Choreographic Narrative

Abstract

‘But ours is the omphalos’ reports Buck Mulligan expansively (Te 544), in characterising and individualising the Martello Tower in Sandycove that he had rented, where Stephen Dedalus has been staying for at least ten days and Haines for the past three. The three ‘residents’ have descended from the narrow tower to the open area of Sandycove beach, but Mulligan’s allusion to the presumed centre of the world reinforces the tensions of the opening of the Telemachus chapter on the open top of the tower. To that tightly constrained area, enclosed by the parapets but exposed to the sky, Mulligan had summoned Stephen up (and will later call him back down). The verbal sparring that characterises their inter-exchanges in that confined arena sets the stage for the battle for domination that persists between them: ‘Parried again’, Stephen thinks when Mulligan compliments him egregiously, adding, ‘He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his’ (Te 152) — but the fear may apply more aptly to Stephen than to Mulligan. The vast expanse of open sky around them gives Stephen a certain degree of manoeuvrability; he has the freedom to look past his ‘threadbare cuffedge’ (Te 106) to the surrounding sea. Mulligan attempts to draw Stephen in, holding up a restrictive mirror for him to view himself, and even in this manoeuvre Stephen manages to remain uncooperative, looking instead at the crack in the glass, like a ‘Hair on end’ (Te 136).