In the comments box post any questions, observations, and comments still lingering after the teacher-lead discussion (Tuesday, October 28). You are evaluated during these discussions and may feel that your contributions during class did not adequately convey your understanding of the novel. If so, post comments.
D-block
Summary by Ali O: Stephen disciplines himself at the beginning & in the end allows himself to think about women again. Also, his family is once again moving
Lucy F: interested in the passage in which he is asked if he has a vocation for the priesthood. We looked closely at this passage.
We talked about the priest's comments about Victor Hugo: "had never written half so well when he had turned against the church as he had written when he was a catholic." & how Stephen reacts: "the tiny flame which the priest's allusion had kindled upon Stephen's cheek had sunk down again and his eyes were still fixed calmly on the colourless sky. But an unresting dout flew hither and thither before his mind."
I mentioned the quotation "the priest let the blindcord fall" (Barnes & Noble edition 136) but had meant to quote from 134: "as [the priest] spoke and smiled, slowly dangling and loooping the cord of the other blind..." & then mention all of this in association with the mainy uses of "grave" & "mirthless": "leaned his chin gravely..." "seeing in [the priest's face] a mirthless reflection of the sunken day..." "a mirthless mask" "the life of the college passed gravely over his consciousness. It was a grave and ordered and passionless life that awaited him..." & then another face "the face was eyeless and souravoured and devout, shot with pink tinges of suffocated anger. Was it not a mental spectre of the face of one of the jesuits..."
Look at all that Joyce is saying w/ repetition & imagery (& subtle or implied metaphor); one might even say that Joyce employs a macabre diction).
& Hannah pointed out (B&N 157) where Stephen plays with ivy and ivory. "What about ivory ivy?" She senses his interested in language & sees him, finally, as a poet, an artist.
Several times we alluded to but never delved into the final scene with the woman in the water.
I mentioned the concept of "epiphany". Somewhere in here we talked about the virgin-whore complex.
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F-block
Summary by Jaclyn
* Stephen assigns himself devotional tasks (rosary) & disciplines himself (not moving in bed, not making eye contact w/ women). Devotion to the Virgin Mary. Thoughts about the Holy Trinity.
* Stephen is asked if he has thought about becoming a priest. ("Les jupes" makes him think of women--never far from his mind.)
* Family struggles (Jaclyn asserts: he seems to feel for his siblings--in their innocence.)
* Friends joke about his name in Greek. (Reader is reminded of Dedalus, etc.)
* Stephen has an epiphany while watching the girl washing.
Allie: provokes conversation about women, especially if Stephen considers/grasps women as independent agents w/ their own consciousness or if he sees them only in relation to himself (as pure, as beautiful, as sexual, etc.) & why might this be significant? Like D-block, we talked briefly about the virgin-whore complex.
Michael asked about the use of "-boro" by a sibiling. We talked about playing with language (& "secret" codes) in the novel and outside it.
Then I became to involved and stopped taking notes until...
* Isabel asked a question about church and state & speculated whether or not Stephen blamed the church for his family's financial difficulties.
* I said I thought he blamed his father.
* Courtland quoted from B&N 214: "[my father is] a medical student, an oarsman, a tenor, an amateur actor, a shouting politician, a small landlord, a small investor, a drinker, a good fellow, a storyteller, somebody's secretary, something in a distillery, a taxgatherer, a bankrupt and at present a praiser of his own past."
Allie read from page 146-147 where Stephen is thinking while seeing the bodies of his friends. Stephen reveals his ambivalence about the body. (This is a major thread in the book. Stephen's ideas about his body &/vs. his soul--& is also a major thread in Western Civ/Christianity.) Allie suggested that Stephen talk w/ Walt Whitman. (This thread is worth following up upon and tracing through the whole work.)
Typing this I remember when I stopped taking notes. I asked a leading question: what statement marks Satan's *fall* (falling falling falling!--Icarus & the Christian fall)? Ans.: "I will not serve" (B&N 103). Then page 145 "...the office he had refused....He had refused. Why?" & earlier on 141 "He would fall. He had not yet fallen but he would fall silently, in an instant...fall...falling, falling, but not yet fallen, still unfallen, but about to fall."
Naomi was right! He has not yet fallen--he has merely refused to become a priest--but he will fall & we see that in chapter five. (But is this "falling" is another kind of rising or flying: When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets" (180). By refusing the call he may be able to avoid the net of the priesthood & may fly. But does he fly like Dedalus (successful) or like Icarus (doomed).
We also talked about Stephen's discussion w/ the director (priest) about becoming a priest (having a vocation). Much of what we talked about was also discussed in D-block see the commentary above.
Now your turn. Write!
