Telemachus and the Postcolonial

The whole of James Joyce’s masterpiece, Ulysses, is a very, very intricate book. In recent years, scholars have been examining this work in what has come to be known as a postcolonial context. The inaugural chapter of the book is the most overtly postcolonial. It is filled with metaphors, motifs, and direct reference to postcolonial issues. As the metaphors mount, the context climaxes at the point with direct reference to British rule. As the characters leave the tower, or prison; they also mostly leave behind the postcolonial discourse. Joyce doesn’t seem all that concerned with it; rather, he acknowledges it most in his opening chapter and leaves it there, moving on to the perhaps more important artistic issues of form, language, encyclopedia, and other notorious flourishes he is preoccupied with.

Before attacking the chapter from this standpoint, we must define the term postcolonial and Ireland as a postcolonial nation as succinctly as possible. Deepika Bahri defines postcolonialism as “of, relating to, or being the time following the establishment of independence in a colony.” She goes on to say that “In practice, however, the term is used much more loosely. While the denotative definition suggests otherwise, it is not only the period after the departure of the imperial powers that concerns those in the field, but that before independence as well.” (Bahri 1). Such is the case with Ulysses, as Ireland is still under British rule and has yet to declare its independence during the period of the novel, indeed; part of the country is still under British control to this day.

Ireland, however, isn’t such a traditional postcolonial nation. Cian O’Callaghan writes that “Ireland has occupied a particular (in many ways privileged) postcolonial position. Its geographical proximity to Europe and its cultural proximity to the US, its racial composition, and especially its access to the EU, have afforded Ireland opportunities for economic and structural advancement not offered to other former colonies.” (O’Callaghan 1).

This belief is mirrored by Joyce in Ulysses, as postcolonialism and imperialism arise as issues, but only overtly in the first chapter and very sparingly afterward. Ireland’s ‘privileged’ position as a postcolonial nation allows Joyce to flourish in other aspects of his art rather than spend an obscene amount of time developing anti-English or anti-colony tones, themes, or what have you.

As previously stated, ‘Telemachus’ is the most postcolonial of the chapters, and it is the first. This is no coincidence. With Joyce, nothing is ever coincidence anyway. Joyce brings up the themes of postcolonialism and imperialism simply to dismiss them and move on; to show the reader what’s truly important: art. High thought. Shakespeare. Food. Auto-erotic pleasure. Perhaps some of the aforementioned simultaneously.

At any rate, the first glimmer we get of the postcolonial discourse is on page four of the great novel, when Stephen and Mulligan are first discussing Haines. Mulligan stereotypes Haines as an Englishman from Oxford who’s full of himself as well as gas. Is this disdain for the history between the nations, or is it Haines’ character? We can’t be certain. The following line, however, gives us the first clue to Haines’ character, and the relationship between himself, Stephen, and Mulligan; or abstractly, between England and Ireland: “He can’t make you out. O, my name for you is the best: Kinch, the knifeblade.” (Joyce 4). Stephen perplexes Haines, especially as an educated Irishman and really, as an incredibly intelligent person. The knifeblade. The sharp wit. The murder weapon, the Englishman’s demise. It cuts Haines. Several times Stephen makes remarks that Haines clearly doesn’t understand, but he persists all the same. It’s clear that Stephen’s mind is on another level when compared to Haines’. This is unsettling for Haines, the Englishman, and the ruler of the Irish. He must be superior to them, and is discomforted when he finds he isn’t.

For example, when Stephen makes his great analogy of the servant’s cracked looking glass, Haines says that this is clever (Joyce 7). The motif is one of delusion. The servant, the Irishman, holds a broken looking glass. An item that would normally allow for clear, far sight has been broken; presumably by the English through the act of colonization and all of the sticky issues that go with it. Haines claims it is clever, though he does not show that he understands this motif in the slightest. In fact, when Stephen comes inside for breakfast, Haines brings it up again. He brings it up because he hopes to elicit an explanation from Stephen (Joyce 16). His inherent imperialistic nature cannot allow him to withstand an Irishman holding a piece of knowledge, a key, which he does not or cannot have.

In between these scenes, a character is introduced as an allegory for the bulk of the Irish population. The milkmaid (or milkwoman) enters on page thirteen. The postcolonial contexts get more and more heavy-handed as the chapter wears on. Concerning the woman, Stephen comments on her allegory, calling her an “immortal serving her conqueror and gay betrayer” and commenting as to whether she is “To serve or to upbraid” and though he couldn’t tell, he “scorned to beg her favour” (Joyce 14).

Hsing-Chun Chou writes notably of these types of motifs in his doctoral dissertation:
“…bear in mind the colonial tropes structuring the "Telemachus" episode, with which Joyce begins his book-the Martello Tower built and possessed by the English where Stephen lives, the Englishman Haines's silver cigarette case inlaid with a green stone, the abject milkwoman's service to her masters…” (Chou 10).

Her service to the men, especially Haines, helps to cement her as the representative of colonial Ireland. Stephen wonders if she is to be a revolutionary, or a passive supporter of the British. Either way, he does not care because ultimately, Joyce is not largely concerned with postcolonialism. In this instance, he seems to want to distance himself from it entirely.

In the end, Joyce does distance himself and the narrative from the postcolonial context. The aforementioned tower, built by the British, serves to act as a metaphorical prison. It could even be compared to the Tower of London. When the characters are interacting within, the postcolonial issues are abundant and clear. As they leave and distance themselves from it, however, the context fades into the narrative and becomes nothing more than a shadowy thread.

Chou writes that “the empire is inseparable from colonial modernization…Ireland underwent an abrupt and disastrous process of modernization, which…was associated with the culture of the colonial power.” (Chou 11). In this respect, the whole of Ulysses remains postcolonial, but only because the Empire and the modernization of Ireland cannot be separated. Joyce is very concerned with the modernization of his nation or perhaps the rejection of it; and thus he is occupied with postcolonialism by Chou’s standards. This serves as a thread that slithers through the narrative, but it is not as prominent as Chou seems to believe.

Indeed, Stephen says to Haines that he “is the servant of two masters…an English and an Italian.” When prodded by Haines in another of his intellectual shortcomings, Stephen says he is a servant of “The imperial British state…” (Joyce 20). This is the climax of postcolonial theory in the novel, the blatant exclamation point at the end of what Joyce was getting at through the chapter. Ireland’s place as a postcolonial nation is an important one, one that warrants a specific response in Ulysses. It is not, however, among Joyce’s main concerns, and he ditches it after Telemachus.




Works Cited

Bahri, Deepika. "Introduction to Postcolonial Studies." (1996). Web. 22 Feb. 2012. <http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Intro.html>.

Chou, Hsing-Chun. “Joyce, Bakhtin, and postcolonial trialogue: history, subjectivity, and the nation in Ulysses”. Diss. University of Glasgow, 2002. Print.


Joyce, James, and Jeri Johnson. Ulysses. Oxford Univ Pr, 2009. Print.

O'Callaghan, Cian. "The Queen in the Postcolony." (2011). Web. 22 Feb. 2012. <http://irelandafternama.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/the-queen-in-the-postcolony/>.

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