The Arranger in Ulysses

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The Self-Reflexive Arranger in the Initial Style of Joyce's "Ulysses"Author(s): John SomerSource: James Joyce Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Winter, 1994), pp. 65-79Published by: University of TulsaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25485420

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2/16

musm

The

Self-Reflexive

Arranger

in

the Initial

Style

of

Joyce's

Ulysses1

John

Somer

Emporia

State

University

In

1970,

when

David

Hayman

announced

the

presence

of

the

arranger

in

James

Joyce's Ulysses,

he seemed to offer an

approach

to readers who

had

puzzled

over

the

novel

since

1922.2

From

the

beginning,

readers

struggled

with

the

book's

extravagant

adherence

to,

and exuberant deviation

from,

mimetic

representation.

For

S.

L.

Goldberg

in

1961,

for

example,

the

first

half of

the novel

was

realistic

and

the last

a

rather

pretentious

parade

of

literary

machinery 3

It is

common

knowledge

now

that the

mimetic

illusion of the entire

novel

is

disrupted by

numerous

devices,

among

them

a

traveling

point

of

view,

a

disjointed plot,

and

an

unresolved

conclusion.

Ulysses

fails, then,

to

sustain

a

traditional

realistic

structure.

While

earlier

critics,

such as T. S. Eliot and

Joseph

Frank,

found

meaning

in

its

poetic

structure,

they

did

not

resolve

its

narrative

problems.4

Their

work

did

suggest,

however,

that

there

are

meaningful

patterns

in

the

text.

Hayman

seems

to

draw from

both

positions,

and

while

he

sees

Ulysses

as a

realistic

novel,

containing

'lifelike

situations,

he

recognizes

its

structural difficulties.

He

prefers,

however,

to

see

the

novel's

multifarious

parts

as

functional

aspects

of

the book's

mean

ing

(Hayman

xi-xii).

During

his discussion of the mechanics of

Ulysses,

Hayman

intro

duces

the

arranger

and

defines

it

as

a

figure

or

a

presence

that

can

be

identified neither

with

the author

nor

with

his

narrators,

but that

exercises

an

increasing degree

of

overt

control

over

increasingly

challenging

materials

(84).

Gradually,

the

narrator of

the

early

episodes

evolves,

Hayman

adds,

into

the artist-God

as

cosmic

joker,

and

eventually

becomes,

in

the

second half of

Ulysses,

the

arranger,

a

creature of

many

faces

but

a

single

impulse,

a

larger

version

of

his

characters

with

a

larger

field

of

vision

and

many

more

perceptions

to

control

(93).

In

his

1982

revised

Ulysses :

The

Me

chanics

of

Meaning, Hayman

offers

a

second definition:

The

arranger

should be seen as

something

between a

persona

and a

function,

somewhere

between

the

narrator

and

the

implied

author,

65

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3/16

One is

tempted

to

speak

of

him

as

an

it. ...

Perhaps

it

would

be

best

to

see

the

arranger

as...

an

unstated

but

inescapable

source

of

control.

(122-23)

After

acknowledging

the

work

of other

critics

on

the

concept

of the

arranger,

he insists

that the

arranger

is

the

sum

of the

narrative

process

rather

than

a

component

of

it

(124).

For

Hayman,

the

arranger

subtly

penetrates

the

fabric of the

narrative

at

a

variety

of

points

and

in

a

variety

of

ways

(124).

As

he

develops

the

variety

of

ways,

he

comes as

close

as

he

ever

does

to

providing

a

descrip

tion

of

the functions

of

the

arranger.

We

are

told the

arranger

is

in

the initial

action of

Ulysses_It

is

also behind...

the

style

shifts

that mark

each

of

the

early

chapters_Furthermore,

the

arranger

controls

the

suppression

of

information and

action-Indeed,

just

about

any

intrusive

or

arbitrary phenomenon

should

be

attributed

to

the arranging persona. (125)

The

arranger,

then,

is

one

of the

creative

forces behind

the

text

of

Ulysses,

but

it

remains,

for

Hayman,

an

amorphous

entity

undefined

by

presence

or

purpose.

While

Hayman's

approach

to

the

novel

has

remained

influential,

his

work

with the

arranger

has

been

emulated,

ignored,

or

de

nounced.

Hugh

Kenner

is

the

arranger's

greatest

champion, analyz

ing

and

illustrating

its actions

in

1980.5

Many

recent

critics,

however,

such

as

Marilyn

French and

Karen

Lawrence,

ignore

the

arranger

and its potential to justify the novel's fragmentation because they

view

the

uncertainties

of the novel

as

its

point

and theme.6

Likewise,

John

Paul

Riquelme

and Dermot

Kelly

see

the novel's

problems

as

symbolic

expressions

of

psychic

and

mythic

dimensions

that could

be articulated

no

other

way7

Others attack

the

arranger.

Shari

and

Bernard

Benstock,

for

example,

argue

that the

story

does

not

issue

from

either

a

narrator

or an

arranger

but

generates

itself

as

it

pro

ceeds.8

Patrick

McGee believes that

it is

an error

to

personify

the

arranger

because

it is

merely

a

principle

of

arrangement. 9

While

recent

critics

share

Hayman's

view

that the technical

problems

in

Ulysses

are amanifestation of its theme, most do not share

Hayman's

interest

in

the

arranger.10

Perhaps

they

see

the

arranger

as

a

sim

plistic

and

reductive

answer

to

the

novel's

problems

and,

thus,

as a

misrepresentation

and

betrayal

of

Joyce's

attack

upon

simplistic

and

reductive

conceptions

of

reality11

The

concept

of

the

arranger,

however,

is

nearly

as

complex

as

Ulysses

itself.

To

study

this

device,

I

will

first discuss

its

relation to

a

narrator in both

realistic

and

self-reflexive

fiction,

and

then I

will

discuss its

relevance

to

the

struggle

between

the

mimetic

and

self

66



4/16

reflexive traditions.

Third,

I

will

compare

its functions

to

those of

a

narrator.

Next,

I

will

explain

how

the

initial

style

(Joyce's

name

for

the

style

of the

first ten

episodes

of

Ulysses)

creates

the

arranger

by

failing

to

achieve

a

dramatic

mimesis in

the

first

six

episodes.12

Finally,

Iwill

identify

the

five

self-reflexive

devices

that

constitute

the

arranger's

actions in the first six

episodes

of

Ulysses

before the

arranger

formally

presents

itself

in

the

headlines of

the

seventh

episode,

Aeolus.

An

arranger

is

that

part

of

an

author's

creative

persona responsi

ble for

weighing

creative

options,

for

selecting

a

narrative

strategy,

and

finally

for

designing

a

fictional

world.

A

narrator

is

that

part

of

that

same

persona

who carries

out

the decisions

of

the

arranger

and

who, thus,

manifests

the

arranger's

fictional

world

in

language.

In

realistic

fiction,

the

arranger

remains

behind

the

author while

the

narrator

stands

in

front

of

him.

In

novels

narrated

by

an

omniscient

third-person

narrator,

the

distinctions

among

the

author,

arranger,

and

narrator

tend

to

disappear,

creating

the illusion

that

the

author,

an

omniscient

witness of

history,

is

speaking

truthfully

to

the

reader

about

events

shaped by

fate,

not

by

an

arranger.

In

realistic

stories

narrated

by

a

first-person

narrator,

the

author

is

clearly

dis

tinguished

from the narrator but

not

the

arranger.

As the

narrator

describes

the world

from his

vantage

point,

the

author

and

arranger

work

together

to

orient

the

reader both

to

the

story

and

to

the

narrator

by

manipulating

a

world

larger

than

the narrator's.

In

Ken

Kesey's One Flew

over

the Cuckoo's Nest, for example, Kesey's arrang

ing

persona

defends

the

novel

from

the

charge

of antifeminism

by

adding

the

Jap

nurse,

a

sympathetic

portrait

of

a

woman.13 Since

the narrator's

story

does

not

causally

require

the

nurse,

her

ap

pearance

reveals

the

presence

of

Kesey,

arranging

events

behind

the

narrator?Chief

Bromden. In

mimetic

stories,

then,

the author

may

disassociate

himself from his

narrators,

but he does

not

distinguish

himself

from the

arranger.

In

self-reflexive

fiction,

however,

the

arranger

exists

indepen

dently

from the

author,

standing

in

front

of

him and

his

narrator.

The arranger demonstrates his omniscient control over the narrative

by

arranging

the surface of the

text

before

a

reader's

eyes.

While

Joyce

in

Ulysses

disassociates himself

from his

numerous

narrators

and

himself and

his

narrators from

his

arranger,

self-reflexive

writ

ers

tend

to

revise his

strategy.

With

notable

exceptions,

such

as

Tim

O'Brien's

Going

After

Cacciato,14

they

tend

to unite

the

narrator

with

the

arranger.

The

result

is

that the

narrator

must

voice

the

narrative

strategies

of

the

arranger.

In

Vladimir

Nabokov's

The

Leonardo,

for

example,

the

arranger

describes

through

the

narrator

the

con

67



5/16

tours

of

the

world

it has

established:

Now

this

is

the

way

we'll

arrange

the

world:

every

man

shall

sweat,

every

man

shall eat.

There will be

work,

there will be

belly-cheer,

there

will

be

a

clean,

warm,

sunny-. 15

As

the

arranger

sketches

the social and moral

perimeters

of

this

world,

it

excludes the

life of the intellect.

Clearly,

the

arranger

forces the reader to watch it create a

literary

universe

and

to

see

itsmimetic

limitations,

its

arbitrary

boundaries,

which

are

sufficient, however,

to

contain the

story

of

the

Leonardo. The value

of

the

arranger

to

self-reflexive

writers

is that

it

provides

a

vehicle

for

them to

demonstrate

their

skepticism

of

knowledge,

just

as

an

omniscient

narrator once

manifested

faith

in

knowledge.

The

exis

tential

resonance

of

the

arranger

can

best be

seen,

however,

in

its

contribution

to

the

tradition of self-reflexion.

Because

Joyce's

arranger

is

distinct from the author

and his

nar

rators

arguably

for the first

time

in

literary

history,

Ulysses

is

the

first

direct assault

on

the

presumptions

of realism

by

the

conventions

of

self-reflexion.16

One

of

the

central

themes

of this novel

is

the

dis

crepancy

between the

mimetic

written-oral

tradition

and

the

self

reflexive

written

tradition,

a

distinction

not

clearly

drawn before

1922.

The

mimetic

written-oral

tradition

is

a

complex

of

written

narrative conventions

that fosters

the illusion that

a

real

story

is

being

told

orally.

In

contrast,

the self-reflexive tradition

is

a

complex

of

written

narrative conventions

that

numerically

represents

the

way

writers

use

narrative devices

to

create

the illusion

of

mimesis.

The

mimetic written-oral

tradition encourages readers

to

feel that

the

story

they

are

reading

is

believable

and

that

they

have lived

alongside

its

characters and have learned

as

much

or more

than

they

have. The

mimetic

written-oral

tradition

achieves this illusion

in

two

ways.

First,

the

texture

of the

story

must

seem

to

mirror

plausible

characters

doing possible

things.

Second,

the

structure of

the

story

must

seem

to

incorporate

the

workings

of

destiny

itself. Because the

narrator,

especially

the

third-person,

omniscient

narrator,

embodies

both

the novel's

texture

and

form,

he

is

the

heart

of the

mimetic

illusion. While the

narrator

animates the

novel's

moral and

intellec

tual vision, it is, paradoxically, the personal appeal of his voice

speaking

directly

to

readers

that humanizes this

omniscient witness

of

history

and

makes him

accessible

and,

thus,

credible. His author

ity

derives

from

his

voice.

The

distinguishing

feature of the

written

oral

tradition, then,

is

the

presence

of

a

narrator

who

pretends

to

speak

to

readers.

Perhaps

this

convention

derives from the novel's

desire

to

tell the

secrets

of

men's

hearts

with the

authority

of

an

oral

singer.

As

Robert

Scholes and Robert

Kellogg

note,

however,

the

authority

of this

convention

is

compromised

in

the written-oral

68



6/16

tradition

because

in

any

written

narrative

there

is

at

least

a

poten

tial,

and

usually

an

actual,

ironic

disparity

between

the

knowledge

and

values

of the

author

and

those

of the

narrator. 17

The

oral

narrator, then,

with

its

siren

call,

is

both

the

strength

and

weakness

of

the

written-oral

tradition.

Inexperienced

readers,

seduced

by

a

craving

for a reliable

authority

tend to

ignore

the

disparity

between

authors

and

narrators

and

to

hear what

they

want to

hear.

The

mimetic written-oral

tradition,

then,

tends

to

reinforce the

per

vasive human

tendency

to

reject

the

world

of

experience

for

a

more

congenial

and

fanciful

one.

The

self-reflexive

written

tradition,

on

the

other

hand,

ejects

readers from

the fancied

illusion

of

the

narrative

and

immerses

them

in

the sensual

reality

of

processing

print

on

paper.

Upon

finishing

a

self-reflexive

story

readers

are

supposed

to

feel

that

they

have lived

the life of

the author

as

he

creates

a

story

before their

eyes.

Certainly,

they

will

become

acquainted

with

the

devices

that

an

author

uses

and the

way

he

uses

them

to create

the illusion

that

he

is

mirroring

reality.

Possibly,

readers

may

even come

to

see

that

stories

are

writ

ten

by

mere

people

about

ways

to

negotiate

imaginatively

with

a

world that

resists

rational

apprehension.

The self-reflexive tradition

generates

such

perceptions

in

two

ways.

First,

the texture

of

the

story

must

suggest,

however

faintly,

the

presence

of

characters,

and

it

must

reveal the author's methods

of

developing

them.

Second,

the

structure

of the

story

must

incorporate

the

author's

conscious

use

of

a

paradigm

to

provide

an

orderly

and

meaningful shape

to

the

story.

Because

the

arranger

selects the

story's

texture

and form

and, thus,

determines

its

moral and intellectual

value,

the

arranger

is

the mind

of

the

self-reflexive

experience.

Perhaps

the

arranger

issues

from the

ironic

disparity

between

authors

and

narrators

in

written

texts

whose

aspiration

is

to

reveal

the

secrets

of

men's

hearts.

By

man

ifesting

this

disparity,

the

arranger,

superior

to

a

narrator,

shows

men's

real secret-their

means

of

creating

a

formal

order.

Because

inexperienced

readers tend

to

ignore

this

disparity

they

require

an

arranger

to

jar

them from

this

misperception.

Free

of

the

spell

of the

narrator, they will then have the power to focus upon the mystery of

language

and the elusive

juncture

between the

world

and the

mind.

The self-reflexive

written

tradition,

then,

invites readers

to

reject

a

congenial

fanciful

vision

and

to

accept

the

human

quandary,

how

ever

mystifying

it

may

appear

to

be.

Since

the

narrator

and the

arranger

embody

their

respective

liter

ary

traditions,

itwill

be

helpful

to

compare

their functions.

A

nar

rator,

reminiscent

of

the

author's

voice,

is

a

literary

device

that

fosters the

illusion

in

readers that

they

are

hearing

the

words

they

69



7/16

read

on

the

page.

The

arranger,

reminiscent

of

the author's

mind and

hand,

is

a

literary

device

that

forces

readers

to

acknowledge

that

they

are

reading.

While

a

narrator

may

appeal

to

a

reader's mental

ear,

the

arranger

frequently

appeals

to

a

reader's

physical

eye.

While

a

narrator

draws the

reader

into the

narrative's

illusion,

the

arranger

alerts the reader to its

typographical

reality.

A narrator

springs

to life

in

his

voice?his

cadences,

his

diction?and becomes

a

familiar

personality

The

arranger,

on

the

other

hand,

arranges

type

before

the

reader's

eyes

and,

because

of

the

unexpected

nature

of

its

work,

remains

foreign

and

appears

manipulative.

As

different

as

a

nar

rator

and

an

arranger

might

appear

to

be,

however,

they

share

many

important

duties.

Just

as a

narrator

masks

the

author,

standing

between him

or

her

and

the

text,

so

too

can

an

arranger.

Just

as

a

narrator

becomes

a

character

by

setting

his

own

agenda,

beginning

his

story

where

he

wishes,

shaping

the

story

to

reveal

his

point,

and

embodying

in his

story

the flow of his

mind,

so too can an

arranger.

The

arranger,

then,

has the

potential

to

grow

and

develop

as

any

character

in

a

story.

Joyce

appears

to

see

the

arranger

as a

character

because he drama

tizes

its

origins

so

carefully

in

the

first

six

episodes

of

Ulysses

before

he

formally

introduces

it in

Aeolus. Like the

mythic

figure

Daedalus,

the

arranger

rises from

a

labyrinth,

a

fabulous artifice

the initial

style.

The

most venturesome form

of mimesis

ever

haz

arded

by

a

novelist,

the initial

style

clarifies

the

aspirations

of

the

mimetic

written-oral tradition by attempting

to

present reality

ob

jectively

and,

as a

result,

authoritatively.

Such

goals

are

implicit

in

the

conclusion of

Stephen

Dedalus's aesthetic

as

articulated

in

A

Portrait

of

the

Artist

as

a

Young

Man.

While

Stephen

and his

friend,

Lynch,

stroll

through

the

streets

of

Dublin,

Stephen

discusses

three

issues:

the

purpose

of

art,

the

nature

of

beauty,

and the

forms

of

art.

At this

stage

of

his

career,

Stephen's

aesthetic

reaches

its

crescendo

in

his

final

point.

Art,

he

says,

has three

forms,

the

lyrical

(the

most

subjective),

the

epical,

and

the

dramatic

(the

most

objective).

If

art

is

to

represent

life

truly,

the

artist

must

provide

his

audience

no more

help with his narrative than God provides them with life. The artist

should remain within

or

behind

or

beyond

or

above

his

handiwork,

invisible,

refined

out of

existence,

indifferent,

paring

his

fingernails

(P 215).

According

to

Stephen,

if

art

is

to

be

authoritative,

it

must

be

objective,

that

is,

dramatic

in

form.

While

Joyce

strove

for

a

dramatic

and

objective style

in

both

Dubliners and

A

Portrait,

the

initial

style

seems

to

be

Joyce's

fullest

expression

of

Stephen's

aesthetic.18 The

distinguishing

feature

of

the initial

style

is

the

limited role of the

omniscient

narrator.

To

70



8/16

demote the

narrator,

Joyce

surrounds it

with

interior

monologues

and

with

free indirect discourses. The

introduction

of

the

novel

illustrates

the

initial

style.

Its

first

sentence,

Stately

plump

Buck

Mulligan

came

from the

stairhead,

bearing

a

bowl

of lather

on

which

a

mirror and

a razor

lay

crossed

(U 1.01-02),

is

the

work

of

an

omniscient narrator.19 The narrator continues to describe the actions

of

Buck

Mulligan

and

Stephen

Dedalus and

to introduce their di

alogue

on

top

of Martello

tower

on

the

morning

of

16

June.

Before

the

first

page

is

finished,

however,

Joyce

seemingly

leaves the

omnis

cient

narrator

for

a one

word

interior

monologue,

a

device that

allows the

reader

to

leave the

narrator

and

enter

the

minds of

characters

to

experience

directly

what

they

are

thinking

and

feel

ing.20

Within

pages,

Joyce

adds

a

third

narrative

device

to

the initial

style?free

indirect

discourse.

With this

device,

the

narrator

adopts

the

idiom

of

one

character

or

another

and sometimes

even a

scene,

and thus allows the reader

the

sensation

of

being

in

the

mind

of the

characters

or

in the ambience of

a scene

without

actually leaving

the

grasp

of the

omniscient

narrator.21

Unlike

the interior

monologue,

which

reveals

what

a

character

consciously

knows,

free

indirect

discourse

can

reveal

both

what

a

character

is

aware

of and

what he

is

ignorant

of. The fusion of these

narrative

devices enables

the initial

style

to

present

objective

events

and

to

reveal

the

subjective

world

to

almost

any

degree.

As

the

omniscient

narrator

recedes

into

the

background

and

surrenders

more

and

more

of the

narrative

to

interior monologues

and

free

indirect

discourses,

even

the

dialogue,

rather

than

appearing

to

be

reported,

seems

to

exist

independently

of

the

narrator,

hinged by

the

merest

of transitions.

Thus

con

stituted,

the initial

style

removes

from

the

text

all

but

the last

rem

nant

of the narrator's

presence,

apparently

allowing

readers

to

enter

Ulysses

directly.

As

a

result,

the

initial

style

seems

to

create

for

Joyce

a

flexible

and

nearly

invisible

means

of

drawing

readers

into

the

story

without

reminding

them

that

they

are

actually

reading

a

book. The

initial

style,

therefore,

is

ostensibly

a

technical

attempt

to

refine the

artist

from the

story

and

to

achieve

the

dramatic mode of

mimesis.

By appearing to present reality without filtering it through a nar

rator,

the

style

seems,

paradoxically,

to

mask

the

ironic

disparity

between

authors

and

narrators,

seems

to

reveal

to

the world

from

every

side

and

to

expose

the

secrets

of

men's

hearts,

and,

finally,

seems

to

achieve

the

objectivity

of

Stephen's

aesthetic

and

the

au

thenticity

of

an

oral

singer.

Unfortunately,

the

initial

style,

despite

the

apparent

success

of

its

dramatic

fusion of

the

effaced

narrator

and

interior

monologue,

fails

to achieve

such

authority

and

instead intensifies

the

flaw

within

the

71



9/16

written-oral

tradition

because the initial

style

has

two

fundamental

weaknesses: the

effaced

narrator

and free indirect discourse.

For

tunately,

however,

this

same

combination

of weaknesses

creates

Joyce's original

response

to

the

irony

inherent

in

the written-oral

tradition:

that

is,

the

self-reflexive

strategy

of the

arranger.

Thus,

the

initial

style

is the narrative

juncture

between mimesis and self

reflexion.

The

first

problem

with the initial

style

is

the

effaced

narrator. As

the

omniscient

narrator

shrinks

within the

text,

the

narrative

seems

to

advance itself

as

it

moves

from

one

narrative device

to

another.

In

the

first

episode,

for

example,

the

narrator

describes Buck

Mulligan

as

he descends from

the

top

of Martello

Tower:

His head vanished

but the

drone of his

descending

voice

boomed

out

of

the

stairhead

(U

1.237-38).

Then

dialogue

appears

as

Buck

quotes

from

W.

B.

Yeats's

Who Goes

with

Fergus :

-And

no

more

turn

aside

and

brood

I

Upon

love's bitter

mystery

I

For

Fergus

rules the brazen cars

(U

1.242-47).22

In

the

next

paragraph,

the

style

shifts

immediately

to

free indirect

discourse,

and the

narrator,

assuming

the

romantic

diction

and

vision

of

early

Yeats,

describes

the

morning

scene,

Woodshadows

floated

silently

by

through

the

morning

peace

from

the stairhead

seaward

where

he

gazed_White

breast of the dim

sea_Wavewhite wedded

words

shimmering

on

the

dim

tide

(U

1.242-47).

The

narrator returns

in

the next

paragraph

and

describes

the

same

scene,

A

cloud

began

to

cover

the

sun

slowly, wholly,

shadowing the bay in deeper green (U 1.248-49). Then the narrator,

assuming

free

indirect

discourse,

describes the

bay

using

an

image

from

Stephen

Dedalus's

memory

of his

mother's

deathbed:

It

lay

beneath

him,

a

bowl

of

bitter

waters

(U 1.249).

Next

the

paragraph

shifts without

warning

to

Stephen's

interior

monologue,

Fergus'

song:

I

sang

it

alone

in

the

house

(U

1.249-50). (As

his mother

lay

on

her deathbed

nearly

a

year

before the

novel's

time,

she

had

asked

her

son

to

pray

for her and

instead heard

him

sing

Yeats's

poem.)

Stephen's monologue

continues

for

several

sentences,

ending

with

his

quoting

his

mother,

who

repeated

Stephen's

words

from

Yeats's

poem: For those words, Stephen: love's bitter mystery (U

1.252-53).

As this

brief

passage

illustrates,

the

initial

style

shifts

often

and

unexpectedly

from

one

narrative

mode

to

another.

In

order for these

shifts

to

occur

economically

the narrator

shrinks

within

the

text

and,

consequently,

gives

readers the

opportunity

to

encounter the

narrative

without

a

narrator

and

to

experience

what

Stephen

De

dalus calls the dramatic

form

of

narration. The

initial

style

gener

ates,

then,

within

its

audience the

feeling

that

they

are

in

contact

72



10/16

with

a

reality

that

is

rendered

directly

to

them and

not

one

mediated

through

a

prejudiced

sensibility.

In

the written-oral

tradition,

how

ever,

this confidence

is

short-lived

because

readers

simply

have

time-which

they

would

not

have

if

they

were

really

auditors

and

not

readers-time

to

consider

a

passage,

such

as

the

one

described

above and to

question

it. For

example,

if the narrator is refined from

the

narrative,

who

makes

the decisions

to

move

from

description

to

dialogue,

to

free indirect

discourse,

and

to

interior

monologue?

The

answer,

of

course,

is

James

Joyce.

Since that

is

true,

the

artist

literally

is

not

being

refined from

Ulysses,

only

the

narrator

is,

and

they

are

ironically

disparate.

As

a

result,

the initial

style,

with

its

effaced

narrator,

seems

to

fulfill

Stephen

Dedalus's

artistic

objective.

It

not

only

fails

to

eliminate the ironic

distance

between

Joyce

and his

narrator,

but,

ironically,

it

identifies,

as no

omniscient

narrator

ever

could,

exactly

where the

subjective

author

is in

this

seemingly

objective

novel.

It

reveals

each and

every

decision that the author's

arranging

persona

makes.

The initial

style

with

its intricate mix

of

narrative

techniques,

ostensibly designed

to

suggest

to

a

reader that

he

or

she

is

experiencing

directly

the novel's

imagined reality,

finally

has

the

opposite

effect.

The effaced

narrator

forces

a

reader

to

confront

the fact that he

or

she

is

merely

reading

a

human construct

and

is

not

actually 'living

this

story.

In

short,

the

effaced

narrator

points

to

the real

drama

behind

its mimetic

illusion,

the life

of the

arranger.

Free indirect

discourse

is

not

only

the

second

reason

the initial

style

fails

to

achieve

an

authoritative

mimesis;

it is also

the

trapdoor

through

which the

arranger

springs

onto

the dramatic

set

of

Ulys

ses.23

Free

indirect

discourse

is

essentially

mimicry,

which

in

Ulysses

creates

an

ironic

distance,

at

least between

the

mimic

and

his

or

her

object.24

To

implement

this

technique,

an

omniscient

narrator

dons

with the

ease

of

a

consummate

actor

a

character's

reality by

mimick

ing

his

or

her

language.

Since the effaced

narrator of

Ulysses

is

the

mimic

in

free

indirect

discourse,

it

finds itself

paradoxically

in

the

hearts

and

souls

of

its

characters and

in

the

grammar

and

syntax

of

the novel.25 While the narrator struggles to remain backstage, free

indirect

discourse

forces

it

to center

stage

where

it

manifests

the

ironic

distance

between

narrator

and

character

and,

thus,

drama

tizes

the

ironic

disparity

between

author

and narrator.26

Within

this

manifestation

of the

labyrinthian

nature

of

writing,

the

arranger,

the

agent

of

self-reflexion,

is

born,

and

with

it

the

fragile

mimetic

al

liance

between

an

author,

a

story,

and

a

reader

is

altered.

While

the

effaced narrator and free

indirect

discourse

create the

arranger

in

the

initial

style,

they

are

not

its

only

manifestations.

73



11/16

Once the

arranger

is

in the

text

of the

first

six

episodes,

it

begins

to

disrupt

their

mimetic

order

in

five

ways,

the first three

appearing

pervasively

throughout

the first

six

episodes

of

the

novel.

First,

it

renders

language

opaque

so

that

it

points

to

itself,

rather than

pointing

through

itself

to

the

narrative.

Kenner

has identified

a

good

illustration of the

arranger's

work in the unorthodox

spelling

of the

mewing

of

Bloom's

cat

(66).

The cat

answers

Bloom with

an

unlikely

and

unsightly, Mkgnao

(U

4.16).

Later

in

the

same

episode,

both

the

narrator and

Bloom

demonstrate

amore

conventional

spelling

of

that

sound

(U

4.456,

462).

While

Mkgnao

fails

to

suggest

the

ordinary

sound

of

a

cat,

it

does

manifest

the

arranger's

fondness for

arranging type.

Next

the

arranger

uses

narrative

devices

that

divert

readers from

their

experience

of the

narrative

to

their

experience

of

reading

the

text.

One

of

Bloom's

interior

monologues

in

Hades

is

a

case

in

point.

It

draws readers into

such

an

intense

engagement

with

the

novel's

Active

reality

that

they

ironically

experience

their

own

plea

sure

in

reading

the

passage.

While

the

men

wait

in

their

carriage

to

follow

Paddy

Dignam's

corpse

to

the

cemetery,

the

arranger

seizes

the

reins

of

the

narrative:

All

waited.

Then wheels

were

heard

from

in

front,

turning:

then

nearer:

then

horses'

hoofs.

A

jolt.

Their

carriage

began

to

move,

creaking

and

swaying.

Other hoofs

and

creaking

wheels

started

be

hind. The

blinds

of

the

avenue

passed

and

number

nine

with

its

craped knocker, door ajar.At walking pace. (U 6.24-28)

Bloom's

experiences

here,

both sensual

and

conceptual,

are

pre

sented

with

such

immediacy

in

the

interior

monologue

that

readers

admire

the

novelty

of

the

passage

and

savor

the

experience

of

having

read

it.

The

arranger

invites

readers

to

enjoy

their

own

experiences

over

those

of

the

fictive characters.

The

arranger

also

manipulates

the narrative voice

to

reveal

the

divisions

within

itself.

In

Hades,

after

nearly

three

complete

epi

sodes

about

Bloom,

readers

might

come

to think

momentarily

of

the

perspective

of the novel as that of an omniscient narrator limited to

the

central

intelligence

of

Leopold

Bloom.

Readers

are

jarred

from

their

comfortable

relationship

with

this

narrator,

however,

when

he

begins

reporting

events in

Bloom's absence.

Moreover,

readers

are

not

given

the

opportunity

to

read

over

these

two

brief

lapses

in

consistency

because,

in

both

instances

(U

6.526-34,

690-707),

the

content

is

gossip

about

Bloom.

The

narrative invites

readers,

then,

to

think

about

Bloom

and

to

question

how

the

narrator

is

able

to

function

independently

of

him.

Thus,

the

arranger

encourages

the

74



12/16

reader

to

see

the divisions that reside within the novel's narrative

strategy.

In

addition

to

rendering language

opaque,

to

focusing

readers'

attention

on

themselves,

and to

dividing

the

narrative

voice,

the

arranger

also

reveals

two

seemingly

contradictory

traits.

While the

arranger

demonstrates an ideal

memory

of the text

by

having

it

repeat, quote,

or

parody

itself,

it

also creates

mysteries

within

the

narrative that

nullify

a

reader's

use

of

memory

and

reason.

An

example

of

the

arranger's

textual

memory,

a

faculty

that

makes

the

arranger

the

author's ideal

reader,

occurs

in

Calypso

when

the

narrator

repeats

a

passage

from

over

forty

pages

earlier:

A

cloud

began

to cover

the

sun

slowly,

wholly

(171.248,4.218).27

The

repeti

tion

invites

readers

to

seek

parallels

between

Stephen

and

Bloom

as,

episodes

apart, they

see

the

same

cloud,

yet

it

covertly

undermines

this

invitation

by

encouraging

readers

to

ask

questions

that have

no

answers.

Ironically,

such

covert

attacks

on

the novel's

mimetic

con

tract with

a

reader

help

to

generate

the

narrative

mysteries

in

the

novel. While the

entire

text

of

Ulysses might

be

properly

described

as

a

mystery,

the first

real

example

of

a

narrative

mystery

occurs

in

Hades,

when

an

unknown

figure

wearing

a

macintosh

attends

Paddy Dignam's

funeral.

This

figure

appears

throughout

the

novel,

but

he

is

never

accurately

identified

and

remains

as

an

inexplicable

problem

in

Ulysses,

someone

mistakenly

referred

to

as

MTntosh

(U

6.891-96).

As

different

as

these last

two

devices

may

be,

they

further expand the arranger's ability

to

disrupt

the

mimetic

illusion

of the

initial

style.

Together,

these five

devices

alert

readers

to

the

mimetic

fallacy

of

the

initial

style

and

begin

their

education

in

the

ways

of

the

self-reflexive

arranger.

Consequently,

before

the

arranger

shouts

his

presence

in,

then

impishly

hides

among,

the headlines

blazoned

in

block

capitals

across

the

initial

style

of

the seventh

episode, Aeolus,

Joyce

has

carefully

and

systematically

introduced the

arranger

in

the

first

six

episodes

of

Ulysses.

In

them,

Joyce

dramatizes the

aspiration

and

failure

of

the

mimetic

written-oral tradition

to

capture

the

authority

of an oral singer, the tendency of mimesis when carried to extremes

to turn

into

self-reflexion,

and

the

union

of five self-reflexive

devices

that

constitute

the

first

manifestation

of

the

arranger.

A careful

reading

of

the

text

of

Ulysses

will

reveal,

I

believe,

that

the

novel's

various

styles

reflect the

arranger's

attempt

to

learn the

ways

of

narration.

By

the seventh

episode,

the

arranger

appears

to

challenge

the

narrator for control of the

novel,

and

by

the

eleventh

episode,

Sirens,

it

seems

to

have

succeeded.

By Penelope,

it

seems to

have

learned

to

balance self-reflexive and

mimetic

conventions,

to

influ

75



13/16

ence

both

the

surf

ace

of

the

text

and

a

reader's

apprehension

of

it,

to

have

created

an

art

object

that

acquires

its

life somewhere between

its

pages

and

a

reader-at

a

magical

juncture

where

print

and

imagination

merge

and flow

into

one

another.

It is

likely,

then,

that

the

arranger

is

the dominant character

in

Ulysses

and that the deci

sions itmakes and the actions it takes constitute the essential

plot

of

the

novel,

a

plot

measured

not

by

a

narrator's

developing

portrait

of

reality

but

by

an

arranger's growing

mastery

of

style.28

If

such

is the

case,

the

artist,

clearly

distinct

from

his

narrators and

even

from

his

arranger,

remains

invisible,

refined

out

of

existence,

indifferent,

paring

his

fingernails,

and

Ulysses

achieves

an

authority

derived

from

an

honest

encounter

with

the

human

quandary,

not

from

a

parody

of

an

oral

singer.

This idea of the

arranger

is

not

exactly

what

Hayman

had

in

mind.

He

never

explicitly

identifies it

as a

creative

entity

with

a

coherent

narrative

strategy

for

Ulysses.

Once

this identification

is

made,

how

ever,

the narrator

(the

mimetic

agent)

and the

arranger

(the

self

reflexive

agent)

share

equal

billing

as

sources

of the

narrative,

and

their

struggle

for control of

Ulysses structurally

accounts

for,

and

thematically

justifies,

the contradictions

and

irregularities

in

the

text.

Joyce

alludes

to

something

like the

arranger

with

Stephen's

appellation

for

the

classical

Daedalus- fabulous artificer

(P

169).

But

we

have

the

word

arranger,

and while

many

doubt

its

existence,

and others

dispute

its

purpose,

a

persistent

few share Kenner's

observation that Joyce's creation of the arranger is perhaps the most

radical,

the

most

disconcerting

innovation

in

all of

Ulysses

(64).

NOTES

1

The research

for

this

study

was

sponsored by

a

grant

from

the Research

and

Creativity

Committee

at

Emporia

State

University.

2

David

Hayman,

Ulysses :

The

Mechanics

of

Meaning,

rev.

and

exp.

(1970;

Madison: Univ.

of

Wisconsin

Press,

1982),

pp.

88-104,122-25.

Further

refer

ences

will be

cited

parenthetically

in

the

text.

3

S.

L.

Goldberg,

The

Classical

Temper:

A

Study of James Joyces Ulysses

(London:

Chatto

&

Windus,

1963),

p.

22.

4

T. S.

Eliot,

Ulysses,

Order,

and

Myth,

Dial,

75

(November

1923),

480-83;

rpt.

James

Joyce:

Tlvo

Decades

of

Criticism,

ed. Seon

Givens

(New

York:

Vanguard,

1963),

pp.

198-202;

Givens,

pp.

201-02;

Joseph

Frank,

Spatial

Form inModern

Literature,

Sewanee

Review,

53

(1945);

rev.

in

The

Widening

Gyre:

Crisis

and

Mastery

in

Modern

Literature

(Bloomington:

Indiana

Univ.

Press,

1963),

pp.

3-62.

5

Hugh

Kenner,

Ulysses,

rev.

ed.

(Baltimore:

Johns

Hopkins

Univ.

Press,

1987).

While

Kenner

demonstrates the

presence

of

the

arranger

in

the first

half

of

the

novel,

he

also

attributes

most

of the

arranger's

indifference

76



14/16

toward the

reader

to

the sour

xenophobic

indifference

(p.

65)

of

Dublin

toward its visitors. Even

though

Kenner

sees

the

arranger

as

responsible

for

the

quirks

in

the

text,

he

insists that

Joyce

is the

governing

consciousness

behind

it.

See

pp.

61-71,

especially

pp.

65,

68-69. Further

references will

be

cited

parenthetically

in

the

text.

6

Marilyn

French attributes

the narrative twists

in

Ulysses

to

Joyce's

use

of

Einsteinian ideas; see The Book asWorld:

James

Joyce's Ulysses

(Cambridge:

Harvard Univ.

Press,

1976),

pp.

3-22,

especially

p.

4. Karen

Lawrence

acknowledges

the

arranger

as

an

excellent

term for

capturing

the

sense

of

intrusion

in

the

text

but

rejects

it

because it

posits

the

existence

of

a

narrative

consciousness,

which

suggests

that there

is

an

absolute

way

to

order

experience.

See

The

Odyssey

of Style

in

Ulysses

(Princeton:

Princeton

Univ.

Press,

1981), pp.

14, 64,

208.

Further

references

to

the

Lawrence

work

will

be

cited

parenthetically

in

the

text.

7

See

John

Paul

Riquelme,

Teller

and Tale

in

Joyce's

Fiction:

Oscillating

Perspectives

(Baltimore:

Johns

Hopkins

Univ.

Press,

1983),

p.

xv

and Dermot

Kelly,

Narrative

Strategies

in

Joyce's

Ulysses

(Ann

Arbor:

UMI

Press,

1988),

p.

2.

8

Shari Benstock

and

Bernard

Benstock,

The

Benstock

Principle,

The

Seventh

of Joyce,

ed. Bernard

Benstock

(Bloomington:

Indiana

Univ.

Press;

Sussex:

Harvester,

1982),

pp.

10-21.

They

argue

that

if

the

term narrator is

inadequate

to

describe the

narrative

strategy

of

Ulysses,

then

arranger

will

fail

also?p.

18.

9

Patrick

McGee,

Paperspace:

Style

as

Ideology

in

Joyce's

Ulysses

(Lincoln:

Univ.

of

Nebraska

Press,

1988),

pp.

72-74.

10

Naomi

Segal

attributes

the

stylistic play

to

the

implied

author ;

see

Style

indirect

libre

to

Stream-of-Consciousness:

Flaubert,

Joyce,

Schnitzler,

Woolf,

Modernism and the

European

Unconscious,

ed.

Peter Collier and

Judy

Davies

(New

York: St.

Martin's

Press,

1990),

p.

101. Further references

will

be cited

parenthetically

in the text.

11

For

an

argument

that

Ulysses

debunks

monocausality

as a

literary

device

and

as a

philosophical

proposition,

see

Robert

E.

Spoo, Teleology,

Monocausality,

and

Marriage

in

Ulysses,

ELH,

56

(Summer

1989),

439-62.

12

See

LettersI,

p.

129. Both

Hayman

and

Kenner

note

the

arranger's

presence

in

the initial

style,

but

neither

speculates

upon

its

origins.

See

Hayman,

pp.

124-25

and

Kenner,

p.

71.

13

Ken

Kesey,

One

Flew

Over

the Cuckoo's Nest

(New

York:

Viking

Press,

1962).

14

Tim

O'Brien,

Going After

Cacciato

(New

York: Delacorte

Press,

1978).

15

Vladimir

Nabokov,

A

Russian

Beauty

and Other Stories

(New

York:

McGraw

Hill, 1973), p.

12.

16

For

Jerome

Klinkowitz,

Joyce,

for

all

his

language games,

is

a

modern

ist

trying

to find

out

if

culture

can

survive without the

confident

assump

tions of

nineteenth-century

science and

philosophy ;

see

The

Self-Apparent

Word:

Fiction

as

Language

I

Language

as

Fiction

(Carbondale:

Southern

Illinois

Univ.

Press,

1984),

pp.

41-42.

I

do

not

deny

Joyce's

modernist

agenda

but

hope

to

clarify

postmodernism's

debt

to

Joyce. Ulysses

slowly

introduces

self-reflexive

conventions

among

the

realistic

ones

and

finally

creates

a

satisfactory

blend.

Perhaps

such

a

conclusion

awaits

postmodernism

itself.

17

Robert

Scholes and Robert

Kellogg,

The Nature

of

Narrative

(London:

Oxford

Univ.

Press,

1966),

pp.

51-53.

77



15/16

18

Many

critics

doubt

the relevance of

Stephen's

aesthetic

to

Ulysses.

Scholes

and

Marlena G.

Corcoran

argue

that

Joyce

merely

took

his

own

juvenilia

and

polished

it

to

support

[Stephen's]

claim

to

artistic status

inA

Portrait;

see

The Aesthetic

Theory

and

the

Critical

Writings,

A

Companion

to

Joyce

Studies,

ed.

Zack Bowen

and

James

F.

Carens

(Westport:

Greenwood

Publishers,

1984),

pp.

689,

694.

19

Experienced

readers of

Ulysses

may

see this sentence as the free indirect

discourse of

either

Mulligan

or

Dedalus.

A

reader

new

to

the

text,

however,

will

see

it

in

conventional

terms,

creating

what

Lawrence

calls

a

narrative

norm,

pp.

38-53.

20

Kenner

observes

that

as

Stephen

looks

into Buck's

mouth,

he

sees

his

gold

fillings

and

thinks,

Chrysostomos

(U 1.26),

an

allusion

to

eloquence

or

to

one

who is

golden-mouthed,

p.

35.

21

After Buck

Mulligan

recites

a

passage

from

W.

B.

Yeats's

Who Goes

with

Fergus,

Collected Poems

(New

York:

Macmillan,

1956),

p.

43,

the

nar

rator,

assuming

the romantic

diction and

vision

of

early

Yeats,

describes

the

morning

scene,

Woodshadows

floated

silently by

through

the

morning

peace

from the stairhead

seaward

where he

gazed_Wavewhite

wedded

words

shimmering

on

the dim

tide

(U

1.242-47).

For

discussions

of this

technique,

see

Lawrence,

pp.

19-20,

and

Kenner,

Joyces

Voices

(Berkeley:

Univ. of California

Press,

1978),

especially

The

Uncle

Charles

Principle,

pp.

15-38.

22

See endnote

21.

23

While

experienced

readers

may

see

the

arranger's

hand in

the

first

words of the

novel,

the

arranger

first

overtly

appears

in

the

passage

from

Telemachus

(U 1.242-47),

quoted

in

endnote

19,

and, thus,

begins

the

education of

a

reader

new

to

the

text. Lawrence also

sees

free indirect

discourse

as an

antecedent

of

the

radical

stylistic

developments

in

Ulysses

rather than

the stream-of-consciousness

technique,

p.

24.

24Not all free indirect discourse is

mimicry

as demonstrated

by

Segal

(p.

110)

and

Roy

Pascal,

The Dual

Voice:

Free

Indirect

Speech

and Its

Functioning

in the

Nineteenth-Century

European

Novel

(Manchester,

Eng.:

Manchester

Univ.

Press; Totowa,

N.J.:

Rowman and

Iittlefield,

1977),

pp.

45-60.

In

such

cases,

the

author/narrator shares

a

language

with the characters.

When

free

indirect

discourse

is

mimicry,

however,

it

contributes

to

self-reflexion

be

cause,

as

M.

M.

Bakhtin

argues,

mimicry rips

the

word

away

from

its

object ;

see

The

Dialogic Imagination

(Austin:

Univ. of

Texas

Press,

1981),

p.

55.

25

Roy

K.

Gottfried

agrees

that

the

artist-god

is

present

in

the

novel's

language;

see

The

Art

of

Joyce's Syntax

in

Ulysses

(Athens:

Univ.

of

Georgia

Press, 1980), p.

160.

26

Segal

notes

the

same

phenomenon

in

Flaubert

(p.

98).

As

much

as

he

tries

to

remove

himself

from

his

texts,

his

use

of

free indirect discourse

focuses

readers'

attention

upon

him.

27

In

the second

instance

the clause

terminates

in

a

period.

Kenner

says

that

the

arranger's

knowledge

of

the

text

is

superior

to

mere

memory

and

suggests

the

arranger

has

access

to

a

printed

book,

p.

65.

28

I

believe

that the

composition

history

of

Ulysses

supports

such

an

hypothesis.

Michael

Groden,

in

Ulysses

in

Progress

(Princeton:

Princeton

Univ.

Press,

1977),

notes

that

Ulysses

iswritten

in

three

styles.

When

Joyce

started

to

use a

new

style,

he did

not

obscure the

earlier

one

but

allowed

it

to

78



16/16

stand as

if

to

present

Ulysses

as a

palimpsest involving

all three

stages

of

composition

(p.

4).

Groden

suggests

that

Joyce

did

not have

an

initial

overview

that sustained him

throughout

the

writing

of

the

novel and had

to

wait

until climactic

episodes

taught

him

how

to

revise

his

artistic

impulses

(pp.

37,77,126,158,165-68,194).

Normally,

when

a

writer

changes

his

style,

he

completely

revises

the

text,

as

Joyce

did when

he abandoned

Stephen

Hero and started over with A Portrait. Ibelieve that the

composition

history

argues

that

the end

of

the

novel is

anticipated

by

its

beginning. Why

else

would

Joyce

superimpose

the

headlines,

the

first

blatant

sign

of

the

ar

ranger,

on

the initial

style

in

Aeolus after he had invented the

final

style,

if

he

had not

seen

a

connection

between the two?

79

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The Arranger in Ulysses

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