Form & Content: The Arranging Editor of the Freeman's Journal

A Parallelism of Form and Content

The fact that the chapter in which the presence of the arranger is first noticeable (Lawrence 394) is set in a newspaper office is unlikely a coincidence. As the arranger is arranging the text of “Aeolus,” Bloom and others are discussing the arrangement of another kind of text: the newspaper. Formally and thematically, therefore, arrangement of prose influences the text—whether that text is the prose that constitutes “Aeolus” or the prose that constitutes the newspaper. The symbol of this chapter according to the Linati schema, in fact, is “editor,” which reminds readers about the process of editing (or, perhaps, arranging) that determines the progress of the text (Gifford 128).

“Dear Mr Editor”: A Meta Close Reading (Joyce 98)

While in the newspaper office, thoughts about the editing and writing process motivate Bloom’s interior monologue. “It’s the ads and side features sell a weekly, not the stale news in the official gazette,” he muses while thinking about his Irish roots (98). “Dear Mr Editor,” he thinks amidst thoughts of Ireland (98). “M.A.P. Mainly all pictures,” he adds, possibly referring to a newspaper, possibly to something else (98). The incoherence of his thoughts perhaps reinforces the need for an arranger, but paradoxically, Bloom himself functions like an arranger. He reflects on (and even influences some of) the features of the paper while in the newspaper office, and fittingly, the text itself in which he is featured is arranged in the style of a newspaper, in a parallelism of form and content. This parallel form and content conveys the pervasive impact of arranging.

“Better not teach him his own business”: Layered Voice (Joyce 99)

When Bloom describes the requirements for an ad shortly afterwards in the chapter, he specifically instructs Mr. Nannetti about how the ad should look. “He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He wants two keys at the top” (99). Bloom gives arrangement instructions to an existing arranger—an individual in the newspaper business. He knows that he is doing so, and he remarks internally: “Better not teach him his own business” (99). Notably, the voices at play within that phrase are somewhat difficult to identify. Within a text that is formally arranged, and amidst dialogue, Bloom seemingly reflects on his limits, but there is no first-person prose to definitively indicate entry into his interiority. The layers of voice are difficult to discern, just as the layers of arrangement are complex. This parallel form and content perhaps testifies to the difficulty of identifying individuals’ voices, as they are often impacted by the influences of others.

Broader Questions

“Aeolus” is undeniably a chapter of fashioning—and refashioning. The arranger formally arranges the text as the characters confer about the arrangements relating to the newspaper, raising a distinct parallelism of form and content. Questions about this parallelism, however, remain. Specifically, why elevate arranging as a driving force of the chapter, both in form and in content? Perhaps Joyce attempts to enact what Somer notes that Stephen Dedalus elevates as artistic achievement in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: “The artist should remain ‘within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails’ (P 215). According to Stephen, if art is to be authoritative, it must be objective, that is, dramatic in form” (Somer 70). By suggesting the presence of arrangers within his text both formally and thematically, Joyce models a form of art partially crafted by somewhat undetectable artists. On an unrelated note, perhaps Joyce implicitly offers a commentary on identity. Throughout the chapter, Bloom reflects on Irish identity—which is related to the concept of fashioning and refashioning of the self. Discussions of arranging text could metaphorically suggest the limits and possibilities relating to arranging identity, so to speak. Arrangers have control over their art, the text, but only to a certain extent because the work of the editor and the dialogue of the characters, for example, are also present. Perhaps an individual’s control over his or her identity is equally constrained. There are many possible reasons as to why arranging is elevated in this chapter, and none of them are conclusive. I hope that future readers of Ulysses will continue to discuss and debate this question.