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thanks chandra and beth... well after my fury over what terence brown said ;-)) (which is do think it is important chandra from the standpoint of what joyce was saying in this story, his meanings and whatnot...) i finally got off my duff and re-read it last nite... i think the characters of chandler and gallaher are allegories for certain issues in the culture... yes, joyce was referring explicitly to the literary renaissance (which was spear-headed by yeats, et) but his issues are broader and bigger than that... note that the main character is named thomas -- we know that the disciple thomas was called 'doubting thomas' since he did/would not believe that christ had risen from the dead until he could 'feel with his own hands' the wounds that were inflicted upon Jesus whilst hanging on the cross; joyce's thomas is a doubter of other things... in addition, gallaher's first name is ignatius, saint ignatius of loyola was the founder of the jesuit order of catholics, the spreaders of the word if you will -- so again joyce is playing on this theme, in fact reversing it in some sense... note too that joyce changes the standard irish catholic 'gallagher' to 'gallaher'... i think he has anglicized the name in some sense... just as my irish family name is woods, which is irish catholic, but if it were 'wood' it would be angloirish or just anglo. the most important symbol to me in the story is ignatius' "vivid orange bow tie"... the story is a real strong political commentary that (*this* time) has little to do with the church... more on that and the rest later, "i don't 'ave me book wit' me"... sorry! :)) AND beth, more on yeats later and yes he wrote about celestial eclipses and all kinds of other grand symbolic poetic things!! :)) i'll check my book of his complete poems to see if i can find which one you were referring to... also, his beloved if he had one was ireland -- he wrote many poems in which his 'she' was ireland, which distinguishes him greatly from joyce as we have seen... also, here is a url for saint ignatius of loyola if anyone is interested in his history... http://www.rosmini.freeserve.co.uk/Webleads/XtianCalendar/biojuly.htm#jul31b maureen |
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