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Summary of Chapter 2 /�Nestor The chapter, the second installment of the Telemachiad, falls into two parts with a short transition passage between them. In the first Stephen lazily teaches a class of lazy students. As they toy with the story of Pyrrhus the first window opens on the nightmare of history as Pyrrhus in Stephen's mind assumes the form of the callous general. This theme is important in Finnegan and it reappears in the Aeolus section as the crowd of wastrels in Myles Crawford's office talk about the assasssination of General Bobrikoff. A silly student makes a silly joke and Stephen envies them their ease with girls of their own class (remember that Stephen was never at ease with E.C. and his sexual encounters have been exclusively with prostitutes.) The class turns from history to literature and Milton's lament over the premature death by drowning of Edward King who, in truly topsyturvy Joycean manner, will reappear often but transformed into King Edward, Queen Victoria's naughty son. Death by drowning recalls the drowned man of the previous chapter and the man that Mulligan saved. Drowning is much on Joyce's mind in that later we will find that the details of the funeral are those that Joyce observed at the funeral of Matthew Kane. His heart failed him while swimming and he drowned. Since Cunningham is based on Kane, we might say that Cunningham gets to attend his own funeral. Stephen can't keep his mind on the lesson and he thinks of a riddle to ask the boys. It's a 'shaggy dog' riddle but not original with our Joyce or even the Joyce who wrote about it. This was P.C. Joyce - no relation to James - but a rich source of information about Irish language and customs. (I've never seen a copy: I only know it by reputation.) The riddle is the same as in P.C. Joyce except that Stephen substitutes 'Grandmother' for 'mother,' a substitution in the Freudian sense perhaps. All the boys except Cyril Sargent leave to play hockey. Stephen helps the feckless boy with his sums, meditating as he does so on the nature of mother love. He apparently sees himself in Sargent although to readers of A Portrait and Ellmann's Life the resemblance seems extremely slight to either Stephen or Joyce. Stephen with Sargent is the first part of the transition. In the second and last part he is near the hockey field and has Mr Deasy's partial attention as the fussy old man tries to settle the players to their game. Stephen, as directed, waits for Deasy in his study. Alone. Stephen studies the decorations on Deasy's desk. Very typical they are too. The once worthless Stuart coins are now of some value to collectors. There are shells there too. In the next chapter Stephen will crush shells beneath his feet as he wanders on Sanymount Strand. Deasy comes in and pays Stephen. Note that the amount is eight shillings short of the four pounds that Mulligan believes that Stephen gets. Deasy gives Stephen paternal advice and this sets up one of those elaborate mechanisms that Joyce loved. Stephen's father is - as a father - impossible. Deasy is too. It is Bloom that will enter into a quasi-paternal relationship with Stephen and he is also the writer of mash notes under the name of Henry Flower. Deasy, it must be observed, is pronounced daisy. See, as Bloom says later in a different context, it all works out. The Homer background is heavy. Nestor was a windy bore to Shakespeare and very possibly to Homer too. Nestor's Homeric epithet is tamer of horses (the pictures on Deasy's walls) and Deasy is concerned also about cattle just as Nestor was. Deasy tells Stephen to save his money but Stephen is in such deep debt that he feels the money is useless. Notice the abbreviated style in which Stephen skips through Deasy's letter to the editor. It reminds me of Mrs Elton's chatter (in Jane Austen's Emma) in the strawberry beds. Deasy from being silly and misogynistic becomes ugly when he talks about nationalism and unionism and the Jews. Anti-Semitism was Joyce's yardstick for depravity of mind and we will see Mulligan at his lowest in the Scylla and Charybdis chapter. Deasy is full of misinformation and as the chapter closes he chases after Stephen to impart another mistated fact, this time in the form of supposed joke that only he could consider funny. Bob Williams |