

animals that oscillate across the threshold

In The Odyssey this riddle might be restated
between human and inhuman. [U, 17.1034
in the following terms: when is a man-eater
not a cannibal How monstrous must a 351 Animals get under Bloom's skin
man-eater become in order to be changed almost literally in his crises of
into an animal, a carnivore rather than a compassion for them; when he thinks about
cannibal Homer's monsters are liminal 'pain to the animal' the famished gull,
figures, neither human nor inhuman, which
the bleating sheep, the 'staggering bob', the
undermine the boundary between these tortured circus animal he suffers their

agonies by proxy. [U, 8.722-241 Thus

categories. In Joyce's Ulysses, this boundary
is undermined by animals, whose constant animals invade the human body, infecting it
incursions into hearth and mind with their afflictions and desires: in 'Hades'
compromise the integrity of homo sapiens. we learn that Rudy Bloom was conceived
In the words of the catechistic narrator of when Molly was aroused by the sight of
'Ithaca', 'the door of egress' that expels the two dogs copulating. [U, 6.77-79 Animals
animal from human life becomes a 'door of also encroach into the realm of language,
ingress' for Bloom's cat, and for many other supposedly reserved for human beings: in

78

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 ULYSSES

16 Elizabeth Costello the 'Cyclops' episode, the Citizen's dog Joyce laboured like the proverbial ox to
proposes this
Garryowen is the only nationalist in the pub narrate this skimpy story in all the literary
interpretation of Homer
who understands his master's Irish. styles of the English language, although
in J. M. Coetzee,
Elizabeth Costello notably excluding any female authors only
(London, 2003), 102-03. In Bloom's case, animality becomes the 'eared wombs' of the male imagination
17 JJ, 476. In Finnegans
contagious: he can scarcely contemplate an feature in this stylistic parthenogenesis. By his
Wake, Shem inherits
Joyce's aversion towards
animal without becoming one. In this sense own account, Joyce was so possessed by his
beef: 'None of your he resembles Joyce himself, who felt that theme that he felt the oxen were everywhere,
inchthick blueblooded 'Circe' was changing him into an animal. virtually stampeding on his consciousness,
Balaclava fried-at-belief
The only episode besides 'Circe' to give while he was being forced to eat them. It was
stakes ... all aswim in a
Joyce so much trouble was the fourteenth difficult to sit down to a meal without feeling
swamp of bogoakgravy
for that greekenhearted chapter, 'Oxen of the Sun' it has given his stomach turn.17 Exhausted by the
yuder. [FW, 170.32 lots of trouble to his readers too. In both thousand hours he had devoted to the
171 .11 A `greekenhearted
chapters, Joyce attributed his difficulties to episode, he insisted that Budgen visit him in
cosmospolitan',
the animal: to the animalizing magic of the Trieste, promising to make him sick with
brokenhearted by
Ireland's self-betrayals, 'Circe' episode, and to the 'moving moaning oxen too: 'You will hear (till you get sick the
Shem refuses to swallow multitude' of cattle unleashed in the 'Oxen bloody Oxen of the bloody Sun.' It is curious
the steak of Irish
of the Sun'. Prior to their eponymous that this statement could refer either to the
nationalism, or to be
burned at the stake for episode, oxen make many cameo writing or to the slaughter of the oxen, as if
such beliefs. Shem's appearances on 16 June 1904. In the act of writing were a form of
abstinence from steaks 'Telemachus', oxen feature in the form of bloodletting. `Bloodys' continue to bespatter
also harks back to
breakfast milk, delivered by a bovine Joyce's comments on the episode: in May of
Bloom, another
`greekenhearted yude',
peasant woman; in 'Nestor', Mr. Deasy the same year he announced to Budgen that
who suffers nausea at the ropes Stephen into his campaign for 'The oxen of the bloody bleeding sun are
sight of beef and vaccinating.oxen afflicted with foot-and finished', a message that could be read as a
beefeaters in the
mouth disease; in 'Hades' a drove of cattle graphic rendition of the sacrilege committed
`Lestrygonians' episode.
brings the funeral cortege to a halt, on the island of Thrinacia. [Jj, 476
reminding Bloom that 'tomorrow is killing
day' in the 'dead meat trade'; in Of course, the reader is likely to object that
Testrygonians' Bloom fantasizes about Joyce's oxen are metaphors, not animals,
ghostly oxen pursuing their devourers into while his bloodys are meaningless expletives,
eternity. Finally, 'Oxen of the Sun' revisits but his visceral reactions suggest otherwise.
Homer's fable of imperialism in which Do metaphors stampede Nietzsche might
Odysseus's men invade the island of say yes, since he famously defined truth as a
Thrinacia and exterminate all the brutes mobile army of metaphors, metonyms,
that is, the oxen sacred to the sun-god anthropomorphisms but Joyce's oxen
Helios.16 [U, 14.326-28 strain to be taken literally, in all their bloody
bleeding physicality.18 The idea of the
On 25 February 1920 Joyce told his patron episode, according to Joyce, was 'the crime
Harriet Shaw Weaver that the 'Oxen of the committed against fecundity by sterilizing the
Sun' was 'the most difficult episode in an act of coition'. [SL, 251 Are we to conclude
odyssey ... both to interpret and to execute'. that Joyce was pro-life, like the current
[SL, 249 Judging by his complaints to bloodthirsty president of the United States
correspondents, Joyce found the labour of No, because Joyce's reverence for life includes
writing 'Oxen' almost as unbearable as Mina the living, not just the unborn and the
Purefoy's labour, which takes place off-stage undead. In 'Oxen of the Sun' Stephen jokes
in the Holles Street Maternity Hospital, while about 'those Godpossibled souls that we
Buck Mulligan and his medical cronies crack nightly impossibilise', referring to the
jokes about 'woman's woe' in childbirth. millions of potential lives wiped out with

79

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 HELD DAY REVIEW

each wet dreanl. [U, 14225-65 When the 18 See Nietzsche,

the noxious effluvia wafting from1-.)st theTroth
and Lies in allonimral
narrator congratillates Theodore Purefoy for 'hideous quagmire of blood and offall'.20
Sense', itr'Nietzsche4
the 'doughty deed of impregnating his long Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, 'dicky meat'
Philosophy and Truth:
suffering Wife, letting 'ail Maithusiasts go (to use Bloom's term was Selections
churning from out of
hang', While kie droops under the load of the Chicago stockyards. [U, Notebooks
Nietzsche-'s In 1906of
butcher's bills at home, Joyce makes pro-lik the Early
Upton Sinclair published The 1870s, trans.
Jungle, a
Daniel Breazeak (Atlantic
ihetoric look painfully ridiculous. U, 14. horrifying expose of the Highlands,
Chicago Meat
NJ, 1990),
1410-17 industry, in which huge mounds of rat
84, (translation
infested rotting,flesh weremodified).
regularly recycled,
The reference to Malthusiasts indicates that into sausages, along with19 See Mary Lowe-Evans,
human fingers
Crimes. Against
Joyce is responding to debates about frequently cut off in the production process.
Fecundity: Joyce and
ContraceOticiii and abortion raging in the 'It was from the Chicago stockyards
Population Control that the
aftermath. of World War 1, when the need to Nazis learned how to process(Syracuse, bodies,'
NY, 1989), 54.
replenish a.decirriated generation boosted 20 Cited
claims Coetzee's Elizabeth by Joseph O'Brien,
Costello.11
'Dear, Dirty Dublin': A
propaganda. fOr a fjaby boom in Western In 'Hades', Bloom also ponders the
City in Distress,
Europe. This -:pro-birth agitation confronted 'byproducts of the slaughterhouses',
1899-1916 (Berkeley, the
strong-opposition:from the birth-control 1982), 103
soap and margarine extracted,out of 'hide,
Movement, championed by feminists hoping 21 Coetzee,
hair, horns', after the finest Elizabeth
specimens of
Costello, 97
to rescue women like Joyce's Mina Purefoy Irish oxen have been processed into
22 Jacques Derrida., 'The
:frern the Ihorrors Of endless, childbirth, . yet `Roastbeef for old England'.' 6.393-97
Animal that Therefore I
41S-o adVocated by eugenicists committed to Am (More to Follow)',
trans. David Wills,
Jacques Derrida-, whose lifelong critique of
:iLinpro,Ong hiiman-`stock'."9.0ften the
Critical Inquiry, 28
4fernMists and ttie.eugenicists were the same the anthropocentrisin of Western culture
(2002), 394
people: M:argar,et.,Sariger ,a,nd. Marie Stopes culminated in a passionate meditation on
'believed that :contraception cOUld save the sufferings of animals, argues that the
women Of the lower orders fm last two centuries have swept away
wretchedness.and.death, while also saving traditional methods.of farming, breeding,
future generations from their, tainted fattening, working, and killing animals.
bloodlines. Eugenics aimed to sterilize the Those techniques have now been superseded
'act of coitiOn by Control,iing the size, by the industrialization of animal meat,
Ftlity,and the mass-production of animdls for the
and'Ultimately.provided the
laboratory, increasingly audacious
natidnate forf,t4e extermination of so-called
manipulations of the genome, ubiquitous
qegetieratetypesin the Nazi concentration
artificial insemination, genetic cross
cmnps of 1942-45. breeding, and cloning. All these practices
could be described as crimes against
By this iirne, techniquesfecundity, committed 'in the service of a
of population
certain being
control were aiready,Wenrestablished inand
thethe so-called ',human well
being of man'.
Whatever conclusions one
, fart-nit-kg .,in4istr,y,Ancluclingi.selective
draws, Derrida
breeding ancl th,e lta'ss slaughter insists, 'no one can deny the
of inferior
stock. In jOyce's, lifetime unprecedented
as intOurs, the proportions of this
`. horrors of this industry subjection of the animal'.21 This is true,
Were carefully
although
con,ceated. In 1904, the year Derrida
that Joyce overlooks the fact that
first
Walked oUt wit', Nora Barnacle, the medical'
this subjection has been accompanied by an
io4rnal-Thel Lanc0 ,qtrried
equally
a repOrt
intensified
on the concern for animal
'barbaric Uncleanliness' ofwelfare,
the cityevidenced
of by the foundation of the
noting,,in,,particular ASPCA in the United States (1866), the
an ill-regulated
slaughterhouse in-Townsend Street,
RSPCA where (1892), along with
in Britain
iocalkhoolchitdren were countless
forced tocampaigns
.breathe against cruelty,

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 ULYSSES

23,Derrida,`Animal
vivisection, meat-eating; hunting, and the of Bertha Mason, or Peter Carey's re-writing that
Therefore I Am', 394
extermination of wildlife throughout the of Great Expectations from the poilat-of
24 Coetzee, Elizabeth
world Just to complicateithe,picture further, view of Magwitch, Costello's
Costello, 65 imaginary
25such humanitarian
Steil,campaigns are often novel depends on the
326;loose ends in the Letters, vol.
2, MA-James
fraught with contrallaions-and:hypocrisies: precursor text, the untold stories of Joyce,
'Politics and Cattle
in France roday,Siigicgardot champions subordinated characters. Ulysses contains
Disease' (1912), in James
ihe,rights[of Aiinals while inciting hatred ,many such loose ends, the germs of
Joyce: The Critical
Writings, ed. Ellsworth against gays immigrants, andrJews narratives yet to be articulated, the most
Mason and Richard prejudices that she who mysterious of which is locked in the silence
Ellmann (New York,
opposeSviviseciii6i4'bit'orily onof
'non
the animal., On 'Bloom attempts to
1959),. 238-41; hereafter
human animals: 'penetrate this siiibtice, to thin,k his way'into
cited as 'CW.
its,core of anguish. 'What ... will they
slaughter all?' he cries in 'Oxen d the Sul-C.
[U, 4.565-61 Here he is referring to the
practice of Slaughtering healthy cattle by dhe
thousands if a single case of foot-and-mouth
disease erupts amongst the herd. In 1912 an
epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in
Ireland had 'led to a British embargo on
Irish cattle. Joyce redates the epidemic hack
to 1904, so that Mr. Deasy can,compose a
pompous letter on foot-aud-mouth disease
recommending the use of a, vaccine .
developed in Austria. Stephe, henceforth
dubbed the''bullockbefrie'nding bard', is
commissioned by Mr. Deasy to submit this
letter for publication in The Freema,n's
Journal. [U, 2.431
. , .

The originalifor Mr. Deasy was iHen,ry

comparisorrts Coetz
BlackwoodtriCe, an Ulsterman Joyce met in
Trieste. 'Price writes' Me a l'otter,ev,ery day,'

Joyce told his brother Stanislaus. 'Fie has a

cure for the foot-and-mouth'disease which is
,

Her incen.diarymreniise[is devastating

that we are Irish cattle. Si-yriae oxen stiffer
from
suraiiintied by an enterprise it arid are-cured but MOO Irish beasts
of degradation,
c9.1eity anclkiffing'Which have been
rivals' killed' (a 'mere 'fraction,
anything
that the 'Third Reich was incidentally,
capable of of the number slaughtered in the
indeed dwarfs-itin that ours is British
recent an outbreak of foot,--and-mouth-,
despite
enterprise without end, self the fact thaeithis disease-is
regenerating
-preventable
bringing.rabbitsrats,,poulitry, and rarely fa,tall). Henry
livestock
ceaselessly into ttietvorld Blackwood ,Price chivvied4oyce: 'Be
for the purpose
-of killing them''''.; energetic. Drop your. lethargy. You will get
your name up if you write this up-.' Joy'ce told
,Costelks7 Eccles Street supposedly. makes
Stanislaus that price ought til.be looking 'for
a cure
BlOom centrako the action for the foot-and-mouth disease of
from
'Nviiich she is sidelined r for Mrs. Price.
the ;first Nonetheless Joyce later sunpnised
seventeen
episadestof Urysse.s:..-Like himself by writing
jean Rhys's re a sub-editorial on the
yriting.of jani-Eyre from thedisease for
point ofThe
viewFreeman's journattt

SI

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FIELD DAY REVfEW

This was not his first'bullock-befrieriding dogs and rats Joyce ' showed little regard for 26 Nor is Etiglish cniekr
restricre4
tor oxen *14
gesture. In 1907 Joyce had taken up the no1:fitirriati4animalS.`A meat-and-potatoes
the trisir 'last *ma two
cause of cattle in an. article for, I Piccolo man; tie''tUrned-'ilp'his nose at the great horses were &AM-deed
delta Sera, in which he defends the,lrish cuisines Europe .
and despised the
,
with the usual slashes
against the accusation of cruelty to Oxen. It the lower abdomen and
'weggebObl
their bowels scattered in
is the English who mistreat their animals, he 'Damn vege
the grass,' Jort
claims, whereas Irish tenant-farmers, 'seeing vegetable
concludes toridly: p1
pastures full of welt fed cattle while an 'Ireland at
theosophist the Bar'
eighth of the population lacks the means of (translated
complained- from
`Lirkostki alla Sbarria', 11
subsistence', have every reason to 'drive the a 'typhoid.ti
Piccolo dell Sera,
cattle from the farms'. Yet the Irish are theosophicaTrieste, 16 Sopt. 19071
'content to openc the stalls and chase the 121,CW, 199400. 1621 In
cattle through sevecal miles of streets', ,
27 U, 486.4.581-82.; hew
by breakfas
whereas 'bestial, maddened criminals' in Stephen is quoting his
own bon mot from A
England 'ravage' cattle, exhibiting the same Portrait of the Artist as a
brutality that English troops inflict on Irish Young Ave (New York,
people. Joyce instances a recent atrocity in 1993 (19161), 220.
Belfast in which Her Majesty's troops had
. -
opened fire on an unarmed croWci, leaving encountering the'-ca7pores in 13t
two corpses:

This article suggests that Joyce identifies the

Irish with their oxen as fellow-victims of
imperialism. The implication is that England
is the Circe who changed the Irish into
oxen. `Silk -of the kine' silk of the oxen
was an ancient name for fxeland, as
Stephen remembers when the milk of the Gulp. 6bbstuff. ... Eat or
kine arrives at the Martell tower, borne by be eaten. 8.654-56;
the Shan Van Vocht, the poor old, woman, 8.701; 70,31'"4' '`
,

another symbol of the suffering island. ILl,

7.403f Yet iust as Ireland is described by
Stephen as an 'old sow that eats her
farrow', so. ihe Irish are depicted in Ulysses
as Icine-eating kin, or oxen-eating oxen:
hence the beef-eaters in gurton's restaurant
are portrayed as cannibals, the latter-day
equivalent of Homer's Lestrygonians.Z7 If
the Engtish are characterized by 'beer, beef,
business, bilks, bulldogs, battteships,
buggery arid bishops', the Irish are
portrayed as cannibal cattle, like the mad
cows of the recent BSE crisis. !U, 14.1459
601
Was Joyce an animal-rights activist before
the fact -Far from it: apart frorn-his. two
articles on cattle, his mild curiosity about
the family cat, and his phobias tOwards
In the face of ineat--e' aters,:vilifiea by Shaw
as the .living graveS,of'murdered beasts',
Bloom undergoes 'a -temporary conversion to
vegetarianismoariditees the restaurant in
search of a cheese'sfirfdWtich':.:
A crnivore,atl'im:e,kfist and a vegetarian at
lunch, Bloom typifies the contradictions of
Western culiure.,''jsrecially--io6y, when the
Utmost .criterlti,i,:to r:aniinals. in farms and
laboratories coexists with the utmost
tenderness towards household pets. These
contradi0Onslind a philosophical precedent
Rolisseati, who praises the moral and

82

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28 jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Emile, or On Education,
trans. Grace Roosevelt
(London, 1911), bk. 4,
794
29 See Rod Preece,
'Introduction: The
Denigration of the West',
in Animals and Nature
(Vancouver, 1998),
xvi-xxvii.
30 Voltaire, Philosophical
Dictionary, trans.
Theodore Besterrnan
(London, 201M), 65
31 Gertrude Stein, 'What are
Master-Pieces and Why are
there so Few of Them?', in
Look at Me Now and Here
I Am: Writings and
Lectures 1909-45, ed.
Patricia Meyerowiti
The case of Rousseau .belies the assumption,
(Harrnondsworth, 1984),
149. Michael Moon promulgated in much literature on animal
informs me that Stein's spin ethics, that Descartes's notion of the animal
on the Cartesian cogito
derives from a disturbing
nursery rhyme, which was
quoted by Josiah Royce in
a lecture on Kant that Stein
attended as an
undergraduate at Radcliffe.
In the nursery rhyme, a
little woman goes to the
market to sell eggs, but
falls asleep in the road,
where a pedlar cuts off her
petticoats. When she wakes
up, she no longer knows
who or where she is:
'Lawk a mercy o me, This
is none of But if this be
I As I do hope it be, /1
have a little dog at home
And he knows me; If it be
I, He'll wag his little tail, I
And if it be not I He'll
loudly bark and wair
When she returns home,
the dog barks, and she
concludes, This is none of
P: Iona Opie and Peter
Opie, eds., The Oxford
Dictionary of Nursery
Rhymes (Oxford, 1997),
514. In other words, I am
not I because my little dog
does not know me.
alimentary virtues of vegetarianism while
continuing to consume animal flesh, and
inveighs against the iniquities of hunting
while extolling the virtues of the hunter.
Particiilacly Bloomian is Rousseau's argument
that human pity originates in the ability to
change into an animal: 'how do we let
ourselves be moved by pity', he demands, 'if
not by transporting_ourselves outside of
ourselves and identifying with the suffering
animal, by leaving, as it were, our own being
to take on its being. It is not in ourselves, it is
in him that we suffer:ZS In the same way,
Bloom changes into every animal he pities;
compassion is his passport to
metempsychosis.
machine has stifled every other
philosophical conception of the animal. In
literary criticism, Descartes-bashing remains
a popular sport among poststructuralists
and our successors, the cogito being vilified
as the root of every misconception of the
human subject. Not only does this
vilification rely on a limited understanding
of Descartes, but it grossly exaggerates the
influence of philosophers on human lives. A
seventeenth-century farmer was more likely
Tot to beat his horse because he knew the
biblical proverb 'a righteous man regardeth
the life of his beast' Wroverbs 12.10], than
to beat his horse becaus'e he had accepted
Descartes's doctrine of the animal-machine;
indeed, it could be argued that Descartes's
doctrine might prevent such cruelty, since no when Odysseus returns to Ithaca disguised as
purpose could be served by inflicting blows
on an insentient mechanism. Even in his
own day, Descartes's disciples were greatly
wags his tail and dies. What the .dog knows
outnumbered by those who found his views is also the subject of Virginia Woolf's Hush
on animals preposterous, including the (1933), her biography of Elizabeth Barrett
Catholic Church: For every Cartesian
who denied consciousness to animals, a
dozen others insisted on animals' capacity
to love, to learn, to feel, and most of all, to
suffer. 'What a pitiful, what a sorry thing to
have said that animals are machines bereft
ULYSSES
of understanding and feeling,' Voltaire
expostulates in his entry on Beasts' in the
Philosophical Dictionary:
Barbarians seize Ethel dog who so
prodigiously surpasses man in
friendship. They nail him to a table and
dissect him alive to show you the
mesenteric veins. You discover in him all
the same organs of feeling that you
possess. Answer me, mechanist, has
nature arranged all the springs ot feeling
in this animal in order that he should
not feel Does he have nerves to he
impassive Do not assume that nature
presents this impertinent
contradiction,"
Here Voltaire, like animal-rights advocates
today, blames the Cartesian 'machinists' for
the horrors of vivisection, hat this is to
mistake the symptom for the cause In
Voltaire's era, as in ours, economic interests,
rather than the lonely meditations of
philosophers, probably account for most
barbarity to animals.
Returning to the twentieth century, _Joyce's
contemporary Gertrude Stein counters
Descartes with a theriophilic version of the
cogito: am 1 because my little dog knows
me:31 If the depends upon the knowledge
of a little dog, this is not a neuter, neutral,
universal I, but a contingent subject rooted in
relations with human and inhuman others
Stein may be thinking of the recognition
scene in Book XVII of Homer's Odyssey,
a beggar, and his old dog Argus, having
waited rwenty years for this homecoming,
Browning's much-kidnapped pooch, while
Kafka writes himself into the body of a hug,
a rodent, and a singing dog. in the urban
fictions of modernism, the most prevalent
representatives of animality are pets and
vermin, although the oxen in the streets of
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HELD REViEVY

;ki&IesabtMit
Joyce's Doiblin indicate the ,persistetice of a c4toines and their 32 See liviarc Sheli,
graitelinothers.14-Thwughout
ilfrA 1 NOM ittvi raiTconomny, within-,t he capitaL the 'The Fanity Pet',
'Chapter
Representations, 15
)fet pets and vermin:, like Homeric monsters.
*Stephen's 410,1144s, like Ms Movements, areShell
(1986), 121-53.
are lintinal figure.s that confound the
icentripetat referring every perception tothat
argues (137 histhe
distigctitotchotween the krunnati and the
pred1cament..V7hile he seesthe 'family
,iElog petas
stall& both
at the borderline between
animal. 'Marc ShrAl has Argued that the pet
adversary, is
'allegory, evert.dop_peiganger
family and nonfaray
the only animal that Christian annot eat,
himself, he cannot grasp its cioggetil at theiborderline
because it has [teen absorbed into. the human
otherness. between those beings
.family, as indicated by the French term with whom it would be
incest to have sexua
animal fa" miller A little.les$.than kin. by
'Noon*, batc.ontEastvsegticiFes nol,Citce to
intercourse and thDoe
more thw. kind, the pet cannottraosport
be eatenhirnseg i4to the liody of an apirr401;
irh whom it would not
without Nithaiii Ale talroa-agairist
.natipathy rprovifles him with.the po*er.
be incest of
anal attic
borctrlint
tileriomortihosis. As sow a's he sees
canr4i.ksit.1211, j woriltoansidering between
his cat,
he wetiders what its like *o ke a cat:and
whe;liet,.verrniarate-.-equally.inediblei.,
animal tionatiinia
Pt
between roan and non
lot siiini)at.Teastavis bhp that Scratch
wimiiidemy head, Pil; Wonder what I look
man (i.e. at the
aitilat*cessay like te,:her, Wight ,of a tovver?-151o, she can.
borderline between those
jim-ip [U 4.19-29j 0 she can julep this
beings which may be
eaten and those wilich
tIlSses pets play a crucial role u defining to-wering dotriinion over animals is
may not 'Pets stand as
human ilaratter, h not assured after all, a .cat can the
look at a
intersection of kin
sigrtifkavt4hat ihe..first time we see Leopold Itting.A cat with a bo$d gaze latter
andtakes-the
kind.'
Blown jitote, LW .1s not ready attire but with a staring role in 2 story joYce wtote
33 See for his like a
my 'Writing
witit,wtiorai he hares Rat', Critical Quarterly,
grandson Stephen in. 1936:,64bsequent1y
46, 1 (2004), 59-76.
4iS fivit mpast k r . published as The Cot and the 004, 'in
34 Diana wtkiCh
Vaienzuela
the
ifirryirin-be we see Stepl!en, cat becomes the sayi.o,L;ir of th.e
Alanc-.; town of
pmposecf,this
when he waas aiong.the.strandin _
The:Ifivppie of DeaAigepc.yhad no in my class
interpretation
he is portoccupiej with ds Both a deacklEig
hrkIge-tt''Y
on Ulysses at the
cross tile rivet-4 'sci1the devil
University of Notre
and a. dog ivitrucie into Ls reverie,
Amitnised to make lone _io a siOgle-night on
Dame, 2005.
the
ternifitiers,of tile animal that he it; condition
trying to that the first person who
transcend.hs mvii `dogsb.ocily's crossed
body'. it Veoulbelppg to hin. &it-e enough,
EU. ,3,45124 The *noes' reaction.to,these
oFe nextpets,
morning aiiine..stoite-bri4ge had
teen tivoivti across tlie river,' and the devil
crystallite their-respective persmilities.
was catches
Stephen flimtit9 with:fear wheritie .dati'irs on the. ther j Prsetitry Ole
sight of the cocklepiekm' lone kva.Or MeiriSietwAlked 13$4:ine arrived,
.4eiriiiga
himself as Actarton .dewolvred, Cy. bucket of waterfin, one hand, while,
his ;clogs,'isr
'tuaod ander his Ober am he carried a car.
as be frek assaited as an artist by-149
countrylnun. 't just.simply stood still,
.cat pale,
lociked up.at ti4e lord iriaybr, for 'in
*he, 6441,4
silent, hayed abicitiv',,. he. seif-4.rarliatizes,. Beaidgeficy it was ailoweA tti a
cat slicithicl look at 4 iprod traydr',,but becaose
t_J, .3.3 1 1 I, irorticaltly;, the ciir aysinio,
attention to hict suggesting ilia Stephen
.'evon a cathas
gets tired ofloOking at a :Lord
.Mayor',
more to fear from the in4ifterence _of thethe cat begafi to the Lord
public than ttirir teeth. 'Mien the
Mayor's
ilkheayy
starts
'golden chain.
digging up the sand, Stephen specnlaresthat
Via, the
the animal is looking for 'something he iOrd-nikayor carne to the head
of ilielnidge
biiried there, his grandittrinther', alihough itevery
is man held his breath
a44 every woota,n held her tornmei The
not clear whether' the ribg is Aiming
soinethivig tip. iliggiflg tcx.U,.lotct triaq-,)r pia the cat down on the
3300-111 The dog's attairmiguousbridge and, gloick as A thotight, splaghl
digging
Ile emptied the wholelailcket of_water
mirrors Stephoes timer work of rrolot.ttningas
over it The
he buries and viol:Juries his 'dead inol-her car who was now bervveerr
with

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 aktover'. awtawribe 204shoe
thetnietheAokl Cup As
-'11*101t-11440,101dvoti t6
100100064,;,...
Cy :*he ,tauto6 Joyce
Museum, Dotititi

3S This stoty was later the devAiikl, the bii&et-of water made The observation that a cat can look at a.
published as The Cat ttp hstirtiniii'qpitie as quickly,.and raft lord mayor corresponds to Bloom's
and the'Devil by ElkodJ.
Mead an& Company *kik' his. ears,Catek goros6Htire bridge and e,cerogr, tilL4is.'..at, who 10044t
(New York, 1964 and ioto tholievirs aIso looks beyond him: 'She can jump me:
Faber and Faber For Bloom, the animal is not merely the
(London, 1965), but. thie tie;vAscil)eches, ',Vous n'etes que obiect Liitt also the subject (-)1 the gaze, and
text cited here is Joyce's
-des cha.pst' arktrushes,dif to 'warm sp [se this is a gaze that overlooks the human
fetter to Stephen Joyce
(1 Aug. 1936); see thauffrr
SL, withhjs'ne Ip1e. Joyce acids species, bored by its mayoral pretensions.
382-84. _kiwi Leff atv amusing postsaitt on_cltvilish speech: It a cat may look,at a lord mayor., she rnay
p6inted attro-me that .also look at a philosopher, as Derrida
Th de.:44 ino4y speaks a language of itiN
Joyce's story 'resembles discovers when his pair chat follows him
own
the tale of Billy GOA
called Beisybaf44 wt-tich hie makes up
Gruff. as goes=4041
e , . bot.when fie isitim the
vet-y shower. In his essay 'Eanimal que
apgry
he can ipealo quite 'ha0:,Ftevii0 dancie
verysuis'
well animal that therefore I am
tkoughisorne who bave.hear4sal,
t kittot 0he
is Wrriaa who tries to follow
ttieTcAt. in a meditation similar to Bloom's,
has a strong thibliA; 4ecent.'34

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FIELD DAY REVIEW

s'silpertoirity toe/Jibe amtiats, out ,,Det4+:if 4h ilhi.stration by

Erchoes for James
Montaigne objects &It 'reatigin is s9
Joyce, The Cat and the
inadequate, so blind that 41.1 sobjects, Pevit
ariaNew York, 19'64
,

Nature ingeaera' liequaltylletiy het ariy.s4iay

or juiriselicriolv.' Nor is it, cleat that animails
lack this overvalued faculty..i 'Why does the
spider make heir vice'dettsitt snone
and Jacket id anciiher, usingittis:knot here

and that
think knotcontiiiisi4nsF.
or reach theref she cauint reflect,

If aiirn3lsjossess the c,-Ipacity ,fox ceasok

butth good semse noi ooviries"tirnatelits,
po-wet, is 11.'Irllialri9.t.iniquie thitWy to speak
that makes him master iof the sower orders
of creatkiats' Iy n nmeaes,,. Montaigne
repliesylDecauseH aroirnaN -rtianifestly have
converse .between:themtelves,' .and
Derridi woli-iders what a naked man looks
hke to a cat, given that the cat is also naked
without knowing it, and dierefore is not
realty naked, since nakedness depends on
the capacity to be disrobed. The animal 'can
look at me', Derrida writes. tit has its point
a view regarding-me, The pot of view of
the absoluitt other, and nothing will have
ev0 Ktot)e..ivi6re to make me think through
1-ii:s absolute alterity of the neighbor than
these mottle:Tits when I see myself nakexl
*Ile of A Cat.:;316-1411t.,ct
Deaugency, however, reminds tis'titat a cat
the beauty of retii and pke.its'
can get bored with looking at us too, even
Who Welt ilecked out in the emperors newarchitect. But he C010111telS thiSi prfip-ositiOfrii
clothes. More disturbing than the look kwith a wonderful argumeat jor .ckphane
the fact that the animal CAM always lo4kpiety, urging that elef,hatitsele4Ry 'have
some notion of religion sine?. Ater;
away; indeed it looks away even as irlOoks
a,t tis iTN tilt 'absolute aiterity:' ofitts gaze.,abtutions and ptitiiications;Atielfbecafl
w.aving their trunks-like arms Liptaisecr:
iittrodvicif4g *Moon! in the comp'arly ofWhile
4: gazing intertily:ai,tbe r.isink,stinri for
.36 Derrida, 'The, Anima
l'Ong periods at filietl't-iii-ies'of tfi,o4ay
cat, Joyce toziey ve ailadingrtcyMoritaiipicA 44t PrTeefre 1.1k-01'
Apotrio for Raytheinti Sebeopd (15001,they stand rooted in IneditAioto ,(Ntor.)(o!F:p4Pvv), 3k9,
which ats*1 opens with a meditation on a.cionternplation How ,can We be certain 37 Michel dr Montaign
that animals like theqe .14:),ric),Crkivii44iOW to Au Apokj for
cat. Here Montaigne rebukes man for the
Rayinoria.SAond,
arrogance otexattifig tiiteseti ,Qtcri t.hv worship their crea.tor 'When rlfliFittTrs are NT: A. Scree
bidden from Us, wei'.aintiot 14 a:P.Y way
animals, ilea brothers'. 'Whet ...play with. i(Elartrio,94sworif), 1993k;
my cat, how do I know that she is 'not conceive them,' Montaigtier ciinAides-171 3 17, tt,Ot
38 The Wittkensteirt
passing tifolie IAA me rather than 4 with
etP. Antqaf 1(ely:ty
her?' Is,4entlitligne demands. Reascitf is, AireAprither ixteenth-cerittirl,tiOnit er trpH toy 10)dord, f991),21,3
will"
faCtlity rnt comint>niy invoke0 co 4ItNtifT thit gutieriority o animak 39 Montaigne, Apcptivy;,3

Nt-t

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40 Plutarch, On the Use of
Reason by "Irrational"
lasirsiais',.*Essays,
MOM Robin Waterfield
(London, 1992); 383-99
41 Giovanni Bautista Ge
Circe, trans. Thornas
Brown, corrected by
Robert As (khaca,
1963), 85
42 GeIli, Circe, xxxii
43 Gai Circe, moldy, 162
44 , Geili, Circe, )ftii-xxiii
OLYSStSn
was 6ovanni Batista Celli, a Florentine war 'between the sexes', but the deer's plea
shoemaker who preferred letters to leather, that womfin -shoulid be companions rather
and became a founding member of the than servants to their husbands remains
Florentine Academy. Gelb, wrote a series of unanswered:
dialogues called Circe, based on a fragmeiit
of Plutarch's in which Ulysses, preparing to tonovinded, and far from wily, Ulysses's
leave Circe's island and return to Ithaca, rhetoric.often looks holtow yAienf coUnieteti
asks his hostess, if he may take back some A. -t4lie: curt responses of the beasts, who
the Greeks that Circe had previously ,idelfe'aidl)their condition on the basis of
converted into animals. 'The witch agrees tcr: experieme rather ,than reason. Of all the
permit it, provided that die animals are :animarS;only the elephant-philosopher feels
willing to resume their human shajses,;a1-44'. Asccintented in his hide, and allows Ulysses
-1.111ysses puts the proposition to a ii"-;og totpersuade Itinvto return to human life. For
Grynna, meaning 'grunter'. To Ulysses's'. inioclern\rea.ders, it is a delightful irony that
consternation, Grylhis mounts many iCogent, the elephant is convitrced of the fallibility of
reasons for preferring to remain a hog,. senses by trteansidf a flagrant fallacy;
the dialogue breaks off, through a defect in lOrysses stuns and silences him with the
the wianuscript, before the dilemma 4s.rtiorvilRat thesun, which seems to be
resoilved.40 ,statiding'stig, is w fact spinning with
inconceivalylii-Jrapidity around the earth.44-_,
From this truncated essay of Plutarch's; 'Hi 'sting been persua*4 by this iivelw-t-fqvt
Gelb tiorrowed the basic idea for his -- treasorois superior to sense-experience, the
Circe, in whicih Ulysses exhorts-one.animal elepkiat0 awes to resotrie his human shape.
after another, ranging from an oyster to an Arthe eri&of the book, he celebrates his
t, to return to the orible state of eailiforgonootpbosis with ap access of piety
man, With the exception of the elephant - wonlity, of Montaigne's olelihants, though
a phaosopher in his former life - the,,, iclaw'ing+Octieited trunk to wave in
erstwhile Greeks insist that they are better,';:. ailoration,,-Re resortslo singing a hymn to
of as-arrimals. Why should the oys' tTF-r4rsarrt the first cause.
to substitute a human habitation forkis
mobile home, or human garments for 'the :Pkvier the centuries tfitlie'4iNtg
arnsour of his shell Is a man braver than interpretation of Homer's Circe episode has
ion, 'faster than a hare, subtler than a icrentified Circe as a temptress whose
snake The most powerftil argument against seductive charm changes men into beasts by
the human condition comes from a deer, unleashing their animal passions. Odysseus
whilmseci to be a'woman and refuses resists Circels magic by means of rnoly, the
return to the servitude imposed tipoiner.-v!-k.,.gilt of -Herioes, which symbolizes reason,
sex. `Among animals, she points out, ienipeance, or grace. An alternative,
female partakes equally with the man ,in ,b7m akheinical interpretation sees Circe, the
pleasures anti diversions , as wallas in itAtOW-r-fif ohe sun god, as the fire that
care and labour; but man assumes to 'ptirifies the gold of Odysseus out of the base
himself a tyrannical .power and prerogative;, tmal matterl of his crew."
soling himself lord and master vver the
whole species ...4; Ulysses retorts that joy4els-veesivdri of the story differs from
woman's weakness and imbecility it ,klbp-ifer'S,--however, in that Bloom
necessary-to restraiht her liberty,,foi her own icj1ii14iiirigsi his raitoly and changes
'good. As Robert M. Adams has pointed out, terriporaYity int6 an animal. Gelli's animals
much of this dialogue consists of 'the often obiect to Ulysses's propaganda for the
hattneyecl,jokes and familiar wheezes. ' cies on 4lie,,gr.oxii that he lwas
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 LD RVVIEVy

ofver everienowl te bencetitstf atiimatity, 45 Jeremy Benthion, orrohifjon,

reverw fttik.c4tirse of jilifmari,
Ihtroduaion gi the
ht othor words410't ktRia it, if you beirfr-s-b-ack intil their
Princitges 4J/fords ittrd
haven't itoKer, ciGiCS fiat let ows
Anitna4 afi'cesti*s. Legistatioot (0x1-00,
tllyssts,get away withthEsevasion. fust 1907 1171400, ch. /7,
Rut
tie, arertr?i-am, n.122:
Bloom Fivas,to face:thei tritisicilof the, Siresi, a'.Ai*nh
'A twit-grown or apiinal
9,4 hr mass. smowni; to CbIL1 IThk His horse or dog is beyond
triachints,.:WiNich ekhebit rh 4ilto)0,atjstria;
comparison a more
and tnePsncrty that Heriti.
slialrAartges tgiVe 1neu164,tri tc Is earlier iilOgstlii
rational, as well as a in, his
itraristrtigtaitional4 imagination, InWnthessay,0,4444iter,
be identifies with the comic
more conversable
tilerftifte4 with .the. animals, ritiO: the The
cat, animal, than an infant of
cogeitc,istIlat 4of. i,pgrspitr-ovflicifi
t4ie tectaibiing calf, the Lradillekt sheep,
a dayor aweek, or even
reveals -his ,1ess.rq_0'.tliiiig'i-,ttiat aspect of
a mouth, okt. But
114-teir For 13;foonl, huAn ri vett wirogb its pecuitar suppose the case were
os jeirrky heritivairt, it isu-aiirtitni4ls'
itietast1city0c03;r,,e,t1ie,iin-presSion of pure otherwise, what would, it
meLhanm of apbmmsi of movement
*a,loxeity for suifeting, rather vhan fer avail The -question is
trastiti4 that viIit1srheOacirioiat without liff_40..tFruct,c;ti khet not, Can tiiiy rvason
nor, Can they talk bat,
'kris aiscrikteir stifferinglivat gio,Ort-i"s
associa-te;s,tifese totch'4iTticat ef,fectS-with the Can they suffer?'
liskittilicattion with their fylight,zn urickiriyArather tkia0k,c4mic, 46 See Henri Bergson,
jentsch's view fliat-4.9.1,1s,lrol)pts automi44,,
iikietnitiaAution that involvol both synapathr Laughter: An Euay-of.;
Eond masochistic ittroiSSIIIICe. Ove Meaning of the Comic
as wel as,involontAry'ipAvei*ents, such as
1190011, trans. C. H. S.
ntetenimoloSis nvt ntihin 'Circe'
epileptic spectAtor by - Brereton and F. Rothwell
,10liveitt tratismigteates ithogigh a Whiote
,coPv.ejrifig the -itnOyeSgit1:1;pf -41tOriStiC.
(Lorgtori,19111i, ch. 2.
,ivie,14riefr, as welt -as fating on the.111,CdflA*4
job I tQesse t Work behind the
47 Sigmund 'Freud, 'The
"Uncanny" 119191, in
itienageiref 'fot MolEy's, lovers.ordi,o0CV aPPearA4cc94tP:ental attivirit;41
The Cionpiete
tuf., Alte awly Ortitic,a4-0_(rriCaIfiy,.',:a4ornalistri
Psychological Works of
,doty,tinats ti Itage e4jdyce Circp'.. Sigmund InFreud, standard
edn.,stage
this -cinekric,die'atitststii,:acto,pS and trans. Janes
'Beliqbabbie'-: clifecitiptis pmicee4frs awJ sans, Strachey
their(London,
20-01 vol. 27, 226
MO etnents -Astno:cir,c--; f ObOtiCL
`C-.irce is Atielltearn-charitet U4sses,,.and Joyce, designated iheilibc-OinOtor apparapts'
despite Joys rehisallerlift 'yting and eavity as the organ of the episo4e, tE4is
tread:cued), the psychodyetuitilo of 'Circe' efripliasOirlw the -1Accliciii,i,ca,ltiAtt.ire of thr

closely resenkte ihe p_ioqrfs that Freud hJflaIfldy, 'hit ljesc.,artf'g-diSplrageickas

identified iii direatris.liFTC,4 t.22-23J Miii0bal,rnachine. But joycc, chaPeoge's'
Accoothog to fresiii, the f ONV Materials of CartesiaAidtitiiii6,.c01,1kipsliWthe
dreant-totilsv4 otiilote 'daY':(:), teshtes tfie- -cl4tiftRriloo

me triatitig, of: th4).44ydlifolir`trie 'fCitc.,e' :flosth abc1

dreamt of fisALL sprit Nedst bind man riarrati*-.aiyi
repressed', the li1.,*.baecreid
Aaocto.ltiti ,dfcaln,which',..F.reu4fil
4scrib.e04(s th. 4;6)4
desires. In joyoel.s iirtainttliapter, the rfi4d1.-t0Alle.
diaes
residues of 46 Jiminv unOnscious,
11*14 voile is depicted by j(rice as a ,
Atisg fr4.4
!-tratosiding
through t1aitti41.1,9r4iy.ii set with skeletott tracks
of.' digritOTktt: , rolkr
LoaerngIte
ElootrA 4a.iyiiike,It4itiasi.es mi#4,41bog
ifietworks'f
changing into,aat airlifrtat flJ ,t5 associ,40ti.iip;
.211
.".
p15.21'
accordance: with -the Frrtiitiriiiiii pritikiple
the amain isilrellisgitiNea ,fiolifilinetit
If ..-eAtery'thiiyeis of a
,tocotirtOtisreili4h4:isbi*, .-1
,doe
wish, RioQini's4tierierriotrft*V Joyce id
Kuistgeo -4idtc-Cit-,cerisi.q1,Ciie-sifbatett
thwArttit by iwealit?,throitiglirout-the, 43a.)'/,by
I1 if ttter katilitrsiriatipos
rhyttlr*cifIci-corimEitOr,of the
sythptopt bf
*mit/tali-4'w hTeakittg fit
tertiatt-stigef y Oikti&41Lf whch the
htxy
iri jois4;e' these, fiallrutinaktiorts'
cip'u14-e41)y,in..491t0*tary

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 ULYSSES

movements, cramps, tics, stitches, and 'mark of the beast', singling him out for
paralyses. Like a player piano, the ataxic punishment like the killers of the oxen of
body dances by itself, shaken by its own the sun. Feeling 'a bit light in the head', he
machinery, defying the governance of attributes this dizziness to a 'monthly or
consciousness. Ataxic symptoms present effect of the other', in which the noun
themselves as soon as 'Circe' begins, when 'monthly' could refer either to a menstrual
'a deaf mute idiot, his shapeless mouth period (an effect of the other gender or to a
dribbling, jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' lunar irruption of lycanthropy (an effect of
dance'. Soon afterwards Bloom walks stiffly the other animal).
onto the stage, convulsed by an ataxic
cramp: 'The stiff walk' refers to Bloom's spastic
locomotor apparatus, as well as playing on
The stiff walk. ... That awful cramp in the notion of a `stiffy' or erection. But the
Lad lane. Something poisonous I ate. ... phrase could also mean the dead come back
Why Probably lost cattle. Mark of the to life. In this episode, 'the stiff' do indeed
beast. (he closes his eyes an instant Bit rise again, but as in Bloom's daytime vision
light in the head. Monthly or effect of of the resurrection of the body, with 'every
the other. [U, 15.207-10 fellow mousing around for his liver and his
lights and the rest of his traps', the 'rusty
Here Bloom attributes 'that awful cramp' to
pumps' that operate the body's animal
'something poisonous I ate', 'probably lostmachinery are all 'bunged up'. LU, 6.674
cattle', meaning cattle slaughtered illegally 80 Neither dead nor alive, the characters of
or horsemeat marketed as beef these 'Circe' behave like Cartesian monsters,
representing modern versions of the whose minds cannot control their bodies,
which hurtle around like headless chickens
sacrilege against the sacred oxen. Eating this
'lost cattle' has branded Bloom with the a phenomenon invoked by Descartes to

Erwin Pfrang
Untitled, from Circe series
1989
pencil on paper
28.44 x 41.91 cm
Collection of Mr. Morris Orde

89

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FIELD DAY REVIEW

clinch his case that animals are nothing but Socrates', picturing the great men's wives as 48 As recalled by Frank
machines or mindless reflexes. In 'Circe', shrews and hens, and claims that 'the Budgen, according to
Clive Hart in Structure
Bloom's earlier observation, that 'everything allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and and Motif in Finnegans
speaks in its own way', erupts into a mounted by a light of love', becoming Wake (Evanston, IL,
nightmare, in which dead mechanisms and animal in order to be ridden by a 1962), 163
dumb animals seize the power of speech, dominatrix. 1U, 353.111-121 In the
elbowing human speakers off the stage. Any psychodynamics of this episode, to be
rigid separation between man and beast is -changed into an animal is equivalent to
overthrown in the opening scene, when being changed into a woman, born to be
lovers tryst among the animals, heading bitted, bridled, and mounted. Thus Bloom
'round behind the stable'. turns into a pig-woman in order to be
1U, 15.10-131 whipped as a circus animal by Bello, the
whoremistress who turns into a man. In
Whistles call and answer. these sadomasochistic performances the
THE CALL world turns upsidedown, yet although men
Wait, my love, change places with women and humans
and I'll be with you. with animals, the hierarchy of cruelty and
THE ANSWER suffering remains intact.
Round behind the stable.
It is not clear that Joyce intends to
The image of the stable recalls Christ's overthrow this hierarchy; in fact it could be
nativity among the animals, a myth argued that he reaffirms the supremacy of
suggesting that the saviour is comprised of man by enabling Bloom to purge himself of
beast as well as man and god. Meanwhile fantasies of subjugation. 'Circe' could be
the lovers' calls and answers become read as an exorcism in which Bloom and
dramatis personae in their own right, Stephen externalize their femininity in a
independent of the callers and the desperate effort to get rid of it, Bloom by
answerers. The implication is that language acting out the role of the humiliated pig
speaks itself, like a player piano, whether woman, Stephen by digging up his mother
there is anyone to mouth the words or not. and promptly digging her back in again. At
Recalling Lacan's appropriately convoluted the climax of the episode he raises his
formulation, the human speaker is seized 'inphallic ashplant like a wand to shoo his
a function whose exercise grasps it,' reducedmother's spectre back to hell. Yet the ritual
to the status of an actor in a script, or the element of 'Circe' suggests that this
dummy of a maniac ventriloquist. exorcism must be constantly repeated in
order to maintain the boundary between
Nora Barnacle Joyce once said of her man and woman, man and beast for the
husband's anxiety of influence: `Ah, there's transcendence of the human over the
only one man he's got to get the better of inhuman is always incomplete. In particular,
now, and that's that Shakespeare!'" In 'Circe' demonstrates that language,
'Circe' Joyce gets the better of Shakespeare supposedly unique to human beings, is
by changing him into an animal. always fastened to a dying animal.
Shakespeare grows antlers, his beardless
face appearing in the mirror crowned by the This animality reasserts itself in metaphors,
antlered hat-rack in the brothel; Bloom and which are taken literally in 'Circe', in
Stephen, gazing in this mirror, merge into accordance with the Freudian principle that
Shakespeare's physiognomy, putting on his dreams treat words as things. Animal
cuckold's horns. Stephen speaks of metaphors trigger off Circean
`shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked transformations: a phrase like `go the whole

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 ULYSSES

49 Freud, 'A Difficulty in hog' conjures up a hog; brutish men animal, and the mechanical. Language, far
the Path of Psycho materialize as brutes. [U, 15.3043 from transcending the body, is presented as
Analysis' 119171, Works,
vol. 27, 140 a form of discharge, comparable to the
50 Ella Sharpe, 'Psycho (He hesitates mid scents, music, hallucinations of the Freudian dream, in
physical Problems temptations. She leads him towards the which impulses discharge themselves as
Revealed in Language: steps, drawing him by the odour of her spectacles. As in `Circe', these spectacles
An Examination of
armpits, the vice of her painted eyes, thearise out of the metaphoric substratum of
Metaphor', in Collected
Papers on Psycho rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds language, which retains the 'mark of the
Analysis (London, 1950), lurks the lion reek of all the male brutes beast,' memorializing our rejected animality.
158
that have possessed her. 'A child', Freud points out, 'can see no
THE MALE BRUTES difference between his own nature and that
of animals ... Not until he is grown up does
(exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and
ramping in their loosebox, faintly he become so far estranged from animals as
roaring, their drugged heads swayingtotouse their names in vilification for human
and fro Good [U, 15.2014-20 beings.'49 Metaphor recalls the period
before this estrangement has occurred, when
This passage relies on the reader's memory
children still perceive themselves as animals.
of 'Wandering Rocks', where Bloom's
wandering eye is arrested by the steamyThe psychoanalyst Ella Freeman Sharpe has
novel Sweets of Sin, with its memorable proposed that metaphor, as the earliest form
image of the sable-wrapped woman's of figurative speech, develops in tandem
with control of bowel and bladder,
'heaving embonpoint'. [U, 10.616 While
reading this soft porn, Bloom undergoes a
providing a substitute avenue for discharge.
kind of mental orgasm, culminating in the
Yet metaphor retains the imprint of the
choked ejaculation 'Sulphur dung of lions!'.
bodily experiences that it displaces,
[U, 10.623 'Circe' punishes Bloom for experiences that human beings share with
these sulphurous fantasies by presentinganimals. Hence Sharpe argues that a patient
them as lions, 'faintly roaring'. This who says, 'I have been bleating about my
animalization gives literal form to the own lamentable condition', is asking the
'brutishness' of sexuality, which reduces analyst to perceive him as a bleating
man and beast to the same level. But it also
lamb.S This is the same kind of metaphoric
magic that operates in 'Circe', where brutislr
reveals the animality enshrined in metaphor,
men
bringing forth the literal 'brute' ramping in materialize as brutes. At the level of
the loosebox of metaphoric 'brutishness'.
metaphor, we remain the brutes we always
The implication is that human supremacy were, animalized by the same words that
over the animal is constantly sabotagedsupposedly
by exalt the human over the
metaphor, by the bestiary of figurative inhuman. Moreover, those words are
speech; hence the language of reason is governed by mechanics overriding the
obliged to banish metaphor in order to distinction between mind and body, man
cordon off the beast. and beast, propelled by the autonomous
pulsation of the drives.
By making the locomotor apparatus the
organ of the episode, Joyce exploits the
Cartesian notion of the body as an animal After Man
machine, not to differentiate the body from
the mind but to expose the animal 'When is a man not a man?' According to
automatism of the human psyche. In 'Circe', Shem the penman, this is the 'first riddle of
as in the Freudian dream, the mind reveals the universe', prior to the riddle of the
itself as a confluence of the linguistic, the sphinx, who asked which creature walks

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FIELD DAY REVIEW

with four legs in the morning, two in the otherworld of animal spirits a journey 51 Cited in Alan Bleak
The Animalizing
afternoon, and three in the evening. that requires animal courage to
Imagination: Totemism,
Oedipus gave the answer 'man', outwitting accomplish.51 In 'Circe', Bloom performs Textuality and
the sphinx who tumbled from the rock. the role of shaman, becoming beast in order Ecocriticism (London,
Shem goes one better than Oedipus: to confront the beast, to inoculate himself 2000), 64
52 See Harold Skulsky,
with animality. Note that Stephen, unlike
Metamorphosis: The
young Master Shemmy on his very first Bloom, retains his human form throughout Mind in Exile
debouch at the very dawn of the 'Circe' episode; he has 'a shape that (Cambridge, Mass.,
protohistory dictited to of all his little can't be changed', in Joyce's words, but it is 1981).
brothron and sweestureens the first also a shape that can't be `semisized', 53 Margot Norris, Beasts of
the Modern Imagination
riddle of the universe: asking, when is a transformed into a work of semes, a seminal
(Baltimore, 1985), 6
man not a man?: telling them take their monsterpiece. In other words, Stephen never
time, yungfries. One said ... when writes the great work, nor accomplishes the
lovely wooman stoops to conk him ... exile that writing necessitates exile from
another when he is just only after having ego, homeland, and the monumental sham
being semisized, another when yea, he of man himself. Stephen represents the
hath no mananas. ... All were wrong, so younger self that Joyce left behind in
Shem himself, the doctator, took the Ireland, the promise of a writing and an
cake, the correct solution being all exile evermore about to be. Joyce, on the
give it up when he is a yours till other hand, allows Circe to change him into
the rending of the rocks, Sham. an animal in order to become a shaman and
confront the otherworld of beasts.
Shem was a sham and a low sham. ...
Yet the animals in Joyce's 'Circe', as in Ovid's
In this passage, Shem's 'yungfries' clamour Metamorphoses, are human beings trapped
to provide the answer to his riddle. One in alien bodies, minds in exile.5 They retain
wittily suggests that a man is not a man the capacity for human speech, unlike
'when lovely woman stoops to conk him'; Wittgenstein's lion, whose language if he
another, 'when he hath no mananas' had one would be inaccessible to human
(bananas, matianas, or tomorrows); another,thought. For this reason Joyce differs sharply
when he has just been semisized that is, from the writers Margot Norris identifies as
circumcised, castrated, cut in half, `zoocentric', such as Nietzsche and Lawrence,
semenized, disseminated, and transformed who reject the whole idea of being 'like' an
into semantic units, seme-sized. All these animal in quest of an unmediated animality,
answers, Shem declares, are wrong, so it is innocent, violent, implacable, and always
left to the penman to answer his own riddle, masculine. Joyce, on the other hand, is 'the
'the correct solution being ... when he is a ...consummately domestic writer, who, in spite
Sham'. [FW, 169-70 of his coziness with the libido, never ventures
into the ontological wildernesses' of the
So a man is not a man when he is a sham zoocentric writers.53 His beasts, therefore,
that is, a fake, fraud, or forger, like Shem tend to be heimlich the cat, the dog or
himself: 'Shem was a sham and a low sham. unbeimlich, like the rat that Bloom
' But if Shem is a sham, he is also a encounters at Glasnevin Cemetery; even the
shaman, an intermediary who crosses the lions in 'Circe' are confined in looseboxes.
boundary between man and beast. Michael Bloom, by identifying with the animal,
Taussig has argued that the shaman partially overcomes its otherness, its mystery;
confronts animality not to 'eliminate but to to this extent he is the sentimentalist who
acquire it'. This acquisition enables him to would enjoy without incurring the immense
travel to the land of the dead the debtorship of a thing done.

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It is not the animal as such, but the machine
and the animal-machine, which defy the
anthropocentric worldview in Ulysses.
When Bloom says that 'everything speaks in
its own way' it is important that he is
referring to the printing press, a writing
machine that reproduces texts regardless of
the 'aura' of human authorship. In one
sense Bloom's perception that 'everything
speaks in its own way' suggests an
ecological awareness of the dependency of
human life on other forms of being, both
animal and inorganic. But on the other
hand, Bloom's catchphrase could be
understood to mean that language is a
mechanism, mindless and inhuman as the
printing press, which speaks in its own way,
seizing the speaker in its merciless
automatism.
_Joyce claimed that Circe was changing him
into an animal, but he also hinted that she
was changing him into a machine,
ULYSSES
entrammelled in a form of automatic
writing that grew ever 'worse and wilder
and more involved'. Seized in a function
whose exercise grasped him, Joyce felt
enslaved to the animal-machinery he had set
in motion. This authorial predicament seems
drastically at odds with Stephen Dedalus's
view that literature is the eternal affirmation
of the spirit of man. But Bloom 'tacitly
dissents' from Stephen's conception of
literature, for Bloom has learned in Circe's
den that the spirit of man is compounded of
the animal and the mechanical.
Traditionally the affirmation of the spirit of
man has entailed the denial of the body, the
woman, and the animal, all of which are
governed by the laws of mechanics that
Bloom struggles to remember throughout
the day. While Stephen, the arrested artist,
dreams of affirming the spirit of man,
Bloom affirms the animal-machinery of life,
machinery that goes on playing whether
man is there to press the keys or not.
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