“Proteus”: Plotless One-Person Fictional World?
[A rendering of the sea-god Proteus by Andrea Alciato]
After Stephen Dedalus is introduced in the first two episodes of James Joyce’s Ulysses, hardly anything happens in “Proteus,” the third episode. After the reader is acquainted with Stephen’s character (a struggling and aspiring artist), his job (teaching privileged boys), his living situation (in a tower with a not disinterested friend), and the people around him (Mulligan, Haines, Mr. Deasy, his dead mother), in “Proteus” the reader finds Stephen walking at the beach, alone. It is as if the tension between the characters, the conflicts that have been building up, and Stephen’s aspirations are put on hold to make room for his observations and reflections. This slows down the development of the plot, even disrupting (in addition to delaying) the narrative by it being preoccupied with things that do not seem to contribute much to earlier developments. This is only seemingly true, however. “Proteus” serves a very important function in the narrative: in it, Stephen is able to come to a decision that is much needed to move the plot along.
“Proteus” feels different from the previous two episodes largely because in its fictional world, there is only one person.[1] With only one person, there are no other characters that Stephen can converse and interact with. Thus there are no dialogues, important features of the text that, among other things, reveal information (both the obvious and the hidden[2]), create tension (by virtue not only of the content of what is said, but also its tone, its phrasing, previous statements made, the position of the speaker,[3] etc.), and serve as motivation for further action[4]—all things that dialogues do in the previous episodes, contributing to the plot. More generally, with only one person, there are no other figures who can have all sorts of relations with Stephen (conversationally, but also physically)—to challenge him, support him, stimulate him, do something with him, do something to him, to whom he would do something—thereby severely limiting action and what happens in the episode. Thus it is not clear what (and how) the “Proteus” episode contributes to the plot being developed in the novel as a whole. This is unnerving since the episode is, presumably for a reason, an integral part of the novel.
Narrative fiction does many things, but whether it illuminates the character/s (the “protagonist”), sheds light on some part of the world or aspect of life (by elaborating a “theme”), or experiments with the medium of narration itself (such as by shifting points of view or using words innovatively), it does this through the prime literary device at its disposal, the plot. Defined as the successive stages of a development (exposition, complication, climax, dénouement, resolution) or the realization of a drive (the character has a desire that motivates him/her to action) by way of conflicts, after which something has changed, plot is, as it were, the structure of narrative. Whatever else narrative fiction does, plot is the device by which it attempts to do that, the plot being its defining feature: the “plan” around which the narrative’s events are organized, the springboard for the fiction’s desired effects, what moves the narration on (thereby making possible that something is narrated), what makes it a narrative in the first place.
Plot is precisely what “Proteus,” by featuring a world with only one person, seems to be missing, in which case it does not seem to have the device that connects it to the rest of the novel and by which it can contribute to its overall effect. This is, however, only seemingly true. While there are no other pertinent characters physically present with Stephen in his actual setting in “Proteus,” they are nonetheless there, present in his mind. These absent characters emerge insistently in Stephen’s mind and they are encountered through memories and reflections sometimes triggered by observations (of the immediate environment), the most pervasive features of the episode. These characters in the mind, then, enable Stephen to deal with the conflicts already introduced in the previous episodes and, in some cases, allow him, if only internally, to resolve them, as though the characters were really present. Even with no other persons, then, there are other characters in Stephen’s mind, there are conflicts, and there are (Stephen’s) desires. Hence, even with only one person in its fictional world, “Proteus” still has plot. Moreover, the remembrance of statements made by the other characters and Stephen’s own varied thoughts serve, as it were, as the dialogue.
The plot of “Proteus” is less conspicuous than in previous episodes, but it can still be followed, usually through revelatory thoughts that from time to time come out to disrupt Stephen’s train of thought. The episode begins with philosophical cogitation that seems to come out of nowhere, but which is in fact logically connected to the plot. At the end of the first paragraph of this cogitation, Stephen is led to think, “Shut your eyes and see,” which is perhaps indicative of what Stephen is trying to do in this episode (3.9). Offended and betrayed by Mulligan, insulted and commanded by Mr. Deasy, feeling indignation towards Haines (events that were recounted in the first two episodes), and haunted by his mother whose last wish he did not fulfill, there is a sense in which Stephen walks at the beach to escape from it all, to “shut his eyes” from it, as it were. The escape, however, is only temporary, as Stephen himself knows: when he opens his eyes, the world is “there all the time without [him]: and ever shall be, world without end” (3.27-3.28). Nonetheless, he still needs this respite, the shutting of the eyes, precisely in order to “see,” i.e. to be able to think and come to some decision as to what to do with the situation (the same world that he will again see once he opens his eyes). This is precisely what Stephen does in the episode: he shuts himself from his world (hence action is replaced by reflections, memories, observations) to come up with some decision as to what to do with it (the progress of which is indicated by the revelatory thoughts that from time to time emerge).
The first time that a revelatory thought pertaining to his situation emerges is when that situation is recalled amidst his reflections. He thinks, “I mustn’t forget [Mr. Deasy’s] letter for the press. And after? The Ship, half twelve [to meet Mulligan and Haines, pay for their drinks]. By the way go easy with that money like a good young imbecile [reminded Mr. Deasy]. Yes, I must” (3.58-3.60). There is a sense in which Stephen really does not want to—in fact, actively desires not to—go back to that situation. He tries to find an alternative, another place to stay (he’d been staying with Mulligan). He considers an extended relative, aunt Sara, but remembers her own living situation and is led to think, “houses of decay, mine, his and all,” i.e. that it is no alternative, after all (3.105). At the same time, throughout the episode Stephen is haunted by Mulligan’s voice and actions: his insensitive comment, “The aunt thinks you killed your mother. That’s why she won’t” (3.200); the fact that “[Mulligan] has the key [to the tower,]” having taken it from him as if to press home the fact that the tower is not Stephen’s home, that he does not have full rights to it, that he does not have a home (3.277). Stephen weighs his options, and, despite not having an alternative, he comes to a resolution: “I will not sleep there when this night comes” (3.277).
Having made this decision (in his mind, internally, without an explicit action that accompanies it, or with an action that is not obvious at this point[5]), Stephen then recalls the deeper reasons for the decision (perhaps justifying it, if only in the mind). He refers to Haines and Mulligan as “the panthersahib and his pointer,” invoking Haines’ imperialist connections and Mulligan’s obsequious prostitution (3.278). He vows, “You will not be master of others or their slave,” revealing that this is what he thought about was his relation with them, something that he has not articulated before (3.295-3.296). He remembers the history of the place he is walking on and talks of “my people” (3.305), thinks that “their blood is in me, their lusts my waves” (3.306-3.307). As a dog barks at him, he remembers the “dog of my enemy” (3.309-3.310), Mulligan, as connected to Haines, the imperial enemy (who wants to collect Irish folk songs and is in a good position at Oxford to be the artist that Stephen aspires to be). Stephen connects all of this to the haunting memory of his mother, which is compounded and perpetuated by the friend that was supposed to help him in the grieving process, Mulligan, with his original offense (the insensitive comment). Thus as Stephen observes cocklepickers at the beach, he likens the action of their dog to burial and thinks about “something he buried there, his grandmother” (3.360-3.361). There are, of course, other minor offenses (“My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember” (3.498)), which might not have the same weight, but which do speak to the banality of Mulligan’s insults and offenses everyday. Stephen also does not forget Mr. Deasy, who insults him in similar ways. While respecting Deasy’s request, Stephen tears a part of his letter and uses it to write a poem, another act of liberation (3.404-3.407).
Clearly, “Proteus” has a plot (related to the overall plot of the novel). Beginning with some background of the conflicts in the story, the episode reaches a climax when Stephen makes a decision and undergoes a dénouement and resolution when Stephen tries to justify that decision. In other words, Stephen has a desire (not to go back to his situation), which he decides to act on and finds a way to justify. All this takes place internally, in Stephen’s mind; hence it is his recollections and reflections that play the role that dialogues usually do in the consideration of the conflicts and the deliberation of a decision. It was necessary that, rather than having actual conversations or actually interacting with other characters, Stephen did it this way. In the first two episodes, Stephen was insulted and oppressed all around. Powerless in his usual world, Stephen had to enter another world—a world with only one person—in order to have some liberation from his situation so that he can think how to get out of it. Rather than being an anomaly, then, the ground for “Proteus” was actually set by the previous two episodes; similarly, with the decision come upon thanks to the nature of its world (one that has only one person in it, Stephen), “Proteus” is able to move the novel along.
[1] There are, in fact, other people in the episode; none of them, however, interact with Stephen or continue what the other characters have been doing in the previous episodes.
[2] The fact that a piece of information is known or obvious does not, of course, necessarily mitigate its revelation in certain settings. Mulligan carelessly talking about Stephen’s dead mother, for example, offends Stephen, even if the information is accurate and already known (1.220).
[3] In the first episode, for example, the sincerity of the interest expressed by Haines to learn about Irish culture is undermined by his position as a privileged British student with a scholarly project and son of an imperialist.
[4] When Mr. Deasy, for example, tells Stephen, “You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus, with some of your literary friends,” he is given something to do, which motivates his later action of going to the newspaper office in Dublin (2.289-290).
[5] There is, of course, an action: he will not go back to the tower. This is, however, an action that is not manifested right at the moment when he makes the decision (unlike, say, Caesar crossing the Rubicon).
