James Joyce's Ulysses, Telemachus, No. 18

[Cf. 1922 3:22-23; Gabler3:25]

We're waiting for Mulligan to finish up with his whistling echo trick, a high point of the little parody of the mass that begins episode 1 of Ulysses.  Here he cocks his head to the left, waiting for the echo that's going to come in a minute.

We haven't talked about the Odyssey in a while, so let's revisit that frame of reference while the echo takes its time getting back to the tower.  Stephen is Telemachus.   A young man, Telemachus is just old enough to understand the insult that Antinoos and the rest of the suitors are visiting upon his house, and just young enough to not really be able to do anything about it.  The suitors live off the wealth Odysseus and his people have hoarded for years, and make a mockery out of the traditions and customs of the city.  Telemachus wants to rid his house of them, but he doesn't have the people or the will to do it.  So Athena comes to him and tells him to learn what he can about his father's fate, and possibly raise an army to take his home back.  So Buck would seem to be Antinoos, and he's certainly making fun of the traditions of Stephen's people... but Stephen doesn't have much faith in those traditions himself.  I suppose one could say that Telemachus needs to find out what happened to his father before he can really judge Antinoos--if Odysseus were dead, it might become his duty to follow Antinoos like a father, and then to look back on the desecrations of Penelope's courtship as a necessary cost of the "leadership transition."  And voila!  We arrived at Hamlet without even knowing we left the station. We're even conveniently situated at the top of a tower.  I bet we're going to see a ghost soon!