Ulysses/Oxen of the Sun

Notes

• Often considered one of the most difficult chapters
• It requires some care and some time and some consideration.
• Good for times when your brain just needs something to gnaw on, like a dog with a rag.
• It is important to hear this chapter read aloud. Essential to listen to it.
• Let's start.

Background and Summary

Let's start with what's happening.

• In Chapter 5, Lotus Eaters, Mr. Bloom met Mrs. Breen in the street, and asked her about Phillip Beaufoy. However, she mis-heard him and thought he said Mina Purefoy, so she mentions Mina has been in labor for three days.
• Mr. Bloom is following up to see how Mina is doing, and when he sees Stephen there, he decides to stay.
• The continued recurrence of Lenehan makes me think of a quote from Joyce about Dubliners, in response to a publisher's request to cut certain stories. The story "Two Gallants," which features Lenehan, was extremely important to him. It's now clear that Dubliners was just the beginning of his master plan for Ulysses, and possibly even Finnegan's Wake, while he was still searching for a publisher for Dubliners.

Important Events

Chapter 14 includes many important developments, ties together many narrative threads, and explains the progress the novel will take in the next few chapters.

For example, buried near the end of the chapter, in just a few pages, we see references to the death of Stephen's mother, first mentioned in Chapter 1, Telemachus; a story that references Father Comnee's walk in Chapter 10, Wandering Rocks; the result of the horse race that is the subject of so many characters' speculations throughout the day (notably, Chapter 5, Lotus Eaters, and Chapter 8, Lestrygonians).

Throughout Ulysses, the two narrative threads have followed Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, and several times, these characters have just brushed past one another. The first time is in Chapter 6, Hades, when Bloom spots Stephen from the carriage. There are more encounters in Chapter 7, Aeolus, and Chapter 9, Scylla and Charybdis, but the characters never have a proper meeting or a talk during any of these encounters. Chapter 14, Oxen of the Sun, represents the first time these two characters have a substantive encounter.

(Ironically, the passage where it happens seems relatively anticlimactic: the fact that Stephen is present when Bloom arrives at the hospital is buried halfway into a paragraph.)

Structure

Ironically, while this chapter is considered the most difficult, it begins with an outline of its structure.

Deshil Holles Eamus Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus.

Send us, bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us, bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us, bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit.

Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa!

The opening is divided into three paragraphs of three sentences, each consisting of three parts. The paragraphs represent the three trimesters of pregnancy, each consisting of three months, which can be further divided into months, as the paragraphs are divided into sentences. Those can be divided into weeks, just as each of the three repeated sentences are divided into three component pieces.

(Gives you an appreciation for the fascination people have with the complex, highly individualized, yet universal, process of

The trimesters begin with a senseless onomatopoeia - and the opening "Deshil Holles Eamus" is something you would expect to see in Chapter 11, heavy in onomatopoeia. The gestation of an infant begins in chaos, the assembly of life, from a single cell into a complex organism.

The next trimester is grammatically sensible, but primitive-sounding, like an incantation. The woman delivering the baby is Mrs. Mina Purefoy, who came up in Chapter 5, Lotus Eaters, by accident, when Mr. Bloom is asking Mrs. Breen about Phillip Beaufoy and she mis-hears him. The doctor who is delivering the baby is Dr. Andrew J. Horne, referenced by the Horhorne of the second part of this opening chant.

The last trimester, still senseless, sounds more like street slang or a "modern" exclamation.

This drops the reader several hints: first, the structure of the chapter, which is divided into trimesters, months, and weeks, or a 3 x 3 x 3 structure. Joyce is also exploring the idea of a language forming the way a fetus forms. Unlike Chapter 12, Cyclops, which takes a grand tour through just about every imaginable style of English writing, Chapter 14 doesn't cover the same ground or use the same style of switching from slang to Chaucer to sports journalism between paragraphs. It is denser and thicker, becoming sensible only as it progresses, and with repeated readings. The writing in this chapter is like thick soup, compared to the water or beer of prior chapters.