How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph), except for the "Circe" episode, which is (Chapter.Line) and the "Penelope" episode, which is (Chapter.Page). We used the Vintage International edition published in 1990.
Quote #1
Ugly and futile: lean neck and tangled hair and a stain of ink, a snail's bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. But for her the race of the world would have trampled him under foot, a squashed boneless snail. She had loved this weak watery blood draining from her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in life? (2.69).
Here, in "Nestor," Stephen observes his student, Cyril Sargent. Stephen initially resents Sargent, but then begins to sympathize with the student when he thinks of how Sargent's mother must have loved him. Is Stephen starting to understand the nature of love or does the fact that his thoughts quickly turn to his own mother suggest that he still is far too self-absorbed to understand love?
Quote #2
"- The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a thing done." Signed: Dedalus. (9.207)
How does Stephen's telegram to Mulligan in "Scylla and Charybdis" indirectly explain his own trouble with loving? Does he think that he has to justify his love? Is it possible to rationally justify love? Does the telegram explain how Stephen distinguishes himself from the constant-mocker Mulligan? Is the distinction justified?
Quote #3
"- Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life."
- "What?" says Alf.
- "Love," says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says he to John Wyse." (12.423 – 425)
How much courage must it take for Bloom to preach the importance of love to intoxicated and indifferent Irishman in Burke's pub? Does the message sound to these men? Is it affective, or does he just sound like a sentimentalist?