Summary
The episode begins with Bloom entering a funeral carriage with three others, including Stephen’s father. They drive to Paddy Dignam’s funeral, making small talk on the way. The carriage passes both Stephen and Blazes Boylan. There is discussion of various forms of death and burial. Bloom is preoccupied by thoughts of his dead infant son, Rudy, and the suicide of his own father. They enter the chapel for the service and subsequently leave with the coffin cart. Bloom sees a mysterious man wearing a mackintosh during the burial. Bloom continues to reflect upon death, but at the end of the episode rejects morbid thoughts to embrace “warm fullblooded life”.
Odyssey Allusion
In Homer’s Odyssey, “Hades” is the land of the dead, to which Odysseus travels in order to learn from the great prophet Tiresias how he might return to his home in Ithaca. Likewise, Mr. Bloom in this episode visits the memories of loved one who have passed away and wrestles with thoughts of his own home, where his wife Molly and her lover Blazes Boylan will meet later this afternoon.
Episode Notes
Bloom joins the funeral procession carriage
- He is accompanied by Martin Cunningham, Jack Power, and Simon Dedalus
- Blooms spots Stephen in the crowd as “a lithe young man, clad in mourning, a wide hat” 6.39 lithe young man
- Simon then rants abot Mulligan “That Mulligan is a contaminated bloody doubleeyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks all over Dublin.” 6.63 Mulligan is a contaminated bloody ruffian
Bloom guilts over his lost son, thinks about Molly and father
- “If little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. Walking beside Molly in an eaton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. 6.75 My son”
- He wonders how things might’ve been different, how he could’ve helped. Old men’s dogs usually are.” 6.128
- Bloom thinks about Molly:
- “Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths… she’s still a dear girl. Soon to be a woman… Yes, yes: a woman too. Life, life.” 6.88
- Blooms also thinks about his father who killed himself, the only thing left behind: a suicide note and a dog
A parody of Kernan’s speech
- “Trenchant, Mr Power said laughing. He’s dead nuts on that. And the *Retrospective Arrangement 6.150 Retrospective arrangement
The party sees Blazes Boylan
- They then shift the conversation to Molly
- Mr Power asks if Bloom is joining Molly and Blazes
- Perhaps he asks not out of naievete but malaice
- Does everyone in Dublin know about the affair?
The party spots a Jewish loaner, Reuben J
- “The devil break the hasp of your back!” 6.257
- “We have all been there, Martin Cunningham said broadly. Well, nearly all of us.” 6.259
- Blooms feels uncomfortable as being outed as the only Jewish member
- They continue gossiping about how a boatman saved Reuben’s son from the water, and paid “a florin for saving his son’s life.” 6.287 (approx $30)
- “A stifled sigh came from under Mr. Power’s hand.” 6.288
The party discuss Dignam’s death
- He from alcoholism, or “breakdown … heart” 6.305
- A suddent death is “The best death,” Bloom says 6.312
- Which astounds the rest of the catholic party, as a suddent deaths means not last rites
- Bloom must correct to “No suffering. A moment and all is over. Like dying in sleep.” 6.314 Like dying in sleep
- They a child’s coffin go by.
- “Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. meant nothing. Mistake of nature. If it’s healthy it’s from the mother. If not from the man. Better luck next time.” 6.328 Meant nothing mistake of nature
- The party argues the worse kind of death
The procession continues and Bloom daydreams
- He thinks of his father’s death, and his inquest
- Thinks of Dignam’s coffin falling off on a bump in the road
- They cross the Crossguns bridge: royal canal, an apparent allusion to the rivers of the Greek underworld
- He exchanges the soap in his pocket to his breast pocket
- He thinks about Dignam’s wife, and thinks his wife Molly would remarry if he died
- “One must go first: alone, under the ground: and lie no more in her warm bed.” 6.554
They enter the church and Bloom observes the ceremony
- Bloom thinks, “Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requem mass. Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist.” 6.603
- Between the Latin incantations, he thinks, “Every mortal day a fresh batch: middle aged men, old women, children, women dead in childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded businessmen, consumptive girls with little sparrow’s breasts.” 6.624
The funeral moves onto the gravesite
- Simon Dedalus looks at the burial plot for his wife
- “I’ll soon be stretched beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes. Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling in his walk.” 6.645 Let Him take me whenever He likes
- Bloom is rather detached and out of place in a catholic burial. He thinks, “Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. One find day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of them lying around here: lungs, hearts, lives. Old rusty pumps: damn the think else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead.” 6.672 Once you are dead you are dead
The narrative shifts to John Henry Menton
- He wonders who Bloom is, remembers Molly, whom he had a dance with
- “What did she marry a coon like that for? She had plenty of game in her then.” 6.704
Bloom’s mind jumps around
- From worrying about Molly finding out about Martha
- To ghosts, “Have you ever seen a ghost? Well I have. It was pitchdark night.” 6.755
- To “love among the tombstones… In the midst of death we are life” 6.758 In the midst of life we are in life
- To burying people standing up to save space
- To soil composition
- To decomposing flesh
- To reading your own obituary, which “Give you second wind. New lease on life.” 6.797
- Finally, “We come to bury Caesar. his ides of March of June. He doesn’t know who is here nor care.”
Everyone notices the Mystery Macintosh Man
- “Now who is that lankylooking galoot over there in the Macintosh?” 6.805 Who is that lankylooking galoot
- Nobody seems to know, but are intrigued.
- Bloom counts the number of people: “The chap in the Macintosh is thirteen. Death’s number” 6.825 Macintosh is thirteen, deaths number
As Dignam is buried, Bloom’s mind wanders
- “Hoping you’re well and not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the fire of purgatory” 6.857 fryingpan of life into purgatory
- He thinks that “They ought to have some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or telephone in the coffin and some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of distress. Three days.” 6.867
Joe Hynes the newspaper man collects names
- “What is your Christian name?” asks Hynes, to which Bloom replies “L Mr. Bloom. Leopold”
- Of course, Bloom is not Christian and does not have a “Christian name”
- And still no one can figure out who the Mystery Macintosh Man is
- Hynes misterperts, and writes down “M’Intosh,” saying “I don’t know who he is. Is that his name.”
- Well nobody knows
Bloom continues to wander
- He has an epiphany: “How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed. As you are now so once were we.” 6-960 Dublin faithful departed
- 6-960 As you are now so once were we
- “How could you remember everybody? Eves, walk, voice… have the gramophone in the grave or keep it in the house… reminds you of the voice like the photograph reminds you of the face” 6.962 eyes walk voice gramophone in the grave
- He sees an “An obese gray rat” and imagines how it eats the dead corpses in the graveyard
- “Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what’s cheese? Corpse of milk.” 6.981 Corpse is meat gone bad
Blooms goes to leave
- He first reminds Mr. Potter of a dent in his hat
- To which Mr. Potter begrudgingly fixes
- And Bloom leaves, “How grand we are this morning.” 6.1033
Analysis
6-960 Dublin faithful departed
“How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed.
All these here once walked round Dublin
In both Ulysses and The Waste Land, there is a sense of respect to the spectre of history over the living. Bloom thinks to himself, “All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed” (6.960). These words were not in the original version published in The Little Review. Why did Joyce later add it? The phrase “Faithful departed” carries weight in the Catholic tradition, evoking All Souls’ Day, a day of remembrance and prayer for the dead, returning back to previous reference to “All souls’ day” (6.933).
The sentiment “all these here once walked round Dublin” was previously visited in The Dead. In the final words of the story is offered the concluding reflection: “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe… upon all the living and the dead.” The reader is again confronted with the scale of mortality, and also the commonality of such feelings. In connecting different works, Joyce also connects the city of Dublin to the larger system of the universe. Indeed, through his novel, Joyce connects present readers to the past. Those who have walked around Dublin, those who have watched a silent snowfall, and those who have read the words of Ulysses, are connected in a shared experience across space time.
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6-960 As you are now so once were we
A common epitaph, “As you are now so once were we,” reminds the visitor that life is the temporary state, and death the final. Its inclusion in Hades is fascinating because Joyce has shifted the perspective from Bloom’s to the collective voice of the dead. Here, the cemetery – the “many” – speak. This brief ventriloquism disrupts the novel’s usual flow, dissolving Bloom’s individuality. For a moment, the interiority of Ulysses expands outward, encompassing not just Bloom’s private thinking but the countless lives before him. It is a haunting reminder of human transience, resonant and subtle. The novel, so rapt in the granularities of one day in Dublin, quietly gestures toward something larger.
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6.962 eyes walk voice gramophone in the grave
How long until the face of a loved one fades from the memory? The sound of their voice, or the color of eyes? Humanity has forever tangled with the questions of remembrance. Bloom considers as such: “how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice” (6.962). Traditionally, it was done through oral stories or painted portraits, but as Bloom points out: “Well, the voice, yes: gramophone” (6.962-963). A new Technology, the gramophone preserved sound by etching the vibrational waves into shellac discs that could be replayed. Further, Bloom muses, “Remind you of the voice like the photograph reminds you of the face” (6.966-967). Along with photography and recorded sound, people could now play back exact recordings of the past. No longer did we need to create subject recreations of the past.
Yet Bloom mocks this idea of using technology for remembrance. Thus arises the contemporary concern with how new media changes our relationship with memory: the recorded word replacing the written (which in turn replaced the spoken), the camera replacing the painting. He imagines putting on a recording of “greatgrandfather” after Sunday dinner, only to hear garbled speech: “Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain hellohello amawf krpthsth” (6.965-966). In doing so, Joyce playfully critiques the inadequacies of these early technologies while also pushing the boundaries of the novel itself. His use of made-up homophones is not only active and concise communication, but also funny. Inferior ways to write the passage would describe the distortion of the speech, rather than show it.
Interestingly, this section was not in the original publishing of Ulysses. Perhaps The Little Review didn’t appreciate “kraahraark” being printed in a magazine “making no compromise with the public taste.” Maybe Joyce was just ahead of his time. Even today, these techniques aren’t commonly seen. In Ulysses, words do not always need to be clear or coherent. Nonsense, fragmentation, and mechanical speech all serve as legitimate forms of narrative expression.
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An obese gray rat
Concluding the passage is Bloom’s observation of a rat in the graveyard: “Some animal. Wait. There he goes. An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the pebbles” (6.973). The scene is absurd: Bloom watches a rat who “knows the ropes” (6.974) crawl under a grave, which Bloom thinks is a good spot for “treasure”(6.966). This grotesque image contrasts sharply with the reverence of the earlier passages, introducing a moment of dark humor.
But Joyce does not include details arbitrarily. The obese rate is a recurring character in the novel. In Aeolus, Bloom again thinks about a rat “tearing to get in” (7.83), in Sirens, Bloom thinks, “Wonder where that rat is by now” (11.1036), and in Circe, Paddy Dignam apparently “worms down through a coal hole” (15.1255), followed closely by “an obese grandfather rat on fungus turtle paws under a grey carapace” (15.1256-1257). Not having read these episodes yet, this repetition may suggest that the rat, like many of Bloom’s wandering thoughts, carries deeper significance. It may symbolize the persistence of life amid death or serve as a reminder of decay and erasure. We even see similar imagery of pebbles being disturbed as the rate moves. The rat is identified as a “grandfather,” similar to the “greatgrandfather” of Bloom’s musings on the gramophone. What exactly is the connection? While the meaning remains unclear for now, the rat’s presence reinforces Joyce’s writing where high and low brow constantly mingle.
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Bloom’s Travel to the Underworld
- This chapter closely mirrors Odyesseiy’s travels to the under world
- Travelling wither three other compatriots in the funeral procession - like being rowed over the river styx by chiron
- They cross the numerous rivers (King’s river) representing the underworld’s rivers
- As Bloom emerges from the graveyard, however, he is full of life. Excited by the prospect of the day
- In contrast, Simon Dedalus is ready to die: 6.645 Let Him take me whenever He likes
Bloom v Dedalus
- Blooms is the one excited for life, where Simon is not
- Bloom has the dead son, cheating wife
- Simon the dead wife, disappointment son