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.