The "eye", the "yes" and the "I" have it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Indeed, the episode "Cyclops" is recognizable at a glance. After the melodic fugue of The Sirens, the twelfth chapter sees a rapid change, both in tone and form. The narrative shifts to a mysteriously verbose narrator in I and recounts Leopold Bloom's encounter with the conflicted Citizen. This comes midway through James Joyce's "Epic Flaneur," and he writes one of the most recognizable parallels to his Homeric counterpart. When Odysseus lands on the island of the Cyclops, he and his men are trapped in a cave by Polyphemus. The "Cyclops" cannibalizes a couple of men every day. To outwit the giant, the hero gets Polyphemus drunk and tells him that his name is "No Man", before driving a stake through his eyes. This causes the monster to cry incoherently, blaming "No Man", which is met with derision. His relatives don't understand. His blindness allows Odysseus and his men to escape the cave by tying themselves to the sheep. He then foolishly proclaims his name as he sets sail, leading Polyphemus to pray that Father Poseidon will curse the vainglorious Odysseus. Bloom and The Citizen are Odysseus and Polyphemus Joyce, and their confrontation echoes the traditional epic. The unnamed narrator is essential to the reading of the chapter. The presence of the “I” early establishes authorial intent by narrowing the perspective to one person, one eye on the scene. The narrator's authority is slowly revealed with a deluge of parodic interjections and the multiplication of characters who act as eyewitnesses. In the episode "Cyclops", the juxtaposition of eloquent prose and the characters' colloquial quips, highlights Joyce's struggles with Irish nationalist rhetoric during this period of Irish cultural renaissance. The political nuances are all the more evident in the dull citizen, who continually germinates nationalistic ideas. The choice of parodic tone not only emphasizes the flaws of blind nationalist ideology, but also serves as an incredibly self-aware exercise in the limits of narrative authority. The narration in the episode "Cyclops" begins with the commanding voice of the anonymous I-Narrator, only to soon delve into parody as he is interrupted more than thirty times by an unknown parodist. The repetition of the homophones “Eye” or the anonymity of the narrator, alluding to the identity of “Nobody”, are enough to immediately associate this episode with the odyssey encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus. This parallel is obvious at first glance, well before the introduction of the Citizen and Leopold Bloom. This is a starting point for reading the chapter. In essence, it suggests a lesser relevance of the events compared to the stylistic prose of the episode. The story of "No Man" defeating a giant is in the subtext rather than the plot. The mocking interruptions, while variable in style, are not attributed to any one voice, and for the purposes of this study, we will credit these passages to a singular parodist. The reader is increasingly distanced as the central voice of “I” loses its narrative authority with each new intrusion. Joyce almost immediately calls attention to the physical presence of this new anonymous narrator and his vulnerability. The episode begins with him recounting how a “bloody sweep” almost took out his eye with a broom. This not only parallels the mythical monster, but also foreshadows the short-sighted theme. For the most part, the narrator seems to follow a naturalistic dialogue, although often colored by vulgar and bitter comments. His frankness isin stark contrast to the often hyperbolic parodism, which offers many perceptions, without ever providing a truly complete view of the same moment. The choice to stylistically parody narrative conventions is interesting, and is an essential starting point for analyzing authorial intent. Hyperbolic passages often describe events in an epic manner, as illustrated by the first parodic interruption, which paints an exaggerated portrait of Dublin, as the narrator heads to the bar: In Inisfail the fair lies a land, the land of the holy Michan. A watchtower stands seen by distant men. There the mighty dead sleep as they slept in life, warriors and princes of great fame. (12.378.31) The description of an ancient mythical land inhabited by powerful warriors and princes is a sharp departure from the narrator's previous paragraph. The language is reminiscent of that of the Irish literary revival movement, which romanticized Celtic culture. "Inisfail" was the name given to Ireland by the divine race known as the "Tuatha Dé Danaan" and appeared in 19th century revivalist poetry. These interpolations lead the reader to identify parallels with the Homeric tale. Bloom's "destroying cigar" is the modern stake of the Odyssey, the Citizen is introduced with many references to caves, echoing Polyphemus' lair. The following parodistic invasions ridicule different styles. Their juxtaposition with the narrator's colloquial account of the same moment emphasizes the mocking tone. In a passage parodic of medicinal jargon, Leopold Bloom's scientific explanation is interrupted by the narrator, who describes it as "beginning with his astonishments about phenomenon and science and this phenomenon and the other phenomenon." (12.394.1). The parodist follows this testy tale with the ceremonial “The Distinguished Scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft” (12.394.4) and proceeds to mock Bloom's explanation through highly technical language. The eclectic use of language is prompted by apparently insignificant details, which introduce new perceptions, all regardless of what was said previously. They cause confusion, misinterpretations and contradictions in the narrative. Leopold Bloom is both a “Lardy Old Man” and a “distinguished phenomenologist.” He can be seen through anti-Semitic lenses as a miserly Jew or a mythical hero. The allusions to the source material are among the most explicit in Joyce's epic, however, the deluge of long lexical lists inserted by the parodist, the multitude of stylistic entries and the contradictory depictions of the central figure, seem to make the plot questionable. The tone is that of a mock epic, but Joyce does not make fun of the Homeric tale. He is using the structure of the Odyssey as a vehicle for various stylistic and thematic parodies. “Cyclops” subverts the tools used by Irish revivalists to spread their message, shedding light on their inherent flaws. The three pillars of cultural media that were intended to nurture a sense of Irish nationhood were newspapers, Celtic ballads and theatre. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, budding nationalist groups used the distribution of newspapers and ballads to raise the nation's awareness of its own national history. While 'Aeolus' is set in a newspaper office, 'Ciclope' is chock-full of references to print culture, from articles taken from real periodicals to mentions of citizens' "paraphernalia documents." The news-saturated episode continues the pattern of parodic interpolations, here mocking biased media content, as a satirical piece on British imperialism read by the citizen:—A delegation of Manchester's leading cotton magnates was presented to Her Majesty yesterday the Alaki ofAbeakuta of Gold Stick in Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the heartfelt thanks of the British traders for the facilities afforded them in his dominions. (12.) Similar to the Homeric plot, the content of these imitated "journalistic" articles, while significant and certainly entertaining, is also somewhat secondary to the main topic. It is the swarm of periodicals in circulation and their consumption made farcical. Just as the plethora of stylistic voices contributes to this idea that there is no objective perception of events, the sheer volume of articles in circulation adds to the mixed messages that influence readers. In addition to the confusion caused by the number of newspapers, Joyce also includes the ceremonial or performative aspect surrounding their consumption. Pubs were a well-known meeting place for Irish nationalists to share their ideas. The public reading of newspaper articles allowed the masses to hear the messages of Irish unification and to reclaim their identity after a long period of British colonialism. This performance aspect is deeply rooted in the oral tradition of ballads, which have long been the only method of ensuring that history is not forgotten. Tales of the legendary races that created Ireland and the occult were usually the themes of these musical fables and over time they transformed into political ballads. Theater really entered the equation later in the century and seriously consolidated its role in this revival when Lady Gregory, W. B. Yeats and Edward Martin opened the Abbey Theater in 1904. The Irish literary revival aimed to foster a national consciousness, breaking with British imperialism forever and the struggle for new beginnings with a free Irish state. Two recurring stereotypes of the Irish were considered symbols to be reclaimed to dissociate themselves from colonial problems. The first was the loathsome “Stage-Irishman,” depicted as a cowardly drunk, and the second was the docile, passive woman. Ireland, historically attributed to this female image, was prevalent due to its Celtic mythology, occult past, and goddess symbolism. Revivalists took these images and reinvented them to suit a budding nation that needed to rediscover its identity after centuries of colonialism. These figures transformed the cowardly Irishman into a young soldier or artist, ready to fight for his country, and the weak woman into a powerful maternal figure reminiscent of ancient Irish traditions, personifying Ireland as a homeland. Cathleen Ni Houlihan, the most famous work with patriotic themes of the literary revival, was written by WB Yeats and Lady Gregory. They promoted the embodiment of Ireland, as a frail woman after her "four green fields" had been usurped and enticed a young man to sacrifice his life to recover them for her. The citizens' calls to action “And they will come again and with a vengeance, without cowardice, the sons of Granuaile, the champions of Kathleen Ni Houlihan,” (12.428.12) reflects this internalized militant discourse. “Cyclops” plays with performance tradition, and this episode is one of the most theatrical yet. The way the parodist and the citizen construct these events in Irish history and stage figures is melodramatic. Although the narrator describes the citizen's actions as ridiculous, he compares them to the caricature of the Queen's Theatre, which is an interesting juxtaposition to the highly functional style of the Abbey. Yeats was known to hate theatricality, believing that overly elaborate spectacles diminished the power of the script. Joyce sees the movement closer to British influences, then realizes it. The irony is well expressed. The Citizen,being a caricature of Irish revivalism, it serves to denounce its rhetoric and the bigoted attitudes occasionally associated with it. The character is described as wearing a belt adorned with signet stones engraved with "rude but striking art, the tribal images of many Irish heroes and heroines of old", solidifying his romanticism of ancient Ireland, a common thread in the revivalist speech. His bombastic attitude, combined with the parodist's theatrical portrayal of his character, seems to be closer to the characterization of Alexander Pope's mock epic poem “The Rape of the Lock” than to that of Homer's “Odyssey.” Its singular nostalgia and xenophobia illustrate Joyce's reservations about the movement, criticizing an ideology that could lead to further isolating Ireland. Odysseus himself is in a period of transition for Irish national identity. Set in 1904, while Ireland was still under the rule of England, this reality of the Irish colonial experience is a source of great tension, particularly with the agricultural population. The book's publication in 1922 comes a year after the emergence of the Irish Free State. The Citizen is the personification of militant Irish nationalism, while Bloom takes a seemingly oppositional position, leaning towards a more moderate solution to the "Irishness" question. Historically, the English have portrayed Irish men and women as morally bankrupt and politically incapable of justifying their rule over Ireland. The reality of Irish inequality, the loss of Irish culture and Irish land was not new. It comes from generations of English colonialism. One of the main motivations for this movement was the Great Potato Famine of the 19th century, during which the Gaelic-speaking population declined dramatically. The citizen makes this clear when he mentions the worst year of the famine: They were driven from their homes in black 47. Their mud cabins and their roadside shields were knocked down by the batteringgram and the Times rubbed its hands and reported As for the White-liver Saxons, there would soon be as few Irishmen in Ireland as there were Redskins in America. The Grand Turk also sent us his plates. But the Sassenachs sought to starve the nation at home while the land was full of crops that the British hyenas bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro. (12.427.33)Joyce draws many comparisons between Bloom and Charles Parnell, who had been an important political figure in the Irish nationalist movement and led the liberal Home Rule League. Parnell opposed Fenian revolutionary politics. The same citizen praises the terrorist acts committed by the group and detests the lukewarm methods of the League, which reacted with a boycott to assert its reasons. Interestingly, citizens seek to modernize through Irish independence. This nostalgic longing for ancient Ireland was a common thread in nationalist rhetoric. This antagonism between the brash citizen and the protagonist often led readers to sympathize with Bloom. Joyce's authorial intent seems clear enough on first reading, however there is much more implicit. Bloom's Ambivalent Identity is an exploration of the nuances of Ireland's identity after a long and complicated history with British colonialism. The very idea of ​​Irishness is clouded by ideas of national identity that no longer exist in their primitive form. The citizen's absolutist perception of what he defines as the Nation completely neglects everything that does not fit into his logic. It seems easy to sympathize with Bloom's plight here. The anti-Semitism to which he is subjected, both from/ 27820927.