ABSTRACT
In Homer Odysseus and Telemachus destroy the suitors who have so long plagued Penelope. In Joyce the victory of Bloom over his rivals is a moral one. There is no violence. Thus the Homeric parallel, though providing a useful framework for the construction of this, as of other episodes, has little to tell us of its deeper meaning. Psychological interpretations abound. Theological interpretation is also valid, and has been neglected. For instance, though Stephen’s act at the climax of the Circe episode is a rebellious one and carries its Luciferian overtones (‘non serviam’) from as far back as the retreat sermon in the Portrait, it is an artificial light that he extinguishes, and a sordid scene that he obliterates and forsakes. Moreover his flight leads to an act of martyrdom at the hands of Privates Carr and Compton which parallels the Crucifixion. Images and allusions mark Stephen as the crucified one (cf. p. 488/694–5). Thus the development of a Father-Son relationship between Bloom and Stephen establishes the crucified one as the Son of Man. Stephen comes down to Bloom’s level in episodes 16 and 17, taking his nature to himself in all its pedestrian twentieth-century vulgarity and, in exchange, helping Bloom to bear his wrongs and live in charity with his Earth-goddess and corrupted partner in the flesh.
