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/lit/ - Literature

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6867328 No.6867328 [Reply] [Original]

>STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

What did he mean by this?

>> No.6867339

>>6867328
A pudgy dude named Buck Mulligan walk from a flight of stairs with a bowl of shaving cream balancing a razor laid across a mirror. Niggas gonna shave his face yo. But you knew that, joycespammer.

>> No.6867366

>>6867328
My guess: exactly what you think it means.

>> No.6867385

It's a metaphor for religion

>> No.6867393

>>6867339
A bowl of shaving cream?

Like a bowl full of shaving cream?

>> No.6867401

Buck has a stair fetish

>> No.6867405

It''s an outdated cultural reference

>> No.6867411

You need to read V. first

>> No.6867413

>>6867393
Yes

>> No.6867422

>>6867385
more precisely: a metaphor describing the co-opting of religion by fat-cat statists. Hence "stately" (of the state) the plump "BM"(bowel movement) descends from the stairhead (godhead, kabbalistic keter, etc) "bearing" a "bowl" (BB or betabux, as encouraged by christian morality and statist thinking as a stable societal base). The lather mirror and razor represent the symbolic magical tools the statist shit uses to shill his betabux worldviews to the thronging shitmasses (symbolized in his descent from the stairhead)

>> No.6867428

>>6867422
you're missing the most obvious symbolism: the mirror and razor are crossed over like a crucifix

>> No.6867437

>>6867422
not sure if meming or serious

>> No.6867439

>>6867422
I was thinking of the Catholic Mass, actually

>> No.6867448

>>6867439
>STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN
Priests look plump and stately in their robes
>CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD,
Godhead
>bearing a bowl of lather
The means to the end; that is, shaving or salvation, i.e., works
>on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.
A cross, i.e., faith

Joyce was Catholic sooo

>> No.6867535

>>6867448
>>6867448
the bowl of lather, razor and mirror are clearly a blend between sexual yonic/phallic and self-reflective/consciousness themes.

the bowl is the female cup, the vagina, the sheathe

the razor: the male dagger to the female's sheather. The sheathe filled already with 'lather', below the dagger suspended above in mind (the mirror: ideologies/moralities, esp. sexual). A confusing image, simultaneously dirty (JJ was a dirty boy [1][2]) and cleansing, it refers both to the author's own attitude towards sexuality and the statist bowel movement's idealized viewpoint of the bb sexual style. Something which by suspending the sexual energies (cup, dagger) in the processes of mind (mirror, reflection, thought, morality, sexual ethics) allows the lather to be carried (the female naturally carrying the (sexualized, white, foamy) cleaning agent, as women are gross) such that the shaving (shayving, saving) of the face of Man may be done.
[1]see love letters
[2]footnotes

>> No.6867544

>>6867535
>>6867437

>> No.6867772
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6867772

Maybe, just maybe Joyce just meant that Mulligan came from the stairhead with a bowl of lather, mirror and a razor.

>> No.6868074

>>6867448
if you continued past the first line you will see they have a mock mass and poke fun at it.

>> No.6868077

>>6867772

Oh hi reddit

>> No.6868097
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6868097

>>6867772
>the author didn't intend anything other than what is explicitly on the page

>> No.6868105
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6868105

>>6868097
the author's intention matters

>> No.6868106

>>6867422
My teacher in AP language and literature would swear that any time a character went downstairs or descended in any way it was symbolic of moving further away from God/heaven, and vice versa. Great teacher nonetheless but that shit was annoying.

>> No.6868111

>>6867339
I don't know man, this is Joyce, he said he put like a million enigmas in the book, he's not gonna just waste his opening line and make it literal, it probably means something

>> No.6868165

>>6868111
Well, the nice thing about symbolism is that very literal things can also have more subtle significance. The shaving scene is performed like a catholic mass, as other anons have said, and id say that juxtaposition of divinity and crude hygienics falls in line with his goal of pulling the metaphysical down to the level of man, expressing it through the materials of everyday life. But I'm no Joyce scholar so whatevs.

>> No.6868178
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6868178

>>6868105
gtfo troll

>> No.6868209

>>6868105
Is reddit down?