Let there be life
Let
there be life
In Brief
Figure of speech. Having just begun his tale of two
Dublin spinsters, Stephen cheers himself on with an echo of
the biblical creation story: "On now. Dare it. Let there be
life." In his catalogue of rhetorical terms Robert
Seidman labels this allusion a parody, which
seems problematic since parody is a literary device seldom
used in rhetoric. But Stephen's sentence does not resemble the
usual literary parody: rather than making the style of Genesis
laughable, it transfers the weight of its subject matter to
his present circumstance. As such it can perhaps be called a
rhetorical device, if not one treated in the classical
handbooks.
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Parody (the Greek paroidia means something like
"mock-song") humorously apes the style of a known text,
typically by exaggerating its distinctive features. Joyce fell
in love with the device while writing Ulysses. After
toying with it in earlier chapters (e.g., Buck Mulligan's
mocking imitation of John Millicent Synge's dialogue in Scylla
and Charybdis), he embarked on sustained passages of
parody in episodes 12-14 (Cyclops, Nausicaa, Oxen
of the Sun) and 17 (Ithaca). These chapters
recreate preexisting styles with so much delight,
inventiveness, and sympathy that their purpose clearly is not
simply to demean. But they never abandon the spirit of
laughable too-muchness.
Stephen's brief "Let there be life" feels different.
If he is mocking anyone, it must be himself for presuming to
rival the divine act of creation. But the context ("On now.
Dare it") suggests that he is not engaged in his usual
caustic self-criticism. Here at the end of Aeolus
Stephen tries to break out of his sterile self-involvement by
composing a fictive narrative. His subject matter––quite
new––is Dublin, and his challenge is to make two invented
characters come to life. If he succeeds he will be on the road
to becoming the author of Ulysses. Rather than making
light of the Judeo-Christian creation narrative, the allusion
to Genesis encourages him in this herculean task of creating a
city: "Dublin. I have much, much to learn."
Biblical language is also aped when J. J. O'Molloy says, "Sufficient
for the day is the newspaper thereof," echoing Jesus'
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matthew 6:34).
Again, this echo does not seem calculated to mock the style of
the gospel. It certainly can be called a parody, but the
sardonic edge is directed at newspapers.
Perhaps parody of a more conventional sort is at work when an odd narrative voice breaks into Aeolus with language reminiscent of several novels by Charles Dickens: "I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time..." Even there, though, the intent seems less to laugh at existing fiction than to envision the possibility of writing Ulysses.
