Honking Horns and Gunshots: The City's Siren Lullabye

            As one follows both the journeys of Leopold Bloom and Stephan Dedalus, Joyce’s motif of the city fostering a sense of indifference to what otherwise are discomforting factors confronts the reader. Just as Odysseus must resist the temptation of the “honey-sweet music”[1] of the Sirens, modern urban dwellers must fight against the city’s attempts to lull them into a sense of numbness and apathy. Whether it is alienation in a massive crowd or accepting violence as a part of daily life, Joyce beckons to the reader to become aware of what the city places into our sub-consciousness.

            While Dedalus and his friends chat about Shakespeare and Aristotle in the National Library, Dedalus informs his audience, “Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always we are meeting ourselves”[2]. When one applies this claim to the examination of Bloom and Dedalus’ experiences, we understand that each interaction is identical to those previous. This also holds true for each of us. Our interactions with strangers are duplications of our previous interactions. Although meeting someone new may seem like a novel experience, there is an a priori commonality between that encounter and all the others you had during the course of your life. Despite this similarity, meeting new people has the potential to foster a sense of alienation. In other words, if you meet new strangers everyday, you may begin to feel like you are alone and know very few people whom you call “friends”.

            This notion of avoiding to view each interaction as a separate instance and instead viewing life a single, perpetual encounter buttresses Benjamin’s claim that the flanuer’s ability to transcend the crowd stems from him viewing the city as a whole house instead of millions of separate rooms. As stated previously, a single object is much easier to comprehend than a million separate entities.

            In the “Wondering Rocks” chapter, Joyce describes 18 individual Dubliners’ experiences. These narratives range from Father Conmee pondering Dublin’s tram system to Patrick Dingman, son of his deceased namesake, returning home from the butcher’s shop. Joyce transports the reader to random locations throughout Dublin, places him in a character’s head for a few pages, and then yanks him by the collar to another part of town. Naturally, “Wondering Rocks” is a confusing beehive of humanity. However, Joyce reserves the chapter’s last portion for a brilliant move: he combines each separate narrative into a single, concise story that truncates after a mere page and a half. In other words, Joyce forces 18 separate individuals into a single, coherent mass: the crowd. The reader is then able to rapidly grasp an understanding of the “Wondering Rocks” characters’ interaction by viewing them as a single mass of humanity rather than separate individuals.

            Joyce then identifies how the city’s omnipresent cacophony endeavors to lull us into an apathetic state. In the chapter aptly labeled “Sirens”, Joyce bombards the reader with the sounds of the Ormond Hotel’s bar. He initially introduces a few clinks of glass and clanks of silverware; however, he increases the noise until it blends with the chapter’s narrative and ultimately become indistinguishable. Miss Kennedy replies to Miss Douce with a “deep laughter, after bronze in gold, they urged each to peal after peal, ringing in changes, brozegold goldbroze, shrilldeep, to laughter after laugher”[3]. Joyce is suggesting that we forfeit the right to enjoy only sounds we find pleasurable once we enter the urban space. The city’s cacophony eventually blends in the background until we do not even notice it. For example, we all have friends who live next to freeways or airports. When we first arrive at their house, we cannot help but notice the persistent din in the background. However, by the end of dinner, we hardly notice the 747 screaming over the roof of the house of the host.

            In addition to lulling us into a sense of alienation in a crowd of thousands of individuals shouting at each other over the din of speeding cabs and honking horns, Joyce also mentions that the city makes violence and crime much more palatable to us. In the “Cyclops” chapter, Joyce recalls the execution of Richard Rumbold- a Cromwellian soldier who attempted to start a rebellion in Scotland and was subsequently hung, drawn and quartered in 1685. Joyce describes Rumbold’s public execution as a very lively affair. “Every lady in the audience was presented with a tasteful souvenir of the occasion,” narrates Joyce, “in the shape of a skull and crossbones brooch”[4]. He does not describe the executioner as a man; rather, a mechanical monstrosity “concealed in a tengallon pot with two circular perforated apertures through which his eyes glowed furiously”[5]. Finally, Joyce takes the time to praise the high quality of the instruments that would eventually eviscerate Rumbold and hack off his limbs while he was still alive. After all, Rumbold’s death was not a grisly execution; rather, entertainment for the masses.

            Violence and crime are an accepted aspect of urban dwelling. While dwelling in Dublin’s Redlight district, Bloom reminds himself, “Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves dodge. Collide. Then snatch your purse”[6]. The “Cyclops” chapter is perhaps the most violent of the book. In this portion, dogs are kicked, prostitutes rob their sleeping clients, and men are knocked off barstools after angering their neighbor. Oddly enough, Bloom continues to stroll through Dublin unaffected by the prevailing chaos. After all, 16 June 1904 is just another typical day in Dublin. However, the same holds true today. In a small town, a simple mugging has the potential to cause just as much buzz as a murder-suicide in the city. Just as noisy crowds are part of daily life in the modern city, so is violence and crime.

            As Bloom and Dedalus stroll deeper into Dublin, Joyce identifies numerous things that we fail to notice everyday. True, there is little physical or moral danger in failing to notice the honking horns of gridlocked traffic. However, the fact that Joyce is able to make us aware of these three areas proposes the question, “What else are not noticing?”.

           

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[1] James Joyce, Ulysses, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 874.

[2] Ibid., 204.

[3] Ibid., 249.

[4] Ibid., 297.

[5] Ibid., 296.

[6] Ibid., 416.