Chapter 6: “Hades”
Time of Day: 11 am
Characters
who appear or are mentioned:
Leopold
Bloom
Martin
Cunningham:
see ch.5 notes
Jack
Power:
character who first appeared in “Grace” in Dubliners;
he is a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Power was based on Tom Devin, a friend of Joyce’s father. The opening of “Hades,” with Power following
closely after fellow Dublin Castle employee Martin Cunningham, establishes a
pattern for Power’s appearances for the rest of Ulysses.
Simon
Dedalus:
Simon is based on Joyce’s father, John Stanislaus Joyce. After the death of his father, Joyce wrote,
“He was the silliest man and yet cruelly shrewd ... I was very fond of him
always, being a sinner myself, and even liked his faults. Hundreds of pages and scores of characters
in my books came from him. His dry (or
rather wet) wit and his expression of face convulsed me often with
laughter.” Note that Simon’s first
conversation here with Bloom corresponds almost perfectly to what Stephen
imagined him saying in ch.3: “Proteus.”
Stephen
Dedalus:
Bloom sees Stephen heading off to Sandymount Strand; recall that ch.3:
“Proteus” and “Hades” occur at the same time.
Richie
Goulding:
see ch.3: “Proteus” notes
Ignatius
Gallaher:
mentioned in this chapter; a character in “A Little Cloud” in Dubliners. He is the subject of a story in chapter 7: “Aeolus.” He is modeled on Fred Gallaher, whose family
was friendly with the Joyces and who lent themselves to other characters in Ulysses, including Major Tweedy, Molly’s
father.
Tom
Kernan:
see ch.5 notes.
Ned
Lambert:
Lambert works at a seed and grain establishment (where we see him in ch.10:
“Wandering Rocks”). Apparently, he is
from Cork, like Simon Dedalus and several of his cronies. He is also featured in ch.7 and ch.10.
Joe
Hynes:
a journalist, Hynes first appeared in “Ivy Day in the Committee Room.” He works for the Evening Telegraph newspaper.
We see him again in ch.6: “Hades,” ch.7: “Aeolus,” ch.12: “Cyclops,” and
ch.15: “Circe.”
Paddy
Leonard:
a character from “Counterparts” in Dubliners. He appears in ch.8: “Lestrygonians” and
ch.15: “Circe.”
Ben
Dollard:
Big Ben appears in ch.10: “Wandering Rocks,” ch.11: “Sirens,” and ch.15:
“Circe”
Blazes
Boylan:
see ch.4 notes.
Rudy
Bloom:
Bloom’s son, first mentioned in this chapter, died at age 11 days in 1894. He figures in Bloom’s thoughts countless
times in Ulysses, and “appears” in
ch.15: “Circe.”
Mrs
Riordan
(aka “Dante”): an important character in ch.1 of A Portrait (where she is
called “Dante” by Stephen Dedalus). She
is based on Mrs “Dante” Hearn Conway, who acted as governess to the young
Joyce. Later, we learn Bloom had cozied
up to her in an attempt to get her to leave him some money.
Joe
Cuffe:
Bloom’s employer near the cattlemarket c.1893-94.
Corny
Kelleher:
see ch.5 notes.
A
bargeman:
seen in passing by Bloom, he reappears in ch.10: “Wandering Rocks.”
Fogarty: mentioned in this
chapter; the incidents alluded to here are detailed in “Grace” in Dubliners, where Kernan owes Fogarty
money for groceries. Though Fogarty is
kind to Kernan in “Grace,” it seems the debt has grown since then.
Bernard
Corrigan:
(Dignam’s brother-in-law) His name is not given here, but we learn it later in
the Evening Telegraph’s account of
the funeral in ch.16: “Eumaeus.”
Patsy
Dignam:
Dignam’s eldest son, not named here; he appears at length in ch.10: “Wandering
Rocks.”
John
Henry Menton:
Menton in real life was a friend of John Joyce.
Father
Coffey:
a real Dublin priest. His portrayal in
this chapter is similar to the treatment of the priest officiating at Stephen’s
sister’s funeral in Stephen Hero.
Mervyn
Browne:
possibly the same Mr Browne as in “The Dead,” perhaps not.
Wisdom
Hely:
Hely’s Ltd., a Dublin stationer and printer.
Bloom worked there c.1888-94.
John
O’Connell:
the real-life superintendent of Prospect Cemetery, Glasnevin. Joyce was friends with his son.
“Macintosh”: The “man in the
macintosh” is a famous mystery in Ulysses
with no real solution. Hynes writes his
name down as “M’Intosh” and in ch.16: “Eumaeus” we see him listed among the
mourners in the Telegraph funeral notice.
He is seen again in ch.10: “Wandering Rocks,” where “eating dry bread”
he “passed swiftly and unscathed across the viceroy’s path.” In the most obscure part of the book (the
end of ch.14: “Oxen of the Sun”), we are told that “Macintosh” is a sad man,
who became unhinged on the death of his wife.
Perhaps this is why he turns up at funerals?
Alderman
Hooper:
John Hooper, of Cork, an alderman of the Cork Corporation and a member of
Parliament. He was also the father of
Paddy Hooper, mentioned in the next chapter.
Mrs
Sinico:
Mrs Sinico’s life and death is described in “A Painful Case” in Dubliners.
Points
of Interest:
-- Bloom is systematically ignored and mocked
by his “friends” in the carriage. Even
Martin Cunningham, whom Bloom admires as a “sympathetic human man” for sparing
his feelings, engages in anti-Semitic jollity to Bloom’s face.
-- There is a pecking order at work here. Martin Cunningham is first here as always
throughout the book. In Ulysses, as in “Grace” in Dubliners, Cunningham is the wise (or
opinionated) leader to whom his friends defer.
Jack Power is his second. Bloom
brings up the rear. In fact, to
understand Bloom properly, one must see that, for all his merits, he is seen as
a “loser” in his social world, even though he is materially better off than
most of his peers (such as Simon Dedalus).
-- Simon Dedalus should, then, be third. But Simon, a rigorous portrait of Joyce’s
father John, has simply withdrawn from the competition, asserting a sort of
hereditary aristocracy which allows him to do nothing but spout withering
commentary on his fellow Dubliners, which he does to great comic effect in Ulysses.
-- Bloom’s first note of interest in Stephen
is shown in this chapter: “[Si Dedalus is] full of his son. He is right ... if little Rudy had
lived.” Bloom envies Simon his son --
little knowing, of course, of Stephen’s problems.
-- Jack Power’s mockery of Tom Kernan’s phrase
“retrospective arrangement.’ The
phrase, or close variants upon it, recurs 6 times in Ulysses, taking on a life of its own like so much else in the
book. Ulysses itself looks back on history, Homer, Joyce’s youth, etc.,
in a retrospective arrangement of its own; perhaps Joyce latched onto this
phrase because it so neatly expressed his methods.
-- First physical appearance of Blazes
Boylan. Note Bloom’s anguished efforts
to ignore him.
-- Reuben J. Dodd, a caricature of the Jewish
moneylender. Joyce buries an event from
his family’s troubled history in Simon’s remark “The devil break the hasp of
your back!” The real Dodd, actually not
a Jew but a Catholic, had called in the mortgages which sank John Joyce into
the permanent near-poverty in which he and his family lived for the rest of his
life.
-- The child’s funeral car, which prompts
Bloom to think of his dead son, Rudy.
-- Note the extensive (and obsessive) use of
Dublin geography. Joyce quipped to a
friend once that he was more interested in the Dublin street names than in the
secrets of the universe.
-- Parnell’s grave. Always present in Joyce’s writings is the central cataclysm (to
him) of modern Irish history: the Irish people’s abandonment of Parnell over
his affair with a married woman, Kitty O’Shea.
To Joyce, among others, the Irish and the Irish Church especially sold
Parnell out in another instance of Irish betrayal of its best leaders. Joyce’s father had been an ardent
Parnellite, and his fortunes declined after the fall of Parnell.
-- the incident over John Henry Menton’s hat:
emblematic of Bloom’s low social status among these men
-- Mat Dillon’s party (in 1887), at which
Bloom and Molly (and later, we learn, Stephen!) First met. It comes up many, many more times in the
book.