The Basic and Intrigue: Unraveling Dublin's Newspaper Office

1. The Basic and the Intrigue Back to 20th-Century Homepage

2. The Basics • SCENE: The newspaper office of the Freeman's Journal (and the Evening Telegraph) near Nelson's pillar and the General Post Office in the centre of Dublin. • ORGAN: Lungs • ART: Rhetoric • COLOURS: Red • SYMBOL: Editor • CORRESPONDENCES: Aeolus-Crawford; Incest-journalism; Floating Island-the Press. (Aeolus, Sons, Telemachus, Mentor, Ulysses; Sense: Mockery of Victory).

3. Summary • Newspaper office –Bloom, Dedalus, various editors, men. • Bloom on Keyes advertising assignment, Dedalus drops off letter • Critique of news reporting/airy writing

4. Summary • Anti-Semitism (or at least Anti-Bloomism) • newsboys make fun of Bloom's gait and Lenehan dances a mazurka • "Wandering Jew" motif • Keyless/library treck • Parable of the Plum • Irish condition as that of two old women who have begun to climb the tall statue of the British Lord Nelson

5. Homeric Reference • Aeolus – God of Winds • Gives Ulysses the winds of the sea • Greedy shipmates open the bag • With Ithaca in sight, Ulysses is blown all the way back to The Floating Island • Back to 20th-Century Homepage

6. Homeric Relevance •   BLOOM: • Bloom thinks his job is complete by contracting Keyes’ two-month deal • The editor demands a three-month deal; Bloom must start over.  • Bloom makes a voyage (across town) to get a copy of a previous Keyes advertisement Sketch of Bloom by Joyce

7. Airy Importance • Language • Speeches/Latin • Interactive Purpose • Newspapers • Existence • Standards • Wind symbol • Impermanence • Boys/door/breath

8. Chiasmus • Reflective poetic style: • Identical clauses on both sides of a pivot point phrase • Mapping the words out cause them to take the shape of a vertex • Chapter, arrival at the newspaper office, goings-on within, departure from the newspaper office • Novel as a whole, 3 chapters in section 1, 12 chapters in section 2, 3 chapters in section 3

9. Left/Right Symmetry • Chiasmus • "Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a singledeck" • "between the newsboards" • They always build one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out. • It is amusing to view the unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment of a harassed pedlar while gauging au the symmetry of a peeled pear under a cemetery wall.

10. Last thought: Aeolus • Text itself has a voice • comment on the events it witnesses the book seems to have become self-conscious, or seems to be using the voice of an anonymous 'mass' • Novel begins to question the authority of its own narrative by presenting 'alternative' versions of itself. • Back to 20th-Century Homepage