There are a gr<:at many ways in which kU"",iWs may
function
to develop a book.
Hart-Clive-1962-Structure-and-Motif-in-Finnegans-Wake
Dro]ll.
8uI wail until our$leeping
Drain. Sdops. ' (14. 13)
'Ri,. . pooI? Hod a brieck on it! BUI iu piers eerie, il. 1 span . poolEy, iu toll but a till, it! parapcl. 1 all ! "',ipato:ting. D'Oh-. lo~g'. by his by. Which we . ll pa. . , TON. In our 1Il00.
j A. Gt. uhoen, 'J""'''jOJl'''', r. rtPHANIFS", TlwJ_J"" 111";-, ",I. I, nO. ],1'. 4~.
,68
? l. eifnwtiv
Zno",. While we hickerwar<h the thicker. Schein. Scho",: (266. 03)
'Caffi. . and cull. and <>nceagain overalls, th~ fittel! mrviva lives that blued, iom and storridge can make them. Whichu, all claims. Clean. Whenastderps. Close. And tI", mannormillor dipperclappers. Noxt. Doze. ' (61'1-'0)
The ponenton, qUe$tion 'How a", you t. ,day, my dark sirr- the multilingual verbigeration' of a wrathful militant society demanding the abdication of the pacifist- and l'iggot. Ear. wicker', misspelling of 'hClittncy',' though more fleeting motif" are epiphanies of even wider significance.
WhereM Stephen would have built up art (tut of a sequence of ,uch independent momeuu. the matu", Joyc~ prtferred to
mnhilise a limited number of them into rulUling m,)! if. , whose power of "howing furth' would be vastly inc",ascd hy their complex interweavin~. This new technique is the pr. ,duct of
Joyce'. changing world_view. The companmentalised units which he saw in tw youth, the discrete imaga of londy indi_ v;dual! , each ofwhose imp"nelrable faces he carefully and prig- gishly ocrutini,ed in an attempt to 'pierce to the mntive centre of its uglineM' (SH oS), have become in F;muCIVlS Wake a con_ tinuum where the identifying epiphany i, no more than a momentary illusion, a play of light, ,till giving iruight, but much broader in ocop" and capabk of being shifted to a virtu_ ally inexh. . mtible variety of contexts without 10M of power. The kitmlltW, One of the most flexible of all t<:cl,nical devices, is
Joyce', mO$1 effe~tive weapon in hi. '! struggle to leave individua_ tion behind and create a truly generali",d comciousn". . . To do this he had 10 abandon static art and oome full circle back to kinesis; Stephen was ob. essed with the problem of how to capture a ',till' from the motion-picture ()f life, wh. . cas tbe l a t e r J o y c e w a n t e d 1 0 k e r p t b e C;lJn~ra o f h i . ' a ! 1 n i g h t .
nCM<:ry"':d' (4119. 35) turning with hal'dly a pause for medi? tation; he cven went to the length of joining both end. of the film.
? Latmotiv
In disculling Ulps. . , Mr. Robert Humphrey attemp'" to t"-ategwi$t the many motifs in ! hat book a. . 'image, . ymoo! , or w<lrd_phrase motil:. '. ' He . uggt:ots that Stephen'. constant \lcinn ofhis mother is an imagt:_motif, 1IIoom', potato a symbol- motif, and 'met him pike hnses' a ""rhal motif, but all thi> is true only at the 'implest rcfcrcntiallevd; ultimately, ofcon"", all MT. Humphrry'. motif! a u equally verbal, and Mr. Kenner did well to warn "" tho. ! in reading Joyce we cannot be 100 ;nUlten! onthen~toCQn<:<ontratemostofourimmediate attention nn th(, word. imtud of ruding through tbem. ' The point is nn doubt a rather trite nne, but interputation of Ulysses
h", long been, and often ,till is, dogged by too natural"'tic . . reading of the text, which unduly plays down the linguistic leveL TnUIyS1<$Joy<:t:has,itiJtrue,oftenintegratedhis""'hal motifs SO skillfully into a naturalistic oontext that, 10 we his CaTty tcnninology, lfu:y function dramatically; an illwion of independent exi3tenr. e B created fOT them. Such ; ' the ca,e with the 'Pen"""'" motif: when Bloom meets tho pak: young man and immedia\dy afterwards remembcn the nam<: 'Pelll'OM:' (U '70), tIu: /,ib"t>ti<Julu: rotlnexion with the earlier paso. age in which he had vainly tried to recan the name ;" ~tabl;"hed by a prOCeM SO psychologically real and compelling that the reader B, in the fi,. . t ddight at recognitinn, ,nade 10 fur~t how simple a contrivance i, involved. In Fin""gaAf W4h Joyce abandoned ,uch tromp. flZi! methods alto~ther. Here the motifs are ndther . uperimpo&cd on, nor embedded in, anything but a matrix of other motifs and mutif. fragments; no motif can "'em out ofcontext in ouch company, though some will provide greater opportunio. . fur organic dev<:lnpmenllhan othe,. . . The greatneM ofJoyce'. art in FirwgdfU Wah Ii. . in the brilliane<: with which he . . ,lee", and juxtAp",,," groups ofmOli(i; to devdop
h;" materials in the best of a grea. t many p<. >Wble waY'. While
feeling hi. way toward thi, optimum thematic devdopment Joyce ="" to havc made a practice of arbitrariJ. y ocattering a
,Il. . Hump/u<:y. S_tf("~in. . . . . M""'"NO<<! ,""'. hl""ond Loo ""'gd. ,. , '9~8, p. 9"
? II. Kem1er, D. M. . ? ? J"7", u. . don, '9~~, pj>. ,~. If. '1'
? uitmQtiv
few motif, he", and there in hi! text to serve as stimuli fur hi. imagination. Such a motif, originally included mn", or lea "'gardlc:ss of context, always become. a wurce of inspiration
to him. Like the grain in the oyster which grow. into a pearl- blister, it i. olowly ellcN. ted with symbol. <, ima~, and over_ tones which diffwe into and finally become all uscntial part of the context. ' The Erid. h Museum manuscrlpu indicate how very oftell this wasJoyce'. working method. It is worth noting, aiw, that, until Joyce had worked out the horizontal . tructure <>fhis cpiaod. ,. , the <nOtm appea. . . ,o only very thinly in the texl>, and often not at all for long ,\retch. ,. . LU soon as tM baMC fabric was clear in Joyce'. mind the motif. began to develop abund- antly, building up the hannonic . tructure and tying the sprawl- ing cycles together with taut bonds stretched from point to
point.
It is cl<:". that in FiMtlgans Wal. aoy . uch cl"";fication of
motifs as Mr. Humph",y'. is imJl<""Sible from tM . tart. T he distinction between image and. ymbol, ifitev~r had any validity with respect to Joyce'. earlier worb, certainly has none here. Rec=nt ide", appear now in on~ guise, oow in another. Anna Livia may be . ecn a. a woman, r~membt:r. . d. . . , a d",am- vision, heard in the ripple of the watery PfO$e, ouggeoted in the punctuation of a phra. e. The <>nly important distinctio"" now I<> be made have to do with filllction.
There are a gr<:at many ways in which kU"",iWs may function to develop a book. They define characler, give accents to the line of narrative development, control 1M rhythm of the struc- ture and impose order on what may without them I! CCm dis- orderly. A . . ,ri? ? of motifS, however slender, creal. . a skeletal grid-pall<:m which, provided it h. . . , some truly functional re-
lati<>nship to the book'. themes, help' the . . . ,adec to organile his respon&es in phase with those themes. Indeed, this ordering and unifying function of the Idlm. lio is probably il> greal<:lt . ~ngth. I shall attempt in the following pages and in my final
' Cf. ),{T. M. J. C. Hodgan'. h&ppy analogy of,,,,,, fit,,,,,,, dno. wn by a nug. ><1: M. J. C. I-lodgart ond M. P. Worthing10t1, s. . , . . tIot W. . k, of
:1_s:1'7", Now Yo<k, '959. p. '7? '7'
? uilllU)tilJ
chapter to dcmonstrate rome of Ihe waY' in whi(h motit;, ICtvc to organ"': and unify Fil/Jltgmtr W,w,.
By mean. of the /ti/m. tiw and a host of key_word3 related to them Joyce wnstruct& the ""vera! frames of refereno:: which underline the scattered component par'" of his artificial univen<o. Th ese are the co-ordinates of hi; 'proleiform graph' ('07. oS) to which we may appeal to get our b. arings whellever
we are 'lost in the bUlh' (, '~. 03). U. ually a number of such ref"""lial grids are presem simultaneoudy. Joyce'. nor",al
m. ,hod;' in fact to operate On three main plan'" al once: in lhe fureground ;. the manifest OOntent of the episode in que>tion, oorresponding to the manifest content ofa dream; in the middle- ground i. a m"",,, of highly symbolic, but often pu""ling, material, """ttered about like Ihe "age-propenies ofa dramalk
producer with an obo"";onal neufOS;', and COITesponding 10 Ihe dream-symbol . which are f~uently incompreheO$ible umil they are referred to the 'latent content' ; in Ihe background are Ihe motif-controlled grid. or frame, of referenee against which the symhoh can function. . . . . . . . :ilen in widely divtrg"nl way? . The grids provide key. to Ihe true latent contenl <>f the episode. 'Shem [h~ Penman' (1. 7) may b. taken as a convenient example of [hi; structural procedure. The surface contenl i. a d=ription of the habit& and appeaxance of Ihe 'bad boy' of Ihe OOok-writer, alchemut, nutcalt, black in ,kin and in mind, hated by hi, righte~""' brother and by the world. In the middle_ ground i. a trent(:ndnu. array of symbolic flotsam and jeuam, at ernl apparently quit. <: diverse, though almost all of a ra. her sinister nature. In Ihe backgronnd are at lea't two main frames of reference by nt(:am of which all the foregoing can b. ralion_ alised: the fi"'t i. Ihe well known . . ,ries of allusiom to J oyce'. own life which makes Shern a close pe1"><lnal analogue ofJ oyce himself and al,. , reveals a hidden autobiogcaphical significance in many ofthe symboh, while thc second (which until now does not seem 10 have been noticed) i. a full . . ,t of a1lusiom to Ihe fourteen stations of the en,. . ; thc latter gives point to the pro- fu. ion of Golgolhic imagery and retrieve, it fmm it& at first apparently aimie" decorative function, while at the lam<: time
'7'
? Leitmotiv
theChrist"Dry helpstodevelopbothShe",andJoyceasfOTTlU of the murdered and resurrected god.
Thom"" Mano had bttn able to achieve imprmve vathoo and ,u&got the machinatioIlll offatc with exlraordinary vivid- Oe$> hy . uddenly rrintroducing a motif which had originated long before in hi" narrative; 'imilarly, by atahlishiog the appar- ent inevitability of a motif', resurgence, he could creale an atmosphere charg<'d with foreboding. Pa'l and fulure could be controlled al a ru. ran"" with great power. Joy""'. best
motili share ouch potentialities with IhQ<C of Mann, bul the very unive. . . alilYofFiMfJgaIU Wak males the full deployment of their evocative and patheti. ; power. ; a difficult mMler. In the worbofMann and Proust, ,. . to some ""tent io tho><: ofWagner,
though the futnre lies wmehow under the <<mltol of the kil_ "",/;", what thi. rdlect! and ""prCW;s above all i. the mysterio,," and . pirilual significance of the va. t; in FiIlM! (alIS W. okt, 00 the otllcr band, where "",I, present, and future tClld to hc<:omc undifferentialed, the reC"rrt;n<;e of tbe moti", creates Ihe effect of a cosmic simultaneity and immediacy of expericnce--the Eternal Kow which I Ita,,, diKtiMed above. While Joyce
undoubledly gaimthcrcby" hreadtb ofcont",,1and an illusion of unive. . . a! ily, his ltillMlirs, caught up in a whirl of reincarna_ tion, lack ",mething of the inexorable finality thaI they have in, . ay, Sitdritd. The hat of Mann'. and Wagner'. motir. often SCITe to drive the plot mtward wilh a Slrong pulse and, con_ versely, Ihey thenuclve. (i)rl$lantiy gain io driving power from repeated imm"",ion in the main stream ofa strongly developing narrative. As ""amples of Ihi. kind of thing one might quote the
deeply moving cOITC$pondences of ,he fint and Ia,( part! ! of Tome K,iip Or the early foreshadowing. of the 'GOlterdam- merung' m",ic in Vas Ring. This rource of fotward-driving . ymbol;c energy i. largely denied to Joyce', motif. ! >. cau," of the weary T"(lund of cydC$, which, h""""er in~""', are comic rnther than tragic Or pathetic; althoogh lhingo can never improve in tho world of FinIMgQJU Wak, they equally cannot gT"(lw any wOrse. Promt, of CO""", had already used corrc'pondenC<'-I 10 annihilate time; J oyce, with hi" re_entrant time ' phere,
'73
? Leitmotiv
imf'"""d Ort this: be utains time and yet holds it wbolly within
IUs ~p, 10 mallaging 00 ha'~ the best of both worIda. T i_
is, was and will be, but Ihef'e " only a cutain amoont of iI, which . . . e limply use 0Y<:r and OVf:r apin. Eac:h As<: apes the
pn:<<dil\& one 10 1ru. 1 the cycling motifs, wbkh in Mann'. hamb upruent a connan! creuive imitation, bocome inltead in Fin"'I~/U IVa. 1:< symbolo of an am"";ng but oppreuivc
repetitiv. . . . "'" :
'Mere man'. mime: God has je. t. The old o. del" changeth and lasu likt the flllt. ' (~. 09)
IfJoyce'. motifi au lao dramatic tru. n thooc of Mann and Wagner, they an:: "'""0 mon:: highly chNgcd with oignif'Uot ront. . . . t. A n::pruenrntivc eumple of tile kind ofsymbolic COn?
densation made pouible by a Joya:an lm-tiD is the closing phr&$<: from Anna Livia Plurabelle: 'Baide Ihe rivering waten of, hitherandthithering water! of. Nightl' (216. 04). ' Thac wurds, in thenudve. suggestive enough perhap', but not very remarkable, form an epitome of the whole chapler and bear the . pirit of Anna with tbem wbenever they appear. Not Ortly arc: rippling . . . . . ter and darkness~, but aOO the tree and the toone and the tw o washerwonw:n of the immediate context. Hither and thither, a pair of oppDlite. , lejHIX,n Sbem and Shaun. Since the ph. . . . . . , illbc tail_d of a tale told of Anna L i v i a a n d t b e r o n c l u s i o n o f t h e m a j o r c y c l e o f B o o k I , i t 1 1' 01' &) ' 1 impli"', wh. " it reeu. . . . the end ofone (female) cycle and the beginning of the next (male) cycle, The wording provides a delr connexion with the whole GUlt Cycle ofFitontgaJU Wah, linee 'rivering' echoa the 'riverrun' witb which the book opens, Earlier we had met Anna in a highlighted paw. ge 'by the waten of Babylon' ('03. " ) and hence tlUs Riblico1 all. . . . . .
Drain. Sdops. ' (14. 13)
'Ri,. . pooI? Hod a brieck on it! BUI iu piers eerie, il. 1 span . poolEy, iu toll but a till, it! parapcl. 1 all ! "',ipato:ting. D'Oh-. lo~g'. by his by. Which we . ll pa. . , TON. In our 1Il00.
j A. Gt. uhoen, 'J""'''jOJl'''', r. rtPHANIFS", TlwJ_J"" 111";-, ",I. I, nO. ],1'. 4~.
,68
? l. eifnwtiv
Zno",. While we hickerwar<h the thicker. Schein. Scho",: (266. 03)
'Caffi. . and cull. and <>nceagain overalls, th~ fittel! mrviva lives that blued, iom and storridge can make them. Whichu, all claims. Clean. Whenastderps. Close. And tI", mannormillor dipperclappers. Noxt. Doze. ' (61'1-'0)
The ponenton, qUe$tion 'How a", you t. ,day, my dark sirr- the multilingual verbigeration' of a wrathful militant society demanding the abdication of the pacifist- and l'iggot. Ear. wicker', misspelling of 'hClittncy',' though more fleeting motif" are epiphanies of even wider significance.
WhereM Stephen would have built up art (tut of a sequence of ,uch independent momeuu. the matu", Joyc~ prtferred to
mnhilise a limited number of them into rulUling m,)! if. , whose power of "howing furth' would be vastly inc",ascd hy their complex interweavin~. This new technique is the pr. ,duct of
Joyce'. changing world_view. The companmentalised units which he saw in tw youth, the discrete imaga of londy indi_ v;dual! , each ofwhose imp"nelrable faces he carefully and prig- gishly ocrutini,ed in an attempt to 'pierce to the mntive centre of its uglineM' (SH oS), have become in F;muCIVlS Wake a con_ tinuum where the identifying epiphany i, no more than a momentary illusion, a play of light, ,till giving iruight, but much broader in ocop" and capabk of being shifted to a virtu_ ally inexh. . mtible variety of contexts without 10M of power. The kitmlltW, One of the most flexible of all t<:cl,nical devices, is
Joyce', mO$1 effe~tive weapon in hi. '! struggle to leave individua_ tion behind and create a truly generali",d comciousn". . . To do this he had 10 abandon static art and oome full circle back to kinesis; Stephen was ob. essed with the problem of how to capture a ',till' from the motion-picture ()f life, wh. . cas tbe l a t e r J o y c e w a n t e d 1 0 k e r p t b e C;lJn~ra o f h i . ' a ! 1 n i g h t .
nCM<:ry"':d' (4119. 35) turning with hal'dly a pause for medi? tation; he cven went to the length of joining both end. of the film.
? Latmotiv
In disculling Ulps. . , Mr. Robert Humphrey attemp'" to t"-ategwi$t the many motifs in ! hat book a. . 'image, . ymoo! , or w<lrd_phrase motil:. '. ' He . uggt:ots that Stephen'. constant \lcinn ofhis mother is an imagt:_motif, 1IIoom', potato a symbol- motif, and 'met him pike hnses' a ""rhal motif, but all thi> is true only at the 'implest rcfcrcntiallevd; ultimately, ofcon"", all MT. Humphrry'. motif! a u equally verbal, and Mr. Kenner did well to warn "" tho. ! in reading Joyce we cannot be 100 ;nUlten! onthen~toCQn<:<ontratemostofourimmediate attention nn th(, word. imtud of ruding through tbem. ' The point is nn doubt a rather trite nne, but interputation of Ulysses
h", long been, and often ,till is, dogged by too natural"'tic . . reading of the text, which unduly plays down the linguistic leveL TnUIyS1<$Joy<:t:has,itiJtrue,oftenintegratedhis""'hal motifs SO skillfully into a naturalistic oontext that, 10 we his CaTty tcnninology, lfu:y function dramatically; an illwion of independent exi3tenr. e B created fOT them. Such ; ' the ca,e with the 'Pen"""'" motif: when Bloom meets tho pak: young man and immedia\dy afterwards remembcn the nam<: 'Pelll'OM:' (U '70), tIu: /,ib"t>ti<Julu: rotlnexion with the earlier paso. age in which he had vainly tried to recan the name ;" ~tabl;"hed by a prOCeM SO psychologically real and compelling that the reader B, in the fi,. . t ddight at recognitinn, ,nade 10 fur~t how simple a contrivance i, involved. In Fin""gaAf W4h Joyce abandoned ,uch tromp. flZi! methods alto~ther. Here the motifs are ndther . uperimpo&cd on, nor embedded in, anything but a matrix of other motifs and mutif. fragments; no motif can "'em out ofcontext in ouch company, though some will provide greater opportunio. . fur organic dev<:lnpmenllhan othe,. . . The greatneM ofJoyce'. art in FirwgdfU Wah Ii. . in the brilliane<: with which he . . ,lee", and juxtAp",,," groups ofmOli(i; to devdop
h;" materials in the best of a grea. t many p<. >Wble waY'. While
feeling hi. way toward thi, optimum thematic devdopment Joyce ="" to havc made a practice of arbitrariJ. y ocattering a
,Il. . Hump/u<:y. S_tf("~in. . . . . M""'"NO<<! ,""'. hl""ond Loo ""'gd. ,. , '9~8, p. 9"
? II. Kem1er, D. M. . ? ? J"7", u. . don, '9~~, pj>. ,~. If. '1'
? uitmQtiv
few motif, he", and there in hi! text to serve as stimuli fur hi. imagination. Such a motif, originally included mn", or lea "'gardlc:ss of context, always become. a wurce of inspiration
to him. Like the grain in the oyster which grow. into a pearl- blister, it i. olowly ellcN. ted with symbol. <, ima~, and over_ tones which diffwe into and finally become all uscntial part of the context. ' The Erid. h Museum manuscrlpu indicate how very oftell this wasJoyce'. working method. It is worth noting, aiw, that, until Joyce had worked out the horizontal . tructure <>fhis cpiaod. ,. , the <nOtm appea. . . ,o only very thinly in the texl>, and often not at all for long ,\retch. ,. . LU soon as tM baMC fabric was clear in Joyce'. mind the motif. began to develop abund- antly, building up the hannonic . tructure and tying the sprawl- ing cycles together with taut bonds stretched from point to
point.
It is cl<:". that in FiMtlgans Wal. aoy . uch cl"";fication of
motifs as Mr. Humph",y'. is imJl<""Sible from tM . tart. T he distinction between image and. ymbol, ifitev~r had any validity with respect to Joyce'. earlier worb, certainly has none here. Rec=nt ide", appear now in on~ guise, oow in another. Anna Livia may be . ecn a. a woman, r~membt:r. . d. . . , a d",am- vision, heard in the ripple of the watery PfO$e, ouggeoted in the punctuation of a phra. e. The <>nly important distinctio"" now I<> be made have to do with filllction.
There are a gr<:at many ways in which kU"",iWs may function to develop a book. They define characler, give accents to the line of narrative development, control 1M rhythm of the struc- ture and impose order on what may without them I! CCm dis- orderly. A . . ,ri? ? of motifS, however slender, creal. . a skeletal grid-pall<:m which, provided it h. . . , some truly functional re-
lati<>nship to the book'. themes, help' the . . . ,adec to organile his respon&es in phase with those themes. Indeed, this ordering and unifying function of the Idlm. lio is probably il> greal<:lt . ~ngth. I shall attempt in the following pages and in my final
' Cf. ),{T. M. J. C. Hodgan'. h&ppy analogy of,,,,,, fit,,,,,,, dno. wn by a nug. ><1: M. J. C. I-lodgart ond M. P. Worthing10t1, s. . , . . tIot W. . k, of
:1_s:1'7", Now Yo<k, '959. p. '7? '7'
? uilllU)tilJ
chapter to dcmonstrate rome of Ihe waY' in whi(h motit;, ICtvc to organ"': and unify Fil/Jltgmtr W,w,.
By mean. of the /ti/m. tiw and a host of key_word3 related to them Joyce wnstruct& the ""vera! frames of refereno:: which underline the scattered component par'" of his artificial univen<o. Th ese are the co-ordinates of hi; 'proleiform graph' ('07. oS) to which we may appeal to get our b. arings whellever
we are 'lost in the bUlh' (, '~. 03). U. ually a number of such ref"""lial grids are presem simultaneoudy. Joyce'. nor",al
m. ,hod;' in fact to operate On three main plan'" al once: in lhe fureground ;. the manifest OOntent of the episode in que>tion, oorresponding to the manifest content ofa dream; in the middle- ground i. a m"",,, of highly symbolic, but often pu""ling, material, """ttered about like Ihe "age-propenies ofa dramalk
producer with an obo"";onal neufOS;', and COITesponding 10 Ihe dream-symbol . which are f~uently incompreheO$ible umil they are referred to the 'latent content' ; in Ihe background are Ihe motif-controlled grid. or frame, of referenee against which the symhoh can function. . . . . . . . :ilen in widely divtrg"nl way? . The grids provide key. to Ihe true latent contenl <>f the episode. 'Shem [h~ Penman' (1. 7) may b. taken as a convenient example of [hi; structural procedure. The surface contenl i. a d=ription of the habit& and appeaxance of Ihe 'bad boy' of Ihe OOok-writer, alchemut, nutcalt, black in ,kin and in mind, hated by hi, righte~""' brother and by the world. In the middle_ ground i. a trent(:ndnu. array of symbolic flotsam and jeuam, at ernl apparently quit. <: diverse, though almost all of a ra. her sinister nature. In Ihe backgronnd are at lea't two main frames of reference by nt(:am of which all the foregoing can b. ralion_ alised: the fi"'t i. Ihe well known . . ,ries of allusiom to J oyce'. own life which makes Shern a close pe1"><lnal analogue ofJ oyce himself and al,. , reveals a hidden autobiogcaphical significance in many ofthe symboh, while thc second (which until now does not seem 10 have been noticed) i. a full . . ,t of a1lusiom to Ihe fourteen stations of the en,. . ; thc latter gives point to the pro- fu. ion of Golgolhic imagery and retrieve, it fmm it& at first apparently aimie" decorative function, while at the lam<: time
'7'
? Leitmotiv
theChrist"Dry helpstodevelopbothShe",andJoyceasfOTTlU of the murdered and resurrected god.
Thom"" Mano had bttn able to achieve imprmve vathoo and ,u&got the machinatioIlll offatc with exlraordinary vivid- Oe$> hy . uddenly rrintroducing a motif which had originated long before in hi" narrative; 'imilarly, by atahlishiog the appar- ent inevitability of a motif', resurgence, he could creale an atmosphere charg<'d with foreboding. Pa'l and fulure could be controlled al a ru. ran"" with great power. Joy""'. best
motili share ouch potentialities with IhQ<C of Mann, bul the very unive. . . alilYofFiMfJgaIU Wak males the full deployment of their evocative and patheti. ; power. ; a difficult mMler. In the worbofMann and Proust, ,. . to some ""tent io tho><: ofWagner,
though the futnre lies wmehow under the <<mltol of the kil_ "",/;", what thi. rdlect! and ""prCW;s above all i. the mysterio,," and . pirilual significance of the va. t; in FiIlM! (alIS W. okt, 00 the otllcr band, where "",I, present, and future tClld to hc<:omc undifferentialed, the reC"rrt;n<;e of tbe moti", creates Ihe effect of a cosmic simultaneity and immediacy of expericnce--the Eternal Kow which I Ita,,, diKtiMed above. While Joyce
undoubledly gaimthcrcby" hreadtb ofcont",,1and an illusion of unive. . . a! ily, his ltillMlirs, caught up in a whirl of reincarna_ tion, lack ",mething of the inexorable finality thaI they have in, . ay, Sitdritd. The hat of Mann'. and Wagner'. motir. often SCITe to drive the plot mtward wilh a Slrong pulse and, con_ versely, Ihey thenuclve. (i)rl$lantiy gain io driving power from repeated imm"",ion in the main stream ofa strongly developing narrative. As ""amples of Ihi. kind of thing one might quote the
deeply moving cOITC$pondences of ,he fint and Ia,( part! ! of Tome K,iip Or the early foreshadowing. of the 'GOlterdam- merung' m",ic in Vas Ring. This rource of fotward-driving . ymbol;c energy i. largely denied to Joyce', motif. ! >. cau," of the weary T"(lund of cydC$, which, h""""er in~""', are comic rnther than tragic Or pathetic; althoogh lhingo can never improve in tho world of FinIMgQJU Wak, they equally cannot gT"(lw any wOrse. Promt, of CO""", had already used corrc'pondenC<'-I 10 annihilate time; J oyce, with hi" re_entrant time ' phere,
'73
? Leitmotiv
imf'"""d Ort this: be utains time and yet holds it wbolly within
IUs ~p, 10 mallaging 00 ha'~ the best of both worIda. T i_
is, was and will be, but Ihef'e " only a cutain amoont of iI, which . . . e limply use 0Y<:r and OVf:r apin. Eac:h As<: apes the
pn:<<dil\& one 10 1ru. 1 the cycling motifs, wbkh in Mann'. hamb upruent a connan! creuive imitation, bocome inltead in Fin"'I~/U IVa. 1:< symbolo of an am"";ng but oppreuivc
repetitiv. . . . "'" :
'Mere man'. mime: God has je. t. The old o. del" changeth and lasu likt the flllt. ' (~. 09)
IfJoyce'. motifi au lao dramatic tru. n thooc of Mann and Wagner, they an:: "'""0 mon:: highly chNgcd with oignif'Uot ront. . . . t. A n::pruenrntivc eumple of tile kind ofsymbolic COn?
densation made pouible by a Joya:an lm-tiD is the closing phr&$<: from Anna Livia Plurabelle: 'Baide Ihe rivering waten of, hitherandthithering water! of. Nightl' (216. 04). ' Thac wurds, in thenudve. suggestive enough perhap', but not very remarkable, form an epitome of the whole chapler and bear the . pirit of Anna with tbem wbenever they appear. Not Ortly arc: rippling . . . . . ter and darkness~, but aOO the tree and the toone and the tw o washerwonw:n of the immediate context. Hither and thither, a pair of oppDlite. , lejHIX,n Sbem and Shaun. Since the ph. . . . . . , illbc tail_d of a tale told of Anna L i v i a a n d t b e r o n c l u s i o n o f t h e m a j o r c y c l e o f B o o k I , i t 1 1' 01' &) ' 1 impli"', wh. " it reeu. . . . the end ofone (female) cycle and the beginning of the next (male) cycle, The wording provides a delr connexion with the whole GUlt Cycle ofFitontgaJU Wah, linee 'rivering' echoa the 'riverrun' witb which the book opens, Earlier we had met Anna in a highlighted paw. ge 'by the waten of Babylon' ('03. " ) and hence tlUs Riblico1 all. . . . . .
