The scholarly reading of Joyce’s “Circe” has gone through two phases; the first phase of the scholarly reading of “Circe” had been dominated through a humanist approach by psychologists and realist assumptions, and the second phase of scholarly reading had been dominated by the idea that “what was not immediately intelligible as realism in ‘Circe’ was deemed to be explicable by means of the word Joyce used to describe its ‘technic’ and ‘hallucination’” (Gibson 1). In other words, scholarly consensus shifted from the belief that although “Circe” is filled with stylistic extravagance, it ultimately grounds itself within traditional structures associated with the novel to the belief that the true challenge in reading “Circe” is to understand the connection between the real and unreal in the chapter.
Although, according to David Hayman in 1970, a reader of “Circe” could “generally distinguish between the conscious and the unconscious events,” the true challenge is the process of “filling in the gaps or reading between the lines” (Gibson 5). Although a reader can separate between reality and hallucination, the second phase of scholarly reading has attempted to understand the hallucinations in the lens of the unconscious being “turned inside out” with “hidden fears and desires coming to the fore and being dramatized” (Gibson 6). Through a Freudian conception of specific themes such as “Bloom’s struggle with his own ‘inadequate manliness’” and “Stephen’s battle with the psychological roots of his defiance of God,” the narrative of Circe is developed through the unconscious representations of ideas.
The result of these hallucinations, however, have “obviously led up to something very important” (Gibson 8). Each aspect of the hallucination had been divided into an important theme or idea. Bloom’s interactions with Bella, for example, although “degrading” had eventually resulted in “Bloom’s attainment of ‘psychological wholeness’” (Gibson 8). Likewise, the divisions of Circe’s Inferno addresses each of the themes associated with the division of Cice into four distinct parts. Because Circe cannot be evaluated as a distinct narrative paradigm, its sections must be addressed through distinct “caves” where ideas could be articulated through the objects that appear within the divisions. Similar to a Freudian dive into the unconscious, Circe’s Inferno digs deep into the themes throughout Ulysses.
Because “it was often impossible to be sure what was happening in ‘Circe’” much of understanding the contents of “Circe” revolve around understand the context at which an event is presented to occur or not occur (Gibson 10). Each event described does not exist “for some single purpose, but ‘as a means of fulfilling simultaneously a number of very different purposes’” (Gibson 11). Various ideas can be presented through a multitude of lenses, and a possible method to understand the ideas attached to “Circe” is to close-read the context of individual objects that have particular significance. Through organizing Circe’s inferno through a series of objects and ideas, we hope to attain a closer interpretation to the events that happened in “Circe,” which has been deemed by scholars to be difficult given the blurred lines between hallucination and reality
By the 1980s, the concept that “Circe” could be “construed in the terms of a realist narrative” still remained open to question, as it made the concept of “objective” reality difficult to discern (Gibson 13). Reflecting a more contemporary view of “Circe,” Circe’s Inferno addresses the underlying ideas and reality and less so on the characters themselves. Although many of the objects exist relative to a character, the analysis is performed on the object themselves. Like “other recent critics,” Circe’s Inferno concerts itself less on the “linear narrative” on more on the context of the objects that are subject to our analysis (Gibson 18). Although there exists many methods to conceptualize the events of “Circe,” Circe’s Inferno creates an understanding through an in-depth analysis on the objects found within.
​
Works Cited
Gibson, Andrew. Reading Joyce's "Circe". Rodopi, 1994.