Mr Bloom at a Funeral

1. Mr Bloom at a Funeral DO IT YOURSELF MILLENNIUM 2 P. 145

2. Look at the highlighted sentences and say which of them describe what is actually happening and which can be assigned to Bloom’s stream of thoughts? • The sentences highlighted in pink describe what is actually happening, while all the other sentences properly belong to Bloom’s stream of thoughts. • In which of them the use of sound devices is more remarkable? • The use of sound devices (in particular alliteration and assonance) gives a musical quality especially to the sentences related to Bloom’s “stream of consciousness”, e.g. his thoughts about: • the funeral itself: • “coach/carriages” (l.1); • “requiem / mass / Pomp” (l.2); • the Simnel cakes: • “Simnel cakes / stuck together: cakes for the dead” (ll.3-4); • the mother: • “harpy, hard woman at a bargain, her bonnet awry” (ll. 9-10); • her daughter: • “Girl’s facestained with dirt and tears” (l.10); “Fish’s face, bloodless and livid” (ll.11-12)

3. the dead man and his friends: • “First the stiff/ then the friends of the stiff” (ll. 14-15). • What is Bloom’s opinion about the funeral? • He thinks the funeral is poor because it consists of one coach and three carriages only. Nevertheless, the usual ritual has been respected: there are pall-bearers, the horses are wearing golden reins, the mourners have attended a requiem mass and a volley has been fired. • What are the questions in Bloom’s mind referred to? • The questions in Bloom’s mind refer to: • the Simnel cakes, which he compares to dog-biscuits: he wonders who would eat them; • the funeral of a child which has disappeared from his view; • the identity of a man walking beside Corny Kelleher and the boy.

4. Joyce’s great skill manages to recreate the mother and her daughter coming out of the cemetery in a very short paragraph. Quote the words that: • describe the woman physically. • “Lean jawed (l.9); “her bonnet awry” (l.10); • describe the girl physically. • “face stained with dirt and tears” (l.10); “Fish’s face, bloodless and livid” (l.11); • describe the mother’s character. • “harpy hard woman at a bargain” (ll. 9-10); • tell us that the girl is afraid of her mother. • “holding the woman’s arm looking up at her for a sign to cry” (l.11). • Despite its apparent disorder, the passage is firmly anchored to a specific Irish reality by the names of people and things. Make a list of them. • The Dublin setting is well evoked by the traditional Simnel cakes sold by the hawker at the cemetery gates and by the names of the dead man’s friends attending the funeral, which are all typically Irish: Mr Kernan, Ned Lambert, Mr Hynes, Corny Kelleher.