CHAPTER SUMMARY AND NOTES

CHAPTER 1

Summary (continued)

He heaps food on StephenÂ’s plate. Everyone is quiet. Dante is red- faced. Mr. Dedalus cuts a piece from the turkey and says it is a tasty bit that is called "the popeÂ’s nose." When no one speaks up to take it, he puts it on his own plate and winks at Stephen. He tries to make light conversation about the weather and the strangers in town for the holiday. Nobody speaks. He looks at them and then says his Christmas dinner has been spoiled. Dante says there is no luck or grace in a house that profanes the church. Mr. Dedalus throws his knife and fork down and says, "Respect! Is it for Billy with the lip or for the tub of guts up in Armagh? Respect!" When Dante reiterates that they are the LordÂ’s anointed, he spits out, "Tub of guts. He has a handsome face, mind you, in repose. You should see that fellow lapping up his bacon and cabbage of a cold winterÂ’s day. O Johnny!" He twists his face into an ugly look of "heavy bestiality" and makes a lapping noise. Mrs. Dedalus comes in again to warn Simon against speaking in such a way in front of Stephen. Dante warns that Stephen will always remember this day as the day he heard God and religion and priests put down in his own home. Mr. Casey cries out that Stephen should remember the language with which the "priests and the priestsÂ’ pawns broke ParnellÂ’s heart." Mr. Dedalus calls them sons of bitches and says when Parnell was down they betrayed him. He calls them rats and dogs. Dante repeats that they behaved properly in obeying the bishops and priests. Mrs. Dedalus again asks for peace and uncle Charles asks why people cannot have opposing opinions without all the rancor. Mrs. Dedalus tries to talk to Dante in a low voice, but Dante yells out that she will always defend her church when it is spit upon by renegade Catholics.

Mr. Casey rudely pushes his plate forward and asks Simon if he had heard the story of the famous spit. He says it is an instructive story and it happened in county Wicklow where they are now. He interrupts himself to turn to Dante and say to her that he is not a renegade Catholic, that he is as Catholic as his father was and his father before him. They gave up their lives rather than sell their faith. Dante tells him he should be more ashamed in that case. Mr. Dedalus prompts him to tell the story. Dante interrupts and says the "blackest Protestant in the land would not speak the language" she has heard them speaking. Mr. Dedalus croons out like a singer and Mr. Casey says, "I am no Protestant." Mr. Dedalus keeps crooning and swaying his head. He sings, "O, come all you Roman Catholics / That never went to mass." He begins eating again and urges Mr. Casey to tell his story.

Stephen looks at Mr. Casey. He likes to sit near Mr. Casey and look up at his dark, fierce face. Only his face was fierce. His eyes were not and "his slow voice was good to listen to." He wonders why Mr. Casey was against the priests. He thinks Dante must be right, but then he remembers his father saying that Dante was a spoiled nun and that she had come out of the convent in the Alleghenies when her brother had made money off the "savages" by selling them trinkets. Stephen wonders if it is that which has made her so severe against Parnell. Dante did not like Stephen to play with Eileen because she was Protestant. Dante remembers hearing Protestant children making fun of the Catholic litany of the Virgin Mary. They had sung, "Tower of Ivory, House of Gold!" Stephen cannot figure out how a woman could be either thing. He cannot decide who is right. He remembers his evening in the infirmary when he imagined the dark waters and the moans of the people when they heard Parnell was dead. Stephen thinks of EileenÂ’s long, white hands. She once put her hands over his eyes. He thinks of that as ivory, "a cold white thing," and decides it must be the meaning of "Tower of Ivory."

Mr. Casey begins his story. He says it happened on a very cold day in Arklow not long before the chief (Parnell) died. Mr. Dedalus interjects, "Before he was killed, you mean." Mr. Casey says they were at a meeting in Arklow and after it, they walked toward the railway station. The crowd called them all kinds of horrible names and "booed" them. One old woman attached herself to Mr. Casey and kept screaming out in his face, "Priest- hunter! The Paris Funds! Mr. Fox! Kitty OÂ’Shea!" Mr. Casey says he just let the woman scream. He had a mouthful of tobacco juice. When the woman called Kitty OÂ’Shea a particularly bad name and stuck her face into Mr. CaseyÂ’s and he spit his tobacco juice in her eye. He imitates her scream that she was blinded and drowned. Mr. Dedalus laughs loudly at the story. Uncle Charles shakes his head back and forth. Dante looks furious.

Stephen wonders what the name was that the woman had called Kitty OÂ’Shea. Stephen pictures Mr. Casey in crowds of people making speeches from wagons. He had been in prison for it. Stephen remembers one night when Sergeant OÂ’Neill came to their house to speak to Simon. He had nervously chewed his chinstrap. Stephen knows that Mr. Casey and his father are for Ireland and Parnell. He knows that Dante is too because one night she had hit a man on the head with her umbrella when he took off his hat to the bandÂ’s rendition of "God Save the Queen."

Mr. Dedalus snorts and says it is such a shame that Ireland is such a "priest-ridden race." He points to a portrait of his grandfather hanging on the wall. He tells John Casey that his grandfather was a good Irishman when it was not popular to be so and that he had been condemned to death as a "whiteboy." He had a saying that he would never let any priest put his feet under his mahogany (table). Dante interrupts him and says they should be proud to be a priest- ridden race. She quotes the Bible "Touch them not for they are the apple of My eye." Mr. Casey wonders if they are not allowed to love their country and follow a man who was born to lead them. Dante calls Parnell a traitor and an adulterer. She says the priests have always been true friends of Ireland. Mr. Casey cites several instances in Irish history when priests betrayed the country in favor of union with England. His face is red with anger.

Stephen feels his own face getting hot in response to the passionate speech. Dante cries out excitedly, "God and religion before everything! Go and religion before the world!" Mr. Casey says if it comes to that, no God for Ireland, then. Mr. Dedalus tries to calm Mr. Casey. He stands up and yells at Dante, "Away with God." Dante yells back, calling him a blasphemer and a devil. Mr. Dedalus and uncle Charles pull Mr. Casey back into his chair. Dante throws her napkin down an Stephen notices that her napkin ring rolls off the table and rests at the foot of the easy chair. Dante rushes toward the door, followed by Mrs. Dedalus trying to stop her. She goes out the door. Mr. Casey frees his arms from Simon and Charles and rests his head on the table sobbing, "Poor Parnell! My dead king." Stephen sees that his father is also crying.

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