ABSTRACT
The encounter is set in Barney Kiernan’s pub, which in its dark and claustrophobic ambience is reminiscent of the Cyclops’ cave. The “Citizen” throws a tin of biscuits at Leopold as he leaves, but misses. In Thomas Wolfe’s short story, “Polyphemus” (1935), a one-eyed Spaniard (the only name given to the protagonist) sails uncharted seas with his ragged crew, “their greedy little minds, obsessed then as now by the European’s greedy myth about America” (22). A cipher for Christopher Columbus, the Spaniard plants the Spanish flag proudly in the sand when he steps ashore, only to find that the Indian village is completely void of gold. But what they miss, in their one-eyed myopia, is the gold in the land itself.
