Notes on "Circe" (Chapter 15)

According to the schemas, the chapter's organ is the "locomotor
apparatus" (which means what? the body without the mind? or is it
metaphorical, the autonomous action of the text? the book thinking
about itself outside the contorl of the characters or even the
author?)

Style: Hallucination

Homeric Parallel: On Circe's island, men were enchanted into swine,
among other animals. Odysseus has the moly (a talisman) with him, so
he is not enchanted. He thus ends up sleeping with Circe and benefits
from her assistance in his quest. Bella ~ Circe. Bloom loses the moly
(his dried potato) on p. 388, but later regains it. Everybody but
Bloom is indeed swinish in this chapter.

Stylistic considerations:

Drama (complete with stage directions) implies objectivity. But this
is a drama of "hallucinations" -- everything is alive, all fears and
hopes are real, all memories are present. We are in the uncensored
unconscious of the characters AND OF THE BOOK. The chapter is a sort
of stream-of-consciousness for the novel itself.

Cf. "Cyclops," which swings between narration and insane
digression. Here, the digressions are quite logical and generally
revelatory. All which was hidden is now revealed, one way or another.

Circe is the kernel, or the crossroads at least, of the novel -- all
narrative, thematic, and symbolic elements reappear here, or become
explicit for the first time.

The focus is on Bloom. Stephen does not figure in any of the
hallucinations until the apparition of his mother (473-475), which is
the first and last "real" (clinical) hallucination of the chapter.


Major Themes:

Bloom's subservience to women, his masochism (381, 429-436ff -- Bello
& Bloom)

Bloom's brief, ironic apotheosis (329-400, 407 -- he ends up
crucified, of course)

Bloom's generalized guilt (357-359, 375-381)

Bloom's resilience (Bloom & money -- 453-455, 476-478; the nymph, and
Bello's deflation -- 444-452)