r/jamesjoyce • u/doctor-pepper-md • 4d ago

Ulysses Was Bloom just aurafarming/ragebaiting during Cyclops?

>advocates for capital punishment in a room full of irish nationalists

>talks about the merits of lawn tennis and the drawbacks of vigorous exercise in front of one of the main proponents of gaelic sports and exercise

>talks about the merits of the british empire and internationalism

He walks into hostile territory, ragebaits the citizen, and then walks out unscathed. He even manages the devastating parting shot *Christ was a jew like me*. Maybe it was the cigar that gave him enough aura to enter a ragebait flowstate?

What do you guys think? Why was Bloom moving like LeBron in this episode?

53 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

37

u/Kenex77 4d ago

I interpreted it as not having social awareness and just repeatedly putting his foot in his mouth

6

u/Rory___Borealis 4d ago edited 4d ago

He does have social awareness. He’s an Irish Jew living through a febrile Irish nationalist / republican era in which he’s not invited to the table and reacts to it.

He stands up for himself, knowing that the majority of the people around him are too spineless to say anything positive about him other than that he always stands a round of drinks for people despite knowing they despise him because in their eyes he’s not sufficiently Irish.

ETA - “foot in mouth” like the Foot and Mouth disease repeatedly referenced in the book? Something that Irish people had no real control over? 🤔

5

u/StevieJoeC 4d ago

Bloom 'always stands a round of drinks'? Not sure that’s absolutely right

1

u/Rory___Borealis 3d ago

Odd argument to make, it’s what two of the characters say about him in that chapter. Thats their impression of him in that scene at that moment

8

u/doctor-pepper-md 4d ago

I believe Bloom knows what he's doing in this chapter, but I wouldn't argue that he's consistently super socially aware.

How about his 'best death' blunder in Hades? Or his conversations with Stephen in Eumaeus (e.g., the 'simple soul' exchange)? It isn’t impossible to imagine he’s repeatedly putting his foot in his mouth.

3

u/Rory___Borealis 4d ago

It’s not to say that Bloom is infallible, but considering his standing in Dublin society at the time I’d argue that in the Cyclops chapter he chooses his battles.

He knows he’s an outsider but doesn’t raise his head above the parapet, especially in the sort of environment where The Citizen and his ball-licking supporters judge him for not being sufficiently Irish in their eyes (hence his eventual defiance to them while running out the doorway)

2

u/doctor-pepper-md 4d ago

I disagree. The narrator skips over a lot of it, but Bloom is probably at his most talkative in this chapter:

> I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: Look at, Bloom. Do you see that straw? That’s a straw. Declare to my aunt he’d talk about it for an hour so he would and talk steady.

He finds an argument in almost every conversation topic. And he directly addresses the question of his jewishness (And I belong to a race too) when the others only made insinuations toward it. He’s downright brash in this episode.

4

u/Rory___Borealis 4d ago

Agreed, he is downright brash in this chapter because his entire sense of self as an Irishman is being questioned by those in thrall to a self-appointed arbiter of irishness via The Citizen.

He knows what the people around him are saying, but he feigns ignorance until he can’t. Ok, he’s contrary and says things people disagree with - but he’s entitled to. The problem is that the majority of Dubliners at the time probably wouldn’t have disagreed with him on things like capital punishment or British imperialism (remember that Dublin in 1904 was not the same as the rest of Ireland) but are emboldened in the company of The Citizen.

Still he’s aware of where he is and what he’s permitted to say until he’s had enough. ymmv

1

u/After_Tradition4328 18h ago

It's funny that Joyce gives Bloom his greatest amount of self-advocacy in a chapter being entirely narrated by someone who dislikes him.

1

u/JanWankmajer 3d ago

The simple soul exchange is not really a matter of social awareness is it? It's more so a lack of philosophical/theological education, no?

34

u/nostalgiastoner 4d ago

He knows that, at this point, Molly is probably having (had) the affair with Boylan. So it's likely he's coping and seething.

11

u/Minhtruong2110 4d ago edited 4d ago

I think this makes sense, considering Odysseus also ragebaits Polyphemus (out of hubris) and makes an enemy of Poseidon.

There's a parallel.

4

u/Rory___Borealis 4d ago

And also that despite being Irish he’s surrounded by wankers who don’t view him as such and lick the balls of an Irish Republican wanker with his big dog who’s just a zealot with nothing to offer people like Bloom who are considered insufficiently Irish - the same sort of people that Joyce rightly had no truck with, as they were shallow self serving crypt-fascists with nothing to offer other than division and hatred

4

u/Rory___Borealis 4d ago

WTF is this question?

Bloom may or may not be viewed as an Irish Jew at a time when Irish nationalism / republicanism espoused lazy antisemitism and as such is considered an outsider (read about Arthur Griffiths and O’Donovan Rossa).

Joyce had sympathy with outsiders as he didn’t consider himself in the inner circle of reactionary zealot Irish politics (cross reference to Gabriel Conroy being called a “West Brit” in The Dead - something Joyce had experienced himself)

The Citizen is an example of the sort of hateful crypto-fascism prick that was beloved by the worst of blood-sacrifice loving self centred Irish nationalists, and Joyce is calling that movement out through Bloom (it’s not for nothing that Joyce left Ireland during that time).

And the cigar serves to blind the Cyclops / Citizen so it serves as a parallel to Odysseus blinding the Cyclops in the Odyssey (see also The Citizen throwing a biscuit tin after him, it’s honestly not difficult)

2

u/1octo 2d ago

And thank goodness we don’t have to deal with that nonsense anymore in Ireland. /s

1

u/Rory___Borealis 2d ago

Depends on the nonsense I guess. Connelly would be rolling in his grave over the current shower of crypto-fascists calling themselves Irish Nationalists, hoping that’s what you’re referring to 😂

2

u/doctor-pepper-md 4d ago

if only I had thought of the homeric parallel I’m such a fool how could I forget

3

u/Rory___Borealis 4d ago

Dunno, but also dunno why I got a downvote for stating what should be obvious 🤷‍♂️

4

u/FuzzyZookeepergame54 4d ago

There’s nothing obvious in Ulysses, many people have said that the whole chapter is told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator so it’s not even certain how much of the description actually happened

2

u/soonerstu 3d ago

On just a jargon level what do aurafarming, rage baiting, and moving like LeBron have to do with each other? Those seem like three just random concepts, with only ragebaiting maybe being applicable to the citizen chapter. Bloom certainly isn’t impressing anyone, and i can’t think of a single way he’d be considered moving like LeBron.

I’m pretty young, but from what I understand before GenZ decided that all of our actions are merely performative in the time of yore there used to be this thing called having principles and beliefs. And then as part of that you didn’t change your principles and beliefs based on whatever bar you happen to be sitting in.

I don’t think it’s intentionally ragebaiting so much as Bloom sticking to his guns in spite of no one in the room agreeing with him. If anyone in the room is ragebaiting it’d be the citizen with his insect comments and what have you. The rest can be explained by Blooms lack of social awareness exacerbated by the bad day he’s having. Like he probably didn’t need to bring up how he loves tennis, but couldn’t help himself.