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7 Aeolus

7 min read

Summary

At the office of the Freeman’s Journal, Bloom attempts to place an ad. Although initially encouraged by the editor, he is unsuccessful. Stephen arrives bringing Deasy’s letter about foot-and-mouth disease, but Stephen and Bloom do not meet. Stephen leads the editor and others to a pub, relating an anecdote on the way about “two Dublin vestals”. The episode is broken into short segments by newspaper-style headlines, and is characterized by an abundance of rhetorical figures and devices.

In the schema, Joyce identified the lungs as the organ for this chapter; indeed, the episode features lots of comings and goings (inhales and exhales), and the diction is suffused with references to air and wind.

Of course, this episode is notable for the interceptions of Newspaper Headlines between story beats. Some of the headlines foretell the content, some provide context, others simply mood.

Odyssey Allusion

The episode is named for Aeolus, the keeper of the winds, who gives Odysseus a magical sack of winds; appropriately, this chapter is filled with the hot air of political speeches, rhetorical devices, and the inflated prose of newspapers and newspapermen. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew have nearly returned home - they can even see men tending fires on the shores of Ithaca. Relieved, and exhausted from sailing for two-weeks straight, Odysseus takes a power nap. While he’s sleeping, Odysseus’s men jealously assume that the sack of winds contains riches, gripe about unfair distribution of wealth, and open the bag, letting loose the winds and blowing the ship all the way back to Aeolus’s island. In correspondence to this frustrating moment in The Odyssey, the “Aeolus” episode includes a few near-misses as Bloom attempts to do his job as an advertising agent; likewise, Mr. Bloom and Stephen just miss an encounter in the newspaper offices.

Themes

Episode Notes

An establishing shot of Dublin

  • We start with a description of the locations, people, and actions of Dublin
  • Nelson’s Pillar, Sandymount Green, Sandymount Tower, Harold’s Cross, are among the descriptors
  • The loud noises of a post office “loudly flung sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured and paid, for local, provincial, British and overseas delivery.” 7.17
    • This is a very loud episode, at the same time it writes much of the inter-connectedness of the city due to new technologies, including the printing press
  • *The original print in The Little Review contained a mistake: the same sentence twice; Joyce later amended it by inverting the sentence: “Grassbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince’s stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled y grossbooted draymen out of Prince’s stores.” 7.21

Bloom goes to the print office to place an ad

  • Bloom talks to the foreman, Nannetti, describing his idea of two keys crossed inside a circle, alluding to Home Rule
  • Nannetti likes the idea and agrees if Bloom can get Keyes to renew for 3 months.
  • Bloom has a new deal to broker

Bloom’s mind wanders in the printing shop

  • He thinks about how all the machines have their own voices, lungs 7.174 Sllt everything speaks in its own way
  • Bloom also thinks about how he could have handled the dented hat back in 6 Hades better: “I ought to have said something about an old hat or something. No I could have said. Looks as good as new now. See his phiz then.” 7.171 See his phiz then
  • At the same time the foreman checks the newspaper for errors
  • Looking at one error, he sees the funeral note of Dignam, it’s spelled “mangiD kcirtaP,” 7.206 mangiD kcirtaP

Bloom heads for a different office with a telephone

  • He readjusts a Soap bar from his breast pocket to his backpocket
  • He considers going home, but decides not to “Just to see: before: dressing. No. Here. No.” 7.231
    • He knows about the affair, when it will happen, and wants to avoid it completely

Bloom enters the office of the Evening Telegraph

  • He runs into Simon Dedalus, Myles Crawford, Ned Lambert, and professor MacHugh
  • J. J. O’Molloy, a failing lawyer, also enters, to greetings by the others, a treatment that Bloom does not experience
  • The men agree to go down to the The Oval pub, but do not invite Bloom
  • Bloom has a brief conversation on the telephone, of his side we only hear
  • In the meantime, many auditory descriptions: “Bingbang, bangbang” 7.374, “Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was flung open” 7.391

Bloom rushes to leave the office and catch up with Keyes before he leaves town

  • Bloom bumps into Lenehan on his way out, denoted by the headline, “A COLLISION ENSUES” 7.415
  • Bloom apoligies, asks if he is hurt, to which Lenehan says “Knee” 7.420
  • Bloom leaves, Joyce writes “EXIT BLOOM” 7.429
  • “Begone! he said. The world is before you.” 7.434: the editor gives leave to Bloom

In the office still, the professor makes a speech

Crawford implores that Stephen write for the paper

  • “I want you to write somethin for me…” 7.617 I want you to write something
  • Bloom calls, “The telephone whirred” 7.658 (it “spoke”) “—Hello? Evening Telegraph here… Hello?… Who’s there?… Yes… Yes… Yes.” 7.665
  • Stephen isn’t really paying attention either, thinks “Nightmare from which you will never awake.” 7.678 Nightmare from which you will never awake.
  • The continue, O’Molloy talks to Stephen about the Childs Murder Case
    • To which Stephen wonders about Hamlet: if King Hamlet was asleep when Claudius poisoned him, how did he know who did it? 7.749

MacHugh brings up a speech he heard by John F. Taylor

  • The speech is about the revival of the Irish language, culture, and general Irish Nationalism
  • He lauds it as the the most brillant displays of oration he’s ever seen, and attempts to recite it
  • The Taylor speech metaphorically identifies England as Egypt and Ireland as Israel, is a continuation of the oral tradition, and more

The group leaves, Stephen tells a story

  • the story seems to be a draft of a chapter in Dubliners 7.922 Dubliners
  • He alludes to mundane life in Dublin, of paralysis, of the vestal virgins TODO (and/or the note on dubliners)

Bloom returns in a huff with a counter offer

The party leaves the office and Stephen continues the story

  • They talk about Nelson’s Pillar as a central part of the story
    • ” But it makes them giddy to look so they pull up their skirts…” 7.1011
    • “Onehandled adulterer! the professor cried. I like that. I see the idea. I see what you mean.” 7.1018
      • As a joke on Nelson as an adulter
    • As he ends the story, he is lauded as the new Antisthenes 7.1034 The new Antisthenes

Analysis

The lungs, wind, and breathlessness

Sounds, noises, and unstoppable machines

  • The printing press and other new technologies
  • Machines as alive
  • Machine as unstoppable
  • Man falliable

Cursing others out, exiling them; entering/exiting; running between places

Dubliners

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