Joyce's Finnegans Wake

Abstract

This ninth in a series continues this ground-breaking word by word analysis of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.

This chapter features the Holy Spirit [“HS”] acting in and through the human female. The HS, described by Jesus as the “comforter” to follow him, inspires ALP to give comfort to her child and to her husband. With her help, her child Shem comes forth as an individual and HCE comes forth during sex. This coming forth of spirit takes place in Earwicker bedrooms, pointedly not in the church. In RCC dogma dutifully repeated here by the gospellers, the HS can perform only in and for the holy church. Like the good wife, the HS must remain at home.

In Joyce’s view embedded in this chapter, the HS is freely out and about on her own recognizance and seeking the genuine holy house, the individual human female. The HS seeks the human female as a sympathetic channel to promote the spirit of individuality and human to human connection through mutuality not authority. For the authority minded gospellers, the human female can only come fourth behind the all male trinity and must remain the dog ma at home.

ALP is the main agent in the principal events in this chapter: spiritual nurture of her child Shem not to fear his father and sexual intercourse with her husband. In both events and with the HS in her heart, she gives comfort and gives us an example of the Joycean divine combined with the human, a combination that may sound familiar to Christian trained ears.

For purposes of embedding the HS in this chapter, Joyce used references to the actions of the HS recorded in the bible, particularly the Incarnation of divinity in the Jesus seed and the gift of hot tongues at Pentecost, both considerable departures from normal reality. In the Joyce-made web of connections, mother’s child nurture basks in the glow of the Incarnation and mother and father’s sexual congress in the glow of Pentecost.

About the Author

This non-academic author, a retired lawyer and lifelong Joyce reader, brings new approaches in an attempt to find the deep meaning of each of Joyce's chapters and the novel as a whole. The intended scope of this effort, the complete Joyce, is unique in an area monopolized by more narrowly-focused academics. "I found that the best way to understand the novels I loved in college was to write about them, so I have since 1995 been communing with them and writing literary analysis books about them as art forms, how they work as art. This series on Finnegans Wake is the challenge I put off until last. Let us hope it finishes before I do."