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James Joyce's novel Ulysses is a distinctly modern work that breaks with literary tradition. It is Joyce's revolutionary break with tradition that might lead a reader to draw parallels between this novel and the work of a clearly modern philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. Particularly, the ideas Nietzsche postulates in his work On the Genealogy of Morality have much to do with Joyce's novel. Joyce certainly writes Ulysses through a Nietzschean lens: Buck Mulligan makes several references to Nietzsche in the Telemachus episode; Ulysses also criticizes the social norms of early twentieth century Dublin and continually questions the modern concept of morality. Joyce engages Nietzsche's ideas about morality most notably in the Nausicaa and Circe chapters of his novel. There is an apparent contradiction, however, when one considers Joyce's hero. Leopold Bloom, a Jewish Dubliner, is imbued with characteristics of what Nietzsche termed the creature of ressentiment. Beings of ressentiment, Nietzsche says, internalize their problems and turn away from confrontations; by doing so, they are able to gain a sort of false revenge over their opponents. Such ascetic individuals are the complete opposite of Nietzsche's noble aristocratic ideal. Moreover, Nietzsche states that his concept of ressentiment has its roots in a "slave revolt" of ancient Jews, which overturned the Greek aristocratic ideal. This contradiction causes one to ask why Joyce, unmistakably influenced by Nietzsche and modeling his work on Homer's epic, would choose an embodiment of Nietzsche's ascetic ideal as his hero. A close assessment of Genealogy and Ulysses will demonstrate that Bloom, despite his ascetic nature, is an appropriate hero in the context of oppressed twentieth century Ireland. Joyce read Nietzsche in such a way that he recognized the difference between what Nietzsche saw as ancient and modern Jewish thought. Ancient Jews, according to Nietzsche, are at the root of asceticism, but modern Jewish people display a remarkable strength of spirit which has allowed them to persevere and survive throughout history. In this sense, Bloom as a modern Jew is both a Jewish and a Nietzschean hero. The claim that Nietzsche's philosophy influenced Joyce should not be taken for granted and must be illustrated. Richard Ellman, in his extensive biography James Joyce, points out that Joyce encountered and read Nietzsche sometime in 1903, when he was in his early twenties. In fact, there was a growing interest in the philosopher among Irish writers at this time, among whom was William Butler Yeats (Ellman 142). Joyce not only read but embraced Nietzsche's ideas; Ellman writes, "...it was probably upon Nietzsche that Joyce drew when he expounded to his friends a neo-paganism that glorified selfishness, licentiousness, and pitilessness, and denounced gratitude" (142). Joyce in 1904 wrote to a man named George Roberts, an acquaintance, asking for a loan of one pound. He signed the letter "James Overman," a reference to Nietzsche's "Ubermensch" concept (Ellman 162). (One should note the irony in Joyce's begging for money while referring to himself as "overman"). Joyce wrote A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in which Stephen Dedalus first appears, in 1907, four years after he had expressed interest in Nietzsche's ideas. Joyce doubtlessly had Nietzsche in mind when he formulated Stephen Dedalus', and later Leopold Bloom's,character. Near the end of 1904, Joyce lived with Oliver St. John Gogarty, a medical student, in Martello Tower in Sandycove. Gogarty, Ellman points out, "liked to call [the tower] the omphalos both because it resembled a navel and because it might prove 'the temple of neo-paganism'... Nietzsche was the principal prophet..." (172). One finds this closely replicated in the Telemachus episode, which opens Ulysses. In this chapter, Buck Mulligan (a medical student and analogue of Gogarty) criticizes Stephen's refusal to pray on his mother's deathbed: "I'm hyperborean as much as you. But to think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and pray for her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you" (5). The word hyperborean implies a freedom from suffering; Don Gifford says in Ulysses Annotated that Nietzsche "uses the word hyperborean to describe the Ubermensch" (15). Stephen's rejection of Christianity and refusal to please others-even his dying mother-exemplify Nietzsche's concept of the overman. "Hyperborean" also refers to a mythical Greek people (Gifford 15); Mulligan, in addition to his admiration of Nietzsche, displays an admiration of Greek culture. He says to Stephen, "Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them in the original" (4-5), and notes that his name, Malachi, "Has a Hellenic ring" (4). He, like Gogarty, dubs Martello the omphalos, referring to the oracle at Delphi, which figures heavily in Greek and Roman mythology, most notably as the navel of the world and therefore the entrance into the underworld. Toward the end of this episode, Mulligan remarks, "My twelfth rib is gone. I'm the Ubermensch. Toothless Kinch and I, the supermen" (19). Mulligan associates himself with Adam, the primordial, original man, free of what Nietzsche terms "Christian-diseased ideals" (Genealogy 69). Mulligan then says, "He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the lord. Thus spake Zarathustra" (19). Mulligan continually makes reference to Nietzsche here-and more particularly, Nietzsche's concept of the "Ubermensch". The "Ubermensch," according to Nietzsche is the antithesis of the ascetic individual and stands in opposition to, among other things, modern notions of morality. Joyce, then, reveals the importance of Nietzsche and of Greek culture to Ulysses from its outset. The direct references to Nietzsche Joyce provides in "Telemachus" do not reveal anything of the extent to which the philosopher's ideas influence his novel; they simply serve as a means by which Joyce introduces the Nietzschean "atmosphere" of his novel-the references, after all, come from Mulligan, Stephen's antagonist. One must then locate examples of Nietzsche's ideas manifest in the novel. One of Nietzsche's most important contributions to modern philosophy is his contention that values are not fixed and constant, but changeable and socially constructed. On the Genealogy of Morality expounds such ideas; one of Nietzsche's chief aims with this work is to expose morality as a construct. Nietzsche argues in his third treatise that 'sinfulness' in humans is not a factual state but rather only the interpretation of a factual state, namely of being physiologically out of sorts-the latter seen from a moral-religious perspective that is no longer binding on us (93). To Nietzsche, the traditional concept of morality is intertwined with asceticism and feeble Christian ideals and is therefore to be rejected. Nietzsche would argue that all people have morals, but that one's moral codes are not to be universalized and made law. This facet of Nietzsche's philosophy was likely popular in Joyce's day and one which he certainly kept in mind while writing Ulysses. A look then at two episodes in which these ideas are clearly influential will prove useful. The Nausicaa episode of Ulysses is an evident critique of sexual norms. In this chapter, Bloom looks upon a young girl and masturbates; Joyce juxtaposes this sexual activity with a church service occurring across the street from the Strand. Consider the last three paragraphs of the episode: the first describes Bloom in post-masturbatory respite, the second turns to Father Conroy and reverend John Hughes talking, and the third describes Gerty MacDowell, the object of Bloom's erotic gaze (313). The effect is one of the strongest in the novel-and is indeed one of the reasons the book was banned. Joyce here commingles sex and religion, certainly blasphemous to most of his audience. The Christian church exercises a kind of sexual repression upon its subjects, contending that it is immoral to engage in self-serving sexual acts. Masturbation alone would have been controversial enough a subject, but in placing the church in the scene, Joyce is able to subvert the control the Christian church exercises upon its subjects. This brings to mind Nietzsche's ideas of sexuality. He criticizes the Epicureans for abstaining from, among other things, sexual activity (73). In this chapter, Joyce displays a Nietzschean appreciation of sexual pleasure, free from social mores, while directly opposing and putting into question the ideas of the Catholic church regarding sexual morality. In the Circe chapter, a Dionysian, hallucinogenic atmosphere prevails; the characters' fantasies are made visible and displayed. An example occurs when Bloom imagines that Bella, a prostitute, undergoes a change in gender; she becomes Bello. She then proceeds to treat Bloom as a passive, feminized participant in their erotic relationship. Bloom also gains erotic stimulation here from activity that many people might perceive as unnatural or immoral. The activity here falls under the category of sadistic/masochistic sex: Bello "places his [Bella's] heel on her [Bloom's] neck and grinds it in" (433); this kind of violent activity continues for some time. Bloom, as he does not end his fantasy, clearly gains pleasure from this reversal of sexual roles and from being sexually dominated. This confusion of sexual identity undermines the conception that gender roles are constant and unchanging, and even challenges traditional roles in sexual relationships, with the female gaining dominance over the male. Joyce implies in this chapter that gender roles are not fixed, but prescribed by society. In addition, the reasoning employed in society's construction of gender and sexual morality is ingrained in Christian ascetic ideals. This is clearly a Nietzschean concept; a look at the philosopher's argument concerning the origins of asceticism, then, is necessary. The word "good," Nietzsche points out, originally carried a connotation of "noble" or "aristocratic," whereas "bad" denoted something as "common" or "base" (12). Our modern conception of morality has its origins, argues Nietzsche, in an overturning of Greek aristocratic ideals by ancient oppressed Jews (the slave revolt in morality), who engaged in a revaluation of those ideals. The result, Nietzsche says, was a "spiritual revenge" and an "inversion of the aristocratic value equation (good = noble = powerful = beautiful = happy = beloved of God)" (16). This "priestly ideal," as Nietzsche calls it, is dangerous because of its powerlessness, out of which "hate grows into something enormous and uncanny, into something most spiritual and most poisonous" (16). This ideal is what spawned Christianity-as it is a descendent of Judaism-and subsequently our flawed concept of morality and our notion of "evil," Nietzsche argues. Characteristics of this priestly or ascetic ideal consist of an internalizing nature rather than an active one, and a self-denying oneself of pleasures. Leopold Bloom as Joyce's hero, then, presents a problem if one is to view Ulysses through the lens of Nietzsche. Leopold Bloom is overwhelmingly an embodiment of Nietzsche's idea of the ascetic ideal. He is, one will immediately note, Jewish. More importantly, he displays the sort of internalizing personality Nietzsche claims is at the root of ressentiment. Neil Davison, in his study James Joyce, Ulysses, and the construction of Jewish Identity, discusses Joyce's Nietzschean characterization of Bloom. There is "an unmistakable link," Davison argues, "between Bloom's "Jewishness" and those representations of "the Jew" found throughout [Nietzsche's] works" (114). Consider the way in which, when he is presented with a problem, Bloom turns into himself rather than acting. The Calypso chapter opens with Bloom serving breakfast to Molly, his wife. It is made apparent then that he is concerned not with his own pleasure, but lives his life for another; this puts him in opposition to Nietzsche's idea of the Ubermensch, which dictates a living for oneself. He then notices Molly reading a letter and asks who wrote to her. She replies that the letter is from Blazes Boylan, her tour manager-and lover. Bloom certainly knows of their affair, yet rather than confront Molly about it, he chooses to internalize his concern. Later in the Nausicaa episode, after he has experienced a sexual release, Bloom's thoughts constantly turn to his wife's infidelity: "Funny my watch stopped at half past four... Was that just when he, she? O, he did. Into her. She did. Done" (303). In "Lestrygonians," when Bloom should be focused on eating, he denies himself that comfort and, upon seeing a poster for a venereal disease cure, he begins to worry that Boylan might infect Molly: "If he...? O!....He wouldn't surely?" (126). Only at one point does Bloom defend himself, and even then, he does so with words rather than action. Throughout "Cyclops," the Citizen constantly prods Bloom with nationalist, anti-Semitic rhetoric. Bloom, of course, does nothing. An example is when the Citizen, referring to foreigners and therefore Bloom, says, "Those are nice things, coming over here to Ireland filling the country with bugs" and according to the narrator, "Bloom lets on he heard nothing..." (265). This tension grows until Bloom leaves Barney Kiernan's; the Citizen follows him out and taunts him with "Three cheers for Israel!" Bloom finally lashes back: "...the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God" (280). Bloom, however, does not stay to confront the Citizen-he escapes, in another display of his subdued, ascetic demeanor. Nietzsche argues that beings of ressentiment "recover their losses only through an imaginary revenge" (19). Bloom in the Nausicaa episode ruminates the events of the day, becoming proud of himself for his controlled self-denial: "Damned glad I didn't do it [masturbate] in the bath this morning over her silly I will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this morning. That gouger M'Coy stopping me to say nothing" (301) and later, "Then that brawler in Barney Kiernan's. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters what I said about his God made him wince. Mistake to hit back" (311). Bloom, then, justifies his lack of will by turning inward-and in doing so, he gains a kind of false revenge over those who have slighted him. Bloom's self-denial and internalization also has much to do with guilt and conscience, about which Nietzsche has much to say. The idea of guilt and "bad conscience" has its origin, Nietzsche says, in the creditor-debtor relationship, in which "the debtor-by virtue of a contract-pledges to the creditor in the case of non-payment something else that he "possesses," over which he still has power..." (40). Mark Osteen, in his book The Economy of Ulysses, touches upon this subject. He first notes the obvious issue of Bloom's vocation: "It is Bloom, commercial man and ad canvasser, who receives most of Joyce's attention... Joyce's newfound accommodation with the marketplace is reflected in this choice" (29). Indeed, Bloom's occupation, unlike the artist Stephen, introduces the presence of a relationship based upon sale and exchange. An excellent example of this is Bloom's miniature Odyssey in the Aeolus chapter, in which he travels between the offices of the Weekly Freeman and the Freeman's Journal in order to prepare the Keyes advertisement-so that he might be in the position of creditor and obtain his pay. Osteen discusses Nietzsche specifically in terms of Stephen and Mulligan's relationship, citing Mulligan's "touching" Stephen for money and taking his key (39). Unfortunately, Osteen fails to discuss the importance of this relationship in relation to Bloom. Consider in "Aeolus" (note that this is the very chapter in which Bloom is expressly concerned with his job) when he drops a hint to Hynes of the money he owes Bloom: "If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch" (99). When Hynes does not notice this hint, Bloom thinks to himself: "Three bob I lent him in Meagher's. Three weeks. Third hint" (99). Bloom opts not to explain his hint; he will prolong Hynes' indebtedness to him-presumably to prolong his "possession" over him. Even when Bloom altruistically helps Stephen, in the Ithaca chapter, he notices that the boy shares his father's penchant for singing (542). Bloom imagines a scenario in which he would "discover" Stephen and make him famous, thus making himself a creditor, possessing something of Stephen's. The creditor-debtor relationship goes further, in Nietzsche's assessment. The creditor-debtor relationship "acknowledges a juridical obligation to the earlier generation..." (Genealogy 60). Bloom, when his companions in "Hades" comment reproachfully about suicide (the way his father died), is placed in the position of debtor. He has feelings of guilt for his father's suicide: "They have no mercy on that here or infanticide. Refuse Christian burial.... That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabeled bottle on the table... Thought he was asleep at first" (79-80). Based on this familial relation, Bloom feels a debt to his father, and therefore is guilty because of his suicide. Bloom is unable to escape this ascetic mentality. Indeed, in Rudy's death, Bloom has lost his position as creditor; he needs a debtor, so he turns to Stephen. In his third treatise in the Genealogy, Nietzsche proclaims, "Christianity as dogma perished of its own morality; in this manner Christianity as morality must now also perish (117)." It is fitting then that Bloom, as an ascetic hero, is analogous to Jesus Christ himself. The identification of Bloom with Christ begins in "Hades," when Bloom constantly thinks of nails: "I believe they clip the nails and the hair [of corpses]" (72); the occupants of the buggy traveling to Dignam's funeral spot Blazes Boylan walking along the street and Bloom concentrates on his nails (76); Bloom imagines Dignam's body falling out of its coffin and wonders, "would he bleed if a nail say cut him in the knocking about?" (81). The nail imagery brings to mind Christ's crucifixion; Bloom too is being crucified here-for his father's suicide, his son's death and his wife's affair. Bloom also displays a quality of selfless charity throughout the day: his helping the blind stripling across the street in "Lestrygonians;" his concern for and visit to Mrs. Purefoy in the hospital in "Oxen of the Sun;" his sitting with Richie Goulding, a pariah of sorts according to Dublin society, in "Sirens;" his preaching of love over hate in "Cyclops." This acting out of concern simply for others is an embodiment of ascetic ideals and an example of the corruption of morality, as it is perceived in the modern world. Why then does Joyce choose a Jewish hero and portray him in a seemingly negative way? Is it a cruel, anti-Semitic joke? Is Nietzsche anti-Semitic? Is Joyce anti-Semitic in adopting Nietzsche's ideas of "the Jew"? One might certainly perceive (thanks to the Nazis' misrepresentation of his works) Nietzsche as such. However, the philosopher was staunchly opposed to nationalist views. Such views, after all, would result in the "herd mentality" strain of thought, which Nietzsche found to be dangerous. In fact, as Davison points out, "One answer for him lay in the social evolution or pan- Europeanism of his 'European mixed race'"(119). In his Genealogy, Nietzsche addresses anti-Semitic thought several times; at one point he remarks, "[ressentiment] now blooms most beautifully among... anti-Semites..." (48). Davison argues that Nietzsche believed modern Jews to be "'survivors' par excellence" (116) and to have "an acute 'shrewdness of character' to combat and endure their marginality" (113-14). Nietzsche says in his Genealogy: "The Jews... were that priestly people of ressentiment par excellence, in whom there dwelt a popular-moral genius without parallel.... Which of them has been victorious in the meantime, Rome or Judea? But there is no doubt at all: just consider before whom one bows today in Rome itself... (31). Nietzsche, though he recognizes the danger in the ascetic ideals originated by ancient Jews, nevertheless admires the "shrewd and willful Jew" of modernity (Davison 121). So too is Joyce anti-nationalist; this is evidenced in his negative characterizations of both Mr. Deasy and the Citizen. Both of these characters, though they express anti-Semitic and nationalist viewpoints, are cast in an unfavorable, critical light. Joyce, then, is critical of both nationalism and anti-Semitism. In this sense, Bloom is an appropriate hero for Joyce's epic. He is abused, wronged and ignored throughout the novel, and yet he perseveres and emerges as its hero. Twentieth-century Dublin is also not an appropriate venue for an Achilles; the influence of ancient ressentiment and asceticism, and the conception of morality it spawned, has shaped the West as we know it. A new kind of hero must emerge, and Leopold Bloom is a plausible solution. Additionally, Joyce as an Irish writer has an interest in presenting a Jewish hero. Like the Irish, Jews have been oppressed and have endured countless hardships-and have survived and emerged victorious. Joyce appropriates Nietzsche's ideas of "modern Jewry" in order to comment on the state of his home country under the rule of English Imperialism. There is no doubt that Joyce wrote Ulysses with Nietzsche's ideas of morality and its origins in mind. The novel is rich with Nietzschean concept of the instability of morality. There is also the issue of Bloom as a hero. The book starts with Buck Mulligan Hellenizing and ends with Bloom internalizing. As Lynch's cap says in the Circe episode, "Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet" (411). It becomes evident, when one looks closely at Nietzsche's ideas of ancient and modern Jewish thought, that Leopold Bloom is not necessarily an anti-Nietzschean hero. Though he might embody characteristics that Joyce-and Nietzsche-thinks weak-willed, he nevertheless displays the kind of stalwart nature that Joyce admires. Louis Cannon
Louis Cannon's analysis of Joyce and Nietzche shows a splendid familiarity with both and there is little to add to such a performance. But I would suggest that Stephen in relation to his enemies - Mulligan in the first chapter - is like Bloom in his passivity. Also one should never underestimate Joyce's capacity for irony: in this case I believe that much of his use of Nietzsche both in Ulysses and in his personal life was more than a little tongue-in-cheek. As an example, there is the use, unmentioned by Cannon, of Nietzsche in 'A Painful Case.' After he has behaved like a heel towards poor Mrs Sinico, Joyce goes out of his way to state that Duffy has added Nietzsche to his collection of books. Many thanks Louis for a splendid and thought-provoking treatise. Bob Williams HOME! |