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Chapter 6 - The Summary: I have time to offer comments on this chapter sooner than I expected since I have a kitchen full of plumbers and found it less trouble to myself and everybody else to skip breakfast. Hades is one of the chapters in which Joyce deals neatly with a large number of characters so very efficiently that the reader knows where everyone is and they slip in and out of action unobtrusively. The same thing takes place in Scylla and Charybdis and in Aelous but that was an easier task since the scene is fairly stable in both chapters. In Hades we have four men traveling across Dublin from a run down suburb in the east to a cemetery way north of the Liffey. Joyce gives the route in detail and we are treated to descriptions of people, businesses and monuments as they pass. Among the people are the very important characters Stephen, Boylan and Reuben J. Dodd. The last, for the purposes of Ulysses, is depicted as a Jew although in fact he was not and for the most part as numerous references in Joyce demonstrate - both in Ulysses and elsewhere - moneylending was mostly in the hands of gentiles. Martin Cunningham, the dominant member of the quartet in the coach, is overbearing but the others accede to his dominance without demur. He is especially hard on Bloom, a fellow passenger along with Simon Dedalus and Jack Power. Bloom is marginal in terms of group acceptance and Martin treats him poorly by any standards. Martin, however, is capable of behavior that justifies the high opinion and deference of the others, including Bloom. When Power inadvertantly speaks with condemnation of suicides, Martin - aware that Bloom's father had committed suicide - tries to divert the conversation and as much as possible to spare Bloom's feelings. If one considers this group, one encounters four highly colored characters: Bloom who will be betrayed by Molly before the day is over; Simon the widower, bad husband and father in the opinion of most; Jack Power who keeps a woman with whom apparently his relationships are platonic; and Martin whose wife is alchoholic and totally irresponsible in her actions. Joyce continues to manage his mourners, now joined by several others and loose in the wider area of the cemetery. There are those information gaps that give Ulysses such veracity. How did Menton arrive and how will he leave? Who is M'Intosh? The Homeric details are funny and appropriate. Father Coffey, bully about the muzzle, is Cerberus. John O'Connell, caretaker, is Hades, king of the kingdom of the dead. Menton, in his surly lack of forgiveness for Bloom, is Ajax to Bloom's Ulysses. I feel that these trimmings add nothing to Ulysses but they are amusing. This is one of my favorite chapters and one that especially repays consulting a good map as one reads. Best Bob HOME! |