Lotus Eaters

In The Lotus Eaters, Joyce further fixates on the barren and desolate, invoking the image of the Dead Sea in Leopold Bloom's mind. When not trying to recall some scientific law from school, Bloom makes his way through Dublin's streets on the way to Dignam's funeral. Throughout the chapter, Bloom's interactions with others are impersonal and fleeting as he seems to go through the motions. There is certainly a sense of detachment from others in Bloom's actions as he admires meats through a shop window or reads a letter from his “naughty” pen-pal. Rather than engage in any real or meaningful affair, Bloom exchanges letters with a woman whom he seems to consider less-than-intelligent. Though he is excited, he excuses her foolishness, rationalizing, “no roses without thorns,” surely the inspiration for Poison frontman, Bret Michaels' classic ballad.

Aside from Bloom's fantasy-affair, the Lotus Eaters possesses a sort of hazy, almost surreal quality as Joyce references the opiates of the “celestials” and imagines “a dull flood.. flowing together, winding through mud-flats all over the level land, a lazy pooling swirl of liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.” In many ways the chapter itself is “a dull flood,” of people, places, and sensations and Bloom almost seems to be swept through the scenes rather than making a path for himself.

Adding to the air of somewhat detached spectatorship Bloom observes the traditional Catholic funeral service as an alien. He is not as much mocking the affair as Bloom is admiring the mass as a sociologist might. Particularly strange to the insular Bloom is the Sacrament of Confession which he sees as a sort of self-punishment/ humiliation ritual.

While The Lotus Eaters is somewhat more murky and cerebral than Calypso, the reader is still fully aware of Bloom's physicality in the final scene. One easily imagine the steamy bathhouse and its scented oils as Bloom lies in the tub relishing in sensation and contemplating his “limp father of thousands.”