THE PICTURE AND THE LETTER ¯ Male and Female Creativity in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake William L. Miller 1995 This thesis is submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Australian Defence Force Academy, University of New South Wales Australian Defence Force Academy University of New South Wales Candidate’s Certificate I hereby declare certify that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis. Signed Date For Audrey, Alice and Henry ABSTRACT All Joyce’s works both implicitly and explicitly contain theories of artistic creation. The central theme of this dissertation concerns the separate roles assigned to male and female in descriptions of the creative process in Finnegans Wake, and additionally to assess the gender-related issues surrounding the Wakean cycle of creativity. The latter requirement unites two modes of reading: namely an elucidation of what is overtly present in Finnegans Wake regarding creative acts, together with an assessment of the implications of what is absent or repressed. The argument seeks to demonstrate a new understanding of the cycle of Wakean creativity by examining recurring references to a picture motif and its relationship to the more widely appreciated letter motif. It also examines the feminine reverse of the masculine structure of the cyclic reproduction of HCE, and in particular the ways in which Joyce simultaneously produces and undermines those cycles. The thesis shows that reproduction of the unifying masculine logos and its accompanying control of desire for the purposes of social domination is offset by a correlated requirement for resisting the logos based upon difference and free love. CONTENTS Acknowledgments..................................................................................................viii Abbreviations ...........................................................................................................ix Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 The Picture..............................................................................................................12 ALP as ‘Container’ of the Picture.....................................................................14 The Silence Accompanying the Picture.............................................................17 The First ‘(Silent.)’ ..........................................................................................21 The Second ‘(Silents)’......................................................................................26 The Third ‘SILENCE’ .....................................................................................30 The Picture as Masculine Content ....................................................................37 The Wall .................................................................................................................39 The Picture on the Wall....................................................................................43 The Picture Book.............................................................................................44 The Material Composition of the Wall..............................................................46 Relationship between the Wall and Letter.........................................................48 HCE as the Wall ..............................................................................................51 ALP as the Wall...............................................................................................53 The Wall as City ..............................................................................................55 The Wall and the Original Sin...........................................................................56 Bricks in the Wall.............................................................................................57 The Tomb ...............................................................................................................59 HCE as Revenant.............................................................................................63 The Return of the Deity ...................................................................................65 HCE as Genetically Entombed .........................................................................68 The HCE Deity as Spiritual Father ...................................................................71 HCE as Sacrament ...........................................................................................73 The Material World as HCE’s Tomb................................................................76 Tree/Stone ..............................................................................................................78 Life and Death .................................................................................................79 The Tree of Religion ........................................................................................83 The Biblical Snake as a Fallen HCE..................................................................86 Shaun and Violence..........................................................................................88 Contents Shaun’s Virgin/Whore Perception of Women ...................................................92 Shem and Peace ...............................................................................................95 Class in the Wake.............................................................................................98 Sex and Power...............................................................................................100 Subverting the Cyclic Reproduction of HCE ..................................................102 The Letter .............................................................................................................106 The Letter as Condom ...................................................................................108 Wetting the Tea .............................................................................................110 Halting the Genetic Message..........................................................................113 A Parcel of Cakes ..........................................................................................115 Documents Number One and Two .................................................................116 Non-Delivery of the Letter.............................................................................120 Female Sexuality/Textuality ...........................................................................121 The Writer’s Feminine Language....................................................................125 Motherhood and the Letter ............................................................................128 The Genetic Source........................................................................................133 The Masculine Deity as Content of Letter ......................................................137 Immortality ....................................................................................................139 The Rainbow.........................................................................................................142 The Wakean Female as Biblical Rainbow........................................................143 The Female as a Suit of Male Clothing ...........................................................144 The Female as Peace ......................................................................................145 Heaven ..........................................................................................................147 The Language of Flowers...............................................................................148 The Womb as the Container of the Deity........................................................150 Non-Participation as Feminine........................................................................153 The Escape of the Artist.................................................................................155 Black and White vs. Colour............................................................................159 The Peace of the Future .................................................................................162 Peace as the Outcome of Violence .................................................................166 Sex and Authority ..........................................................................................168 Biological Enslavement of the Female ............................................................172 The Kaleidoscope..................................................................................................175 Part One of the Kaleidoscope Question - the Picture ......................................178 Part Two of the Kaleidoscope Question - the Letter.......................................181 Language as a Container ................................................................................184 The Trinity.....................................................................................................188 The Kaleidoscope