Bloom’s Jewish identity, of great significance to his acquaintances, permanently positions himself in the role of the Other in most of his societal engagements, influencing his feelings of loneliness and alienation exhibited throughout Ulysses. As a Dubliner with Hungarian-Jewish heritage, Bloom possesses a unique vantage point to view the class/racial dynamic between the Gaelic-Irish Catholics, who constitute most of the country’s population, and the Anglo-Irish landowners of the Protestant Ascendancy who control much of the island’s economic resources and political institutions. While his social status as a Jew prevents Bloom from ever fully integrating into either camp, he frequently fantasizes about what such an assimilation might look like and how he might fit in within such a milieu.
In the episodes, “Lemon Sole”, “Combustible Duck” and “Eton Mess”, we see how Bloom imagines the social customs of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. Inspired by the question and answer format and dry, scientific language of Ithaca, these episodes present a sociological exploration of class through the prism of upper class gastronomy. For example, the “Lemon Sole” episode begins with a “catalogue of cold, hard facts” (L559) pertinent to an afternoon luncheon of the aristocracy, with several details pulled directly from Bloom’s “Flowerville” landowner fantasy. Joycean scholars like Karen Lawrence have suggested that the cold, technical language employed in this chapter represents the barrenness of Bloom’s social/emotional life. In conversation with this idea, as the episode progresses the language evolves to become warmer and more ornate, representing Bloom’s fantasy of acceptance at the highest strata of society. In contrast to the frustrations Bloom faces in his futile attempts to connect with Stephen, in this episode, the characters actually welcome him into their lives with “smiles” and “invitations.”
The consumptive theatricality exhibited in this meal operates almost on the level of religious ritual, binding its participants by the sheer indulgence of the affair. Throughout Ulysses, Bloom’s obsessive consumption of food operates as a vehicle for fulfillment in a world he feels increasingly estranged from. In these episodes, Bloom imagines an alternate reality in which these obsessions with ingredients and ambiance are shared in a way that engenders feelings of kinship and acceptance.
However, such feelings quickly unravel as the poultry course arrives. The mutilation of the carcass in the duck press serves as a metaphor for the gluttony and unrepentant brutality of Ireland’s colonial overlords both on the island and further abroad. For example, the episode briefly mentions the Viceroy’s involvement in the Second Boer War, a notoriously unpopular colonial war, which was vehemently opposed by Irish nationalists who saw their own plight in that of the Boer struggle. As his mind floats back toward reality, Bloom realizes the irresolvable contradictions between his egalitarian moral values and the elitism of such an entrenched upper class.
This narrative voice ends with "Eton Mess," a brief vision of little Rudy, Bloom’s dead son, who he imagines to be a thriving student in Eton College, England’s premier boarding school. As evidenced by this vision, Bloom is a man full of contradictory values. Though he is critical of the vacuous bigotry of the Imperial elite, he still desires the security of such a social position, especially for his offspring. The fantasy of Rudy in an “Eton suit”, a symbol of full assimilation, is emblematic of the constant anxiety inextricable from Bloom’s status as the Other. Bloom’s fantasies of Anglo-Irish culture represent his desire to be perceived as ordinary as defined by the British cultural norms of the day.
Sources:
Ben-Merre, D. (1981). Bloom and Milly: A Portrait of the Father and the "Jew's Daughter". James Quarterly, 18(4), 439-444. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25476392
Lawrence, Karen R. “Style and Narrative in the ‘Ithaca’ Chapter of Joyce's Ulysses.” ELH, vol. 47, no. 3, 1980, pp. 559–574. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2872796.
Bloom often finds himself wrapped up in scientific curiosity. This narrative voice allows Bloom to take his scientific mind to a more advanced state, all while applying his knowledge to food. However, this refined mind reveals a different, perhaps colder Bloom than readers are accustomed to. We see Bloom go out of his way to harm an animal and haughtily assume the intelligence of the reader, as evidenced by his repetitious usage of “of course.”
In “Slingshot Pigeon,” Bloom uses his knowledge of physics to kill a bird midair. Indeed, he is happy to do so in order to demonstrate his acumen. His remorse is present but fleeting. Continuing to the “Perfume Soup,” Bloom attempts to mask his disgust at the dish presented to him. The recipe here is intended to remind him of Molly. The opoponax, lemon soap, and oatmeal are all critical components to Molly’s hygiene and beauty care. Despite Bloom’s love of Molly, he critically deconstructs the dish in his mind and deems it cumbersome and inedible. Lastly, the “Guinness Float” narrative shows a Bloom struggling to stay awake. Drowsiness effectively masks some of Empirical Bloom’s arrogance. His scientific observations become less astute as his vocabulary attempts to compensate.
In “Ithaca,” it is noted that Bloom represents “[t]he scientific.” While Bloom’s education never turned this mindset into a career, he still maintains a strong curiosity in the sciences. With this narrative voice, we catch a glimpse at what Bloom may sound like if his history had taken a different course. Bloom is thus reborn with a new set of quirks and mannerisms, but he loses some of the sensitivity and sensibility that he has gained throughout his life of silent reflection.
As different as Bloom and Stephen are in many regards, they have one thing in common: their position as both an insider and outsider – especially in regard to the topic of Irish nationalism. I see this as continuation of the project that Joyce started in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and reflective of Joyce’s own position towards Irish nationalism. That is to say, he was not against Irish nationalism, but he was also not for the type of Irish nationalism that many young men in Ireland prescribed to at the time. “Non serviam,” as Stephen says, Joyce was not only skeptical of groups in general, but especially skeptical of the hyper-masculine, hyper-religious, hyper-romanticized and -prideful ideology perpetuated through mainstream Irish nationalism. And moreover, that these circles spent more time womanizing and standing each other drinks in bars than they anything else.
Like Joyce, Bloom suffers from this double-bind - he hangs around the Celtic Revival circles at times, has an Irish wife, and converted to Catholicism from Judaism, yet he is still too Jewish, too feminine, and too politically neutral to be an insider in the groups of traditional Irish men portrayed through various characters in Ulysses. Reluctant Republican Bloom’s recipes and corresponding narratives are an attempt to capture Bloom’s complex relationship with Irish tradition and culture. In the episode “Lettuce, Potato, Pea Soup,” Bloom is contemplating his place as outsider in his own home. The phrase “he is not entitled to my butter” comes from an ancient Irish law that articulates how much food and hospitality a host owes to their guest, but when Bloom thinks this he is thinking about Molly and Boylan. Sitting at his wooden table, made of Spanish chestnut (another metaphor for Molly), he contemplates the way such wood can be described as “an introduced species.” As a foreigner, Bloom of course is also an introduced species. Even more importantly, so are peas - even though pea soup, and peas in general are a traditional Irish meal. Peas and other pulse crops were actually brought with the invasion of the Normans, the same invasion that began 700 odd years of British involvement in Ireland. In this way, traditional Irish meal and myth are subverted by a more complex relationship.
This theme continues and is emphasized even more in the episode “Mackerel Pâté.” Like peas, fish are another staple of traditional Irish diet. The Irish coastline extends more than 3,500 miles, and inside the country there is more than 10,000 miles of rivers and streams in addition to about 50 lakes. But similar to peas, the fishing techniques Irish fishers have used over the centuries were actually brought by a different invader: the Vikings. In this episode, Bloom is thinking that today (being Friday, June 17, 1904; the day after Bloomsday), Molly will be buying fish. This is typical of Catholics on Fridays, but represents another false myth. Eating fish on holy days was actually a tradition in paganism, again possibly brought by the Vikings, long before it found its way into Christianity. Furthermore, Bloom remembers what the Citizen said the day before of Denis Breen, that Breen was “neither flesh nor fish.” Here the double-bind theme is repeated again. When the Citizen calls Breen a pishogue, he means to call him a fairy but instead uses a similar though incorrect Irish word that means something more like spell or enchantment. In this small mistake, I believe Joyce is making his point about Irish nationalists, especially those attempting to revive Gaelic, by subverting their own language.
Finally, in the episode “Irish Stew” another typical Irish meal is pondered and complicated. This time the subject is the potato, the main ingredient in any Irish stew and the start place for any discussion about Irish diet and cooking. At this point, you could guess what comes next – the potato is a New World crop, and not native to Ireland either. Yet in this episode it is not the national symbol of Ireland and its struggle to overcome colonialism and the potato famine either. In Bloom’s thoughts in this episode, the potato only reminds him of the poor Dedalus family, of idleness, economic under-achievement, and the way Irish Catholic families seem to reproduce without regard to how they will pay for another child. In this way, Reluctant Republican Bloom’s role in both this narrative and the tasting menu is to present something “traditionally Irish” and complicate it through Bloom’s thoughts, the perspective of the other, and a de-romanticization of myth and nationalism.
Sources:
Andrews, Colman. The Country Cooking of Ireland. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2009. Print.
FitzPatrick, Elizabeth, and James Kelly, editors. Food and Drink in Ireland. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2016. Print.
Merritt, Robert. “Faith and Betrayal: The Potato in ‘Ulysses.’” James Joyce Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 1, 1990, pp. 269–276. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25485131.
Syme, S.A. Collingham, Lizzie. The taste of empire: how Britain's quest for food shaped the modern world. Basic Books: New York, 2017.
Against the backdrop of Bloom’s intertwining desires for food and sex, the recipes for “Woman’s Milk Tea,” “Sucking Pig,” and “Seedcake” engage with Bloom’s anxieties: his guilt, his wife’s infidelity, and his impotence to father a son. The fusion of hunger and sex in the recipes and in Ulysses highlights Bloom’s craving for comfort: comfort in good food, romantic intimacy, and human companionship. In a broader sense, it indicates a human craving to be nourished body, mind, and soul.
“Woman’s Milk Tea” functions as a sexual fantasy that is simultaneously placed in two different points in time: the past when Molly just gave birth to Milly and her breasts were so full of milk that they hurt and the present when Molly has already cheated on Bloom and Milly is 15 years old. The past is invoked through the plot, which is centered on the fact that Molly’s breasts are achingly full and that Bloom can alleviate her pain by consuming her milk. The present is invoked through the first two sentences of the recipe. The opening sentence of this recipe and the entire Tasting Menu is modeled after the sentence that begins the first episode presented through Bloom's perspective. The second sentence is also pulled from the first Bloom episode to situate the reader in the context of the home, of the relationship between Molly and Bloom, and of the kitchen where Bloom labors to serve Molly first and himself second. Once again, Bloom's labors tend to Molly's needs. However, the recipe “Woman’s Milk Tea” mainly caters to Bloom's fantasy of milking his wife into the tea and the illusion of the marital intimacy that he presently lacks.
“Sucking Pig” is a dream-like sequence of Bloom’s sub-conscious that borrows heavily from the Circe episode. This recipe explores a moment of guilt for eating pig despite Bloom’s Jewish ancestry before dovetailing into guilt for his lust. The recipe then touches on his wife’s infidelity before Bloom’s mixture of self-loathing and sexual arousal for punishment is satisfied by his wife Molly. In the end, Bloom is baked like a suckling pig with his wife’s garters and drawers thrust into his mouth. As Bloom is particularly fond of garters and thinks of his wife’s garters several times throughout Ulysses, this ending is both a punishment and a fulfillment of Bloom’s greatest fantasies.
“Seedcake” recalls the memory of Rudy’s conception and connects the current dissolution of his marriage to his inability to pass his name onto a son.