Abstract
Despite suppressing concerns about Molly meeting Boylan at No. 7, adultery is persistently brought to Bloom’s attention throughout “Aeolus,” “Lestrygonians,” and “Wandering Rocks” by inferences associated with the people, places, and public monuments he encounters as he foots it round Dublin in his unrewarding and stigmatized job. This chapter proposes that Bloom’s much criticized indecisiveness is, in fact, a justifiable response of a colonial subject in a Catholic society that paradoxically gave covert license, through confession and contrition, to what it sought rigorously to suppress, and that Bloom’s indecisiveness in fact chimes with contemporary legal debates about the ways “presumption of innocence,” “evidential proof,” and “legal burden” figured in divorce proceedings.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Also the offices of the Weekly Freeman and National Press and the Dublin Daily Express.
- 2.
Gifford with Seidman, “Ulysses” Annotated, 128.
- 3.
“Consider the kinds of inferences members of a jury are supposed to make based on the evidence presented at a murder trial. The inference to probable guilt or innocence is usually based on a patchwork of various sorts of evidence. It almost never involves consideration of a randomly selected sequences of past situations when people like the accused committed similar murders.” James Hawthorne, “Inductive Logic,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, revised 29 October 2012, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-inductive/.
- 4.
Davy Stephens, The Life and Times of Davy Stephens: Told by Himself (Dublin: Cahill, 1912).
- 5.
Bloom et al. go to the funeral in a horse-drawn cab, and when they reach the Dolphin they halt to allow the ambulance car to gallop past them (U10.504–5).
- 6.
Gifford with Seidman, “Ulysses” Annotated, 128. They also note that “Many of the final destinations were near one another (as Sandymount Green and the tower), but the trams followed different routes in a system that in 1904 was regarded as the most efficient and ‘modern’ in Europe.” The Guinness “drays” that are being unloaded and reloaded, for example, were still largely horse-drawn in 1904.
- 7.
See David Pierce, Reading Joyce (New York: Routledge, 2014), 254–57 for images of the composing room, the stone room, and foundry of the Freeman’s Journal.
- 8.
Joseph Allen Boone, Libidinal Currents: Sexuality and the Shaping of Modernism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 161, points out that Mrs. Miriam Dandrade’s “short trunkleg naughties” feature in “Circe” as “a cover for Bloom’s taboo desires and a vehicle for the cross-dressing masquerade” (U15.2993–94). These desires include fantasies about seduction and penetration.
- 9.
Bloom’s exchange with Hornblower, the Porter at the Lincoln Place entry to Trinity College, takes place in his mind.
- 10.
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley (1976; London: Penguin, 1990), 1: 17–49. Such repression is “emblematic of what we call the bourgeois societies” (17).
- 11.
W. B. Yeats drew attention to the O’Connell, Parnell, and Nelson monuments when he delivered his speech on divorce to the Senate on 11 June 1925. The Senate Speeches of W. B. Yeats, ed. Donald R. Pearce (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), 97–102.
- 12.
Claire Hamilton, The Presumption of Innocence and Irish Criminal Law: “Whittling the Golden Thread” (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007), 2–5.
- 13.
Michael Groden, “Genetic Joyce: Textual Studies and the Reader,” in Palgrave Advances in James Joyce Studies, ed. Jean-Michel Rabaté (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 227–31, gives a list of interpretations of Stephen’s parable other than the above.
- 14.
Joyce had a copy of E. Hallam Moorhouse’s The Story of Lady Hamilton (London: T. N. Foulis, 1911) in his library. Ellmann, Consciousness of Joyce, 120.
- 15.
See AV, Numbers 20:12; Deuteronomy 32:51. The “promised land” also alludes to the Zionist ambition for a Jewish homeland. Note advertisement for the “model farm at Kinnereth” that Bloom reads that morning in the butcher’s (U48.154–55). For Kinnereth as a successful socialist experiment, see Isaiah Friedman, Germany, Turkey, and Zionism, 1897–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 134–35.
- 16.
Yvonne Whelan, “Monuments, Power and Contested Space: The Iconography of Sackville Street (O’Connell Street) before Independence (1922),” Irish Geography 34, no. 1 (2001): 15–20.
- 17.
“When the King came to Town,” Galway Advertiser, 12 May 2011, http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/39668/when-the-king-came-to-town; Cóilín Owens, “July 1903: Edward VII, the Gordon Bennett Cup and the Emmet Centennial,” History Ireland, accessed 19 July 2016, http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/july-1903-edward-vii-the-gordon-bennett-cup-and-the-emmet-centennial/.
- 18.
W. N. Osborough, Law and the Emergence of Modern Dublin: A Litigation Topography for a Capital City (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1996), 49, 181–84. Subsequently renamed Hill Street.
- 19.
Kenner, “Ulysses”, 73–76. See also Luke Gibbons, “Spaces of Time through Times of Space: Joyce, Ireland and Colonial Modernity,” Field Day Review 1 (2005): 79–82.
- 20.
Hardiman, “Law, Crime and Punishment,” 61–62. As Hardiman points out, the recitals to 49 & 50 Vict., c.181 provide the history of events leading up to the divorce.
- 21.
Joyce had a copy of Maud Stepney Rawson, Penelope Rich and Her Circle (London: Hutchinson, 1911) in his library. Ellmann, Consciousness, 125.
- 22.
“It is true she spun many a web, that she was faithful—though not to her lawful Ulysses. But she had not the full reward of the faithful. Neither was her lord a fit Ulysses. That role fell to another man.” Rawson, Penelope Rich, 1, https://archive.org/details/cu31924027985427.
- 23.
“Whoever affixes to or inscribes on any building, hoarding, gate, fence, pillar, board, tree, or any other thing whatsoever, so as to be visible to a person passing along any street, highway, or footpath, and whoever affixes to or inscribes on any public urinal, or delivers or attempts to deliver, or exhibits, to any person in any street, public highway, or footpath, or throws down the area of any house, or exhibits to public view in the window of any house or shop, any picture or written matter of an indecent or obscene nature (including any advertisement relating to syphilis or the like) will be liable to a penalty of 40s, or to imprisonment for a month, with or without hard labour. (52 & 53 Vict. c.18, §§3,5).” Every Man’s Own Lawyer, 577.
- 24.
Slater v. Slater, NA J77/753/2912, Filed: 9 June 1902; Set Down: 19 September 1902; Decree Nisi: 8 December 1902; Final Decree: 13 July 1903.
- 25.
Bennett v. Bennett, NA J77/753/2920, Filed: 11 June 1902; Set Down: 24 October 1902; Decree Nisi: 19 January 1903; Final Decree: 27 July 1903.
- 26.
Curl v. Curl, NA J77/753/2926, Filed: 12 June 1902; Set Down: 4 July 1902; Decree Nisi: 24 October 1902; Final Decree: 4 May 1903.
- 27.
Hegarty v. Shine (1878) 4 LR Ir 228.
- 28.
Irish Law Times Digest of Cases, cols. 2 and 3, §2.
- 29.
David Fitzpatrick, The Two Irelands 1912–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 227, points out that while advertising contraceptive devices was illegal from 1929, their importation and sale did not become illegal in Ireland (Free State) until 1935.
- 30.
Catherine Heffernan, “Sexually Transmitted Infections, Sex and the Irish” (D.Phil. diss., Oxford University, 2002), 55. See also Royal Commission on Venereal Disease: Final Report of the Commission (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1916).
- 31.
Heffernan, “Sex and the Irish,” 37, 58–60, 65–71, 105–7, 109–15, 118–20; Ferris, Burden of Disease, 83.
- 32.
John Howard Parnell, Charles Stewart Parnell: A Memoir by His Brother John Howard Parnell (New York: Henry Holt, 1914), 233. See also Katharine O’Shea, Charles Stewart Parnell: His Love Story and Political Life (New York: Doran, 1914), 147; F. S. L. Lyons, The Fall of Parnell, 1890–91 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960), 65–70; Paul Bew, Enigma: A New Life of Charles Stewart Parnell (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2011), 164–67.
- 33.
Frank Callanan, The Parnell Split 1890–91 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1992), 9.
- 34.
George Moore threatened to “out” Russell until Russell threatened him with a lawsuit. See Adrian Frazier, George Moore, 1852–1933 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 368, 558 n. 236.
- 35.
John Venn, “John Brinkley,” in Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College 1349–1897 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898), 2:107–8.
- 36.
Sir Frederick Falkiner was the Recorder of Dublin from 1876 to 1905. See Hardiman, “Law, Crime and Punishment,” 73–74 for a more positive account of Falkiner.
- 37.
As Robert Boyle, “A Note on Reuben J. Dodd as ‘a dirty Jew,’” James Joyce Quarterly 3, no. 1 (1965): 64–66, points out, Dodd was not a Jew, but his activities as a money-lender led him to be described as one. According to Ellmann the Joyce family blamed Dodd for their financial plight.
- 38.
“Dublin Recorder and Prisoner: HC Deb 23 January 1902 vol 101 c689,” http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1902/jan/23/dublin-recorder-and-prisoner#S4V0101P0_19020123_HOC_238.
- 39.
“Dublin Recorder and Prisoner.”
- 40.
Hamlet, 3. 1. 58.
- 41.
See Sonya Glyn Nicholson, “A Second Look at Trouser Turnups (Cuffs),” Parisian Gentleman, 24 July 2013, http://parisiangentleman.co.uk/2013/07/24/a-second-look-at-trouser-turnups-cuffs/; and Xavier Paoli, My Royal Clients; trans. Alexander Teixeira de Matos (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 210–11, https://archive.org/details/myroyalclients00paoluoft.
- 42.
Cosgrove, Joyce’s Negations, 93.
- 43.
A. P. W. Malcomson, The Pursuit of the Heiress: Aristocratic Marriage in Ireland 1740–1840 (1982; Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2005), 148. See also John Charles Lyons, The Grand Juries of the County of Westmeath…[1727–1853], with an Historical Appendix (Ledestown: privately printed, 1853), 273–85, http://www.askaboutireland.ie/aai-files/assets/ebooks/129_Grand-Juries-of-County-Westmeath/129%20Grand%20Juries%20of%20County%20Westmeath%201727-1853.pdf.
- 44.
Malcomson says £2,000; Lyons £20,000. The “action of Viscount Bellfield against his brother Mr Rochfort in 1740, in which the Viscount was awarded the totally unprecedented damages of £20,000, which in the end put his brother in gaol for the rest of his natural life.” Lawrence Stone, The Road to Divorce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 269.
- 45.
Malcomson, Pursuit of the Heiress, 148–49.
- 46.
See Denis O’Neill, “The Earl of Belvedere,” Rochfortbridge, accessed 23 July 2016, http://rochfortbridge.wikidot.com/the-earl-of-belvedere.
- 47.
Gifford with Seidman, “Ulysses” Annotated, 271. See also H. M. Hatch, Popery Unmasked: Showing the Depravity of the Priesthood and the Immorality of the Confessional; Being the Questions Put to Females in Confession Extracted from the Theological Works now Used by Cardinal Wiseman, His Bishops and Priests, as Quoted in “The Confessional Unmasked,” together with Extracts from Dowling, Hogan, and Maria Monk; Showing the Crimes Committed in the Black Nunnery and a Description of the Horrid Inquisition Rooms, with Notes (Lowell, MA: H. M. Hatch, 1854), 29–33, 48–50, https://ia600401.us.archive.org/21/items/poperyunmaskedsh00hatc/poperyunmaskedsh00hatc.pdf.
- 48.
Jolly v. Jolly and Fryer (1919) 63 SJ 777.
- 49.
Shelley, “A Defence of Poetry,” affirms that “poets are…the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.”
- 50.
Mr. Justice Gorell Barnes reported summing up Palgrave v. Palgrave and Lutifer, Times (London), 15 July 1904, 14.
- 51.
Times (London), 14 December 1901, 15.
- 52.
“Musician as Co-Respondent,” Daily Mail, 2 June 1904, 3 and “Fond of Detective Work,” Daily Mail, 1 June 1904, 3. Rogerson v. Rogerson and Drummond, NA J77/800/4341, Filed: 4 November 1903; Set Down: 2 June 1904; Dismissed: 1 June 1904.
- 53.
Palgrave v. Palgrave and Lutifer (1904), NA J77/806/4512. See Times (London), 14 July 1904, 3–4; “Art and Divorce,” Daily Mail, 14 July 1904, 3; “Wife Exonerated,” Daily Mail, 15 July 1904, 3. Abrahams v. Abrahams and Neuberger (1903), NA J77/798/4289.
- 54.
“Evans v. Evans and Wilson—The King’s Proctor Showing Cause,” Times (London), 23 January 1904, 4. In delivering his judgment, Sir Francis Jeune cited St Paul v. St Paul (1 P&D 739) and Cunnington v. Cunnington and Noble (1859) 164 ER 820. See Evans v. Evans and Wilson, NA J77/744/2629, Filed: 25 February 1902; Set Down: 6 April 1903; Decree Nisi: 29 July 1903; Rescinded and Dismissed: 22 January 1904.
- 55.
“The Roberts Divorce Suit Judgment,” Freeman’s Journal, 11 August 1904, 3. Roberts v. Roberts and Sanlon and Nixon, NA J77/794/4147, Filed: 10 August 1903; Set Down: 31 December 1903; Decree Nisi: 10 August 1903; Dismissed: 10 August 1904.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kuch, P. (2017). Bloom in the Sexualized City. In: Irish Divorce / Joyce's Ulysses. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57186-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57186-1_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95187-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-57186-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)