CerebralMix 2015-05-17: Ulysses Episode Twenty

If we were to believe that the coming together of Bloom and Stephen was going to be the ultimate denouement to Ulysses we would have been quite mistaken as the the Ithaca episode shows. Stephen and Bloom have a relationship that centers around their “otherness” in relationship to each other. There is no better example of this than when Stephen utters an anti-Semitic story after they have been exchanging writings in Gaelic and Hebrew.

Thus it’s no surprise that the two part, while still on good terms, without there really being an agreement, or some kind of coming together on a different level as friends. There can’t be such a relationship between them, their differences and the tensions between them because of their differences get in the way.

This is part of why the narrative has taken a turn for a more itemized, or clinical approach in this section. It isolates each of the characters, and serves to highlight the differences between them. This bears the idea that there is no easy conclusion to a story when it is drawn with characters that are not merely facets of each other, but are independent and complete in their own right.

Readings

In the past I’ve actually included the text of the poems or stories as part of the show notes. In the case of Ulysses that would be a bit on the incredibly heavy side. Instead I have produced a guide: CerebralMix Ulysses Series that provides the references that I am using, along with a show guide to the whole broadcast of this series.