Quote 4
.
. . each contemplating the other in both mirrors of the reciprocal
flesh of theirhisnothis fellowfaces.
This quotation occurs in Episode Seventeen—it
is a narrative description of Stephen and Bloom’s wordless interaction
in Bloom’s garden just before Stephen leaves. Their meeting is in
no sense ideal—a father-son connection is not explicitly made, and
Stephen declines to stay the night and probably will not see Bloom
again. Yet the narrative of Episode Seventeen manages to convey
their union as symbolically meaningful, by tapping various themes.
This sentence manages to include an optimistic set of thematic connotations:
the “recognition” theme from (disguised) Odysseus and Telemachus’s meeting
in The Odyssey; and an idea of the father-son relationship involving
versions of the same bodily self (“flesh”). The “reciprocal” aspect
of their meeting implies that Stephen has managed to find a medium
in the troublesome dynamic of activity-passivity. The “theirhisnothis”
narrative play also manages to suggest that the meeting is an ideal
balance between a coming-together and a realistic recognition of
“otherness.”
