“James Joyce and the Making of Ulysses” by Frank Budgen: Nameless Narrator—Nameless One, “I”—is protagonist Bloom’s angry alternate personality.

“It seemed to me that no two episodes pleased Joyce more in the writing of them than The Sirens and that which followed, The Cyclops. Perhaps it was because the war ended while The Sirens was being written…toward the end of 1918…[The Sirens] falls under…the art of music…Joyce is himself a tenor singer and a lover of music…(1, p. 135).

“The Cyclops episode…is a straightforward tale told by one whose name is never mentioned…the Nameless One, ‘I’…

“Bloom, I take it, can be so rationally humane because the presence of ‘I’ relieves him of all hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. ‘I’ is an aspect of Bloom’s mind…given separate form and life…

“The Bloom of The Cyclops episode is the Bloom seen and heard by the nameless narrator…This is the only episode, Penelope excepted, in which Bloom is seen entirely through other eyes…

“Joyce read to me on the day he wrote it the passage…where ‘I’ says: ‘I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw…and said to Bloom: Look at, Bloom. Do you see that straw? That’s a straw…he’d talk about it for an hour…and talk steady.

“ ‘You see,’ said Joyce, ‘ ‘I’ is really a great admirer of Bloom…' ” (1, pp. 156-169).

Comment

The reason that Bloom is not a person of hatred, malice, and uncharitableness is that these feelings and attitudes have been dissociated away from him into an alternate personality.

In novels, alternate personalities are often “given separate form and life” as characters or narrators, who may be given names or be nameless.

Namelessness in novels suggests that the nameless character or narrator may be an alternate personality. In multiple personality, nameless personalities are common.

Search “nameless,” “namelessness,” and “nameless narrator” for the many past posts on this recurring topic.

1. Frank Budgen. James Joyce and the Making of ‘Ulysses’ [1934]. London, Oxford University Press, 1972.