Father Conmee's Dublin : the urban pastoral of Wandering Rocks

This paper has two theses: the first is that Jonathan Swift's "A Description of the Morning" is a source for the Wandering Rocks chapter in Ulysses; the second is that the pastoral convention used in the poem manifests itself in Wandering Rocks through Father Conmee and reveals his inability to comprehend the problems of working-class Dublin. The introduction defines terms and methodologies used to construct the argument; two central concepts are what has historically constituted the "pastoral" and Louis Althusser's definitions of ideology and interpellation in his essay, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." The introduction also establishes a foundation for the relationship between Swift and Joyce with support such as previous scholarship, Joyce's notes in Swift's biography, and thematic links between their texts.

Chapter one is a close textual comparison between "A Description of the Morning" and Wandering Rocks. I argue that there are four effects that Joyce borrowed from the poem: a mechanic simultaneity of action; an "objective" rendering of detail that misleads readers; images and characters that Joyce develops into scenarios; and the repetition of particular sound effects. Evidence from both texts is offered in support of al claims and culminates in perhaps the most significant affinity between the two works: the paralysis of the city.

Chapter two argues that Swift and Joyce restore the element of social protest to pastoral that had been excised in the Renaissance. For example, the incongruity between form and content in the poem makes evident that sentimentalizing the lives of poor people only dismisses real hardship. In Joyce's chapter Father Conmee views the unemployment and poverty of Dublin through a pastoral perspective that renders them idyllic. Using Althusser's conception of ideology and interpellation, I argue that Conmee maintains his ideologically dominant position through the interpellations of other Dubliners and Joyce's text, and Dubliner’s defer to Father Conmee because he is in a position to define them.