Nestor

     Nestor is named after Homers character Nestor in the Odyssey. Garret Deasy is Nestor's counterpart in Ulysses. Stephen is Telemachus’s counterpart. A theme that starts in this chapter and follows throughout the book is Stephen’s search for a father figure. Guilt, responsibility, authority problems, and stupidity are also strongly emphasized in this chapter.

     Ulysses Nestor takes place in a school at 10:00 a.m. Stephen Dedalus teaches a history lesson to spoiled students with rich fathers. He practically gives the students the correct answers, but meanwhile, Stephen is thinking of his past behavior with his friends, and his inadequacies as a teacher. When the class begins to recite Milton’s Lycidas, Stephen’s mind wanders to his past, and the poem reminded him of his religious doubts. Neither Stephen’s student nor himself are interested the lessons that he is teaching.

     The class ends at 10a.m. and the students go play soccer. Before the children leave Stephen tells this riddle:

The riddle is incomprehensible to the students, and once the answer is given, the students leave. The answer is a fox burying his grandmother under a hollow bush. Cyril Sargent, one of Stephen’s students, stays behind for help with his math assignment. Cyril Sargent reminds Stephen of himself when he was a child. They were both little boys that only a mother could love.

     When Stephen is done helping Cyril, he goes to the head masters office to pick up his pay for the week. Mr. Deasy lectures Stephen on financial responsibility, the pro-British, and saving money. Mr. Deasy’s reason for asking Stephen to his office was to give Stephen his letter on Foot and Mouth disease. Mr. Deasy wanted Stephen’s friends from the newspaper to publish his letter. The letter was full of misinformation and mistakes that Mr. Deasy believed to be true. Mr. Deasy ended his conversation with Stephen with a bad joke about Ireland not letting the Jews in, and laughing hysterically at his own joke.

     Stephen’s guilt for ignoring his mother’s pleads to pray at her deathbed is very apparent in this chapter. The first clue is the incomprehensible riddle that Stephen tells his class about the fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush. Stephen changed the words to the poem because it was related so closely to the guilt he was suffering from not praying for his mother. The real answer is a fox burying his mother under a holly tree.

     Stephen’s next reminder of his mother was when Cyril Sargent stayed after class to get help for a math assignment. This little boy was very wimpy, with sloped shoulders and stringy hair. Stephen believed that not only did their mothers keep Cyril and himself alive and well, but also were the stronger part of the mother/son relationship.

     Stephen’s problem with authority is also clear in this chapter. He hates being a teacher and does not do a good job teaching. He half-heartedly teaches as his mind wanders down memory lane. Stephen never wanted to have authority or control over students, and from the way his class acts, he barely does. Garret Deasy is Nestor’s counterpart from Homer’s Odyssey. Nestor was the old man from Iliad that was known for his wisdom and advice. Nestor gave advice to Telemachus about his father. Mr. Deasy is not wise, and even though he does give advice to Stephen, the advice is unsolicited and not helpful.

     Rickard recalls that the pandybatting scene in the first chapter of, A Portrait as being the initial breakdown of authority in Stephen Dedalus life. This situation happened in Clongwes schoolroom. However, the chapter of Nestor begins with Stephen teaching a history lesson and calling on students to answer questions. Although teachers are supposed to be pillars of authority, especially in their own classrooms, as the reader reads farther into Nestor, we soon see Stephen’s mind wanders off and we learn that he has "…no taste for the role he is expected to play"(Rickard 4). Another example that Stephen lacks control over his class is the thought he has at the end of his class about the schoolboys: he thinks that they would "laugh more loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papa’s pay"(Joyce 20). Stephen does not take control of his class because he tries to avoid the authority that being a teacher requires. Stephen rejects any authority that he is required to have as a teacher:

He rejects his authority as a master just as he rejects the tyranny of the past, both in his quick abandonment of the history lesson and in his later conversation with Mr. Deasy. And, as we will see, he implicitly rejects the authority of memory as well in the riddle he tells his students about the fox burying his grandmother (Rickard 5).

     Cyril Sargent, the little boy that Stephen helps with his math lesson, reminds Stephen of himself. The name has two opposite meanings: Cyril means King or Lord in Greek, and Sargent is derived from serv or slave according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Cyril Sergeant not only reminds Stephen of himself when he was a little boy, but Cyril Sargeant’s name is "a reflection of his own identity, turn between the desire for mastery and the consciousness of slavery" (Rickard 5). Stephen wants to escape from his historical and personal past as well as the memory of his mother’s death and the part that he played in it.

     Another sign of authority is the riddle that Stephen told his boys that made no sense, though it turns the schoolroom into "both a locus of authority and the abrogation of authority for Stephen" (Rickard 6). Stephen tries to escape his personal past as well as his historical link to Ireland, but throughout Nestor we notice parts of his past creeping into his mind and thoughts.

     The riddle that Stephen tells during class appears throughout the book in many different places. Although the riddle seems to be incomprehensible, it is much deeper than that, the riddle is another sign of Stephen trying to avoid authority, instead he gives it more power. Stephen tries to avoid memories

In attempting to evade the authority of the past—of memory—by burying his consciousness of guilt and death in this deliberately obscure riddle, Stephen distorts the authority of language for the purpose of evading an unpleasant memory. His distaste for authority in Ulysses is clearly to some extent a function of his desire to avoid the memory of his mother and his sense of responsibility for her death (Rickard 7).

     The "riddle carries connotations of death, betrayal, repression, and mourning. For example the "fox" carries overtones of disguise, guilt, and hiding" (Rickard 8). According to Rickard, Stephen cast himself as both the guilty villain who tries to bury the crime, and the victim who recites the riddle in attempts to unmask the secret. The riddle not only carries authority issues in the story but also shows Stephen mourning his mothers death, which is carried through this chapter.

     The second half of "Nestor is spent in Garret Deasy’s office. He is "the pompous schoolmaster who worships power and money"(Rickard, 4). "The historical power associated with the office of the principal, Mr. Deasy, is symbolized by his collections of shells and of coins" (Sidorsky 316). Mr. Deasy lectures Stephen on debt, saving money, and shares his pro-British thoughts. But throughout their conversation Mr. Deasy "… presents untruths as dogmatic statements, playing on possible doubts and misgivings in the mind of his listeners" (Melchiori 415). Mr. Deasy tries to be intellectual and hold intelligent discussions with Stephen, but because Stephen knows the facts about what Mr. Deasy is talking about and he knows that Mr. Deasy is wrong, as well as ignorant for his anti-Semitic slurs against Jews.

     Mr. Deasy’s reason for calling Stephen to the office was to give him a letter that he has written on the Foot and Mouth disease. He wanted the letter to be published, but the letter was full of mistakes and half-truths. The fact that Mr. Deasy is writing on this disease is surprising because he is a Unionist. The Unionist should not champion this cause:

But the most striking feature of the whole transposition is the fact that in his letter the rabid Unionist Mr. Deasy becomes the champion of a cause that, according to Joyce’s editorial in the Freeman’s Journal, the Unionists themselves had betrayed. In this case Mr. Deasy is not manipulating past history, but becomes in his own person the incarnation of the contradictories and unreliability of present history, history in the making (Melchiori 419).

Mr. Deasy makes many mistakes with his historical facts throughout the second half of Nestor that proves how easy it is to "alter or contradict historical truth, showing how deceptive the profession of history can be" (Melchiori 415). The mistakes that Mr. Deasy made were not mistakes, but deliberate mistakes like "the faithless wife who "first brought the strangers to our shore"(Joyce 34), though in this case the change from the correct description "O’Rourke’s wife" to the wrong one "MacMurrough’s wife" occurred in the manuscript. In these instances, Mr. Deasy is made to alter or contradict historical truth, showing how deceptive the profession of history can be" (Melchiori 415). James Joyce put deliberate mistakes in Mr. Deasy’s speech to push the point that history is not always reliable. If the person speaking to Mr. Deasy did not know history they would not have known the mistakes that he made.

     Deasy’s character in Nestor is "…aged counselor and the first in a series of potential father-figures that includes Bloom as its most promising and fully rendered member"(Spoo143). Stephen’s search for a replacement father is a theme throughout Ulysses that starts in this chapter. Stephen’s father is not dead, but he is also not a good father. Stephen searches for a replacement father that is ideal in his mind.

     Nestor is a short episode within Ulysses, but it contains many significant situations that continue throughout the book. Stephen’s search for a father begins in this chapter with Mr. Deasy. This episode also begins to examine Stephen’s struggle with having authority as well as his mourning the lost of his mother and the role he may have had in her death. Nestor also allows the reader to begin to understand why Stephen is so unhappy with his life and the history of Ireland that he wants to escape.

Annoted Bibliography

Jacobus, Lee A. " ‘Lycidas’ in the ‘Nestor’ Episode." James Joyce Quarterly. 19.2

(1982 Winter): 189-194.

Journal article that relates the use of "Lycidas" in the Nestor episode as being appropriate. This article relates parts of "Lycidas" to sections of Nestor. It helped to show what importance "Lycidas" had in relation to Nestor. Explained Milton’s connection to Stephen as well as the importance of the placement "Lycidas" in Nestor.

Melchiori, Giorgio. "Two Notes on ‘Nestor’." James Joyce Quarterly. 22.4 (1985

Summer): 414-419.

The article explains the meaning of the word Pluterperfect that Mr. Deasy used in his Foot and Mouth letter. The article also explains the significance of Mr. Deasy mix up of the French Celt and the Scotch Celt. This article provided the information that Mr. Deasy mistakes throughout the Nestor episode are intentionally placed there by the author to make certain points.

Spoo, Robert E. " ‘Nestor’ and the Nightmare. The presence of the Great War in

Ulysses." Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal. 32.2 (1996 Summer): 137-154.

This article explains the history that Stephen believes is a nightmare and tries to escape. The article was useful in the comparison of Mr. Deasy to Nestor from Odyssey and to explain Stephen’s problems with history.

Sidorsky, David. "The Historical as the Denial of History from "Nestor" via the vico

Road" to the Commodious Vicus of Recirculation." New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation. 30.2 (2001 Spring): 301-26.

This article compares Joyce’s writing style of Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake. The article helped to explain the meaning of passages in Ulysses and explain the meaning of the coins in Mr. Deasy office.

Rickard, John. "Stephen Dedalus among School Children: The Schoolroom and the

Riddle of Authority In Ulysses." Studies in the Literary Imagination. 30.2 (1997, Fall): 17-37.

Article gave a detail breakdown of all the significant information that was given in the episode Nestor. Also compared Ulysses to Dubliners and A Portrait. This article was useful because it broke down the meaning of the riddle and of Mr. Deasy article.