THE PUSILLANIMOUS DENIS: WHAT “U.P: UP” REALLY BREENS
by
LEAH HARPER BOWRON
JOHN W. HUTCHINGS, JR., COMMITTEE CHAIR
LEONARD KYLE GRIMES
EDWARD W. HOOK III
P. KIERAN QUINLAN
A THESIS
Submitted to the graduate faculty of The University of Alabama at Birmingham,
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
2013
Copyright by
Leah Harper Bowron
2013
THE PUSILLANIMOUS DENIS: WHAT “U.P: UP” REALLY BREENS
LEAH HARPER BOWRON
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
ABSTRACT
Denis Breen, a minor character in James Joyce’s Ulysses, receives an unsigned
postcard which reads “U.p: up”. Scholars consider “U.p: up” to be a joke encoded in a
puzzle or riddle. This paper proposes to decode the postcard message “U.p: up” and to
identify its author. The postcard message “U.p: up” is read “you pee up” and refers to
Denis Breen’s unusual urination. Denis Breen “pees up” or sprays his urine upward
when urinating from a standing position because he has hypospadias and his urethral
opening is within or behind his testes. The symbol “p:” in the message “U.p: up” depicts
the penis and testes of Denis Breen, and the “twoheaded octopus” symbolizes Breen’s
hypospadiac testicles. Breen’s diagnosis of hypo-“spade”-ias is confirmed by Breen’s
dream of the ace of “spades” going upstairs. C. P. (“See Pee”) M’Coy saw Breen’s
unusual urination and cryptically wrote Breen the postcard message “U.p: up”. Joyce
parodied Sigmund Freud and his theories when he created Denis Breen. In particular,
Joyce parodied the Freudian vehicle of using a proper name to tell a joke when he made
the name Denis Breen condense into the Freudian phrase “penis envy.” Joyce also used
the actual location of Freud’s apple-sized boil (within or behind his testicles) as the situs
of Breen’s hypospadias. Finally, Joyce modeled the postcard message “U.p: up” upon
Freud’s dream of urinating in an upward direction.
Keywords: U.p: up, urination, hypospadias, Freud, penis envy, dream interpretation
iii
DEDICATION
To my beloved daughter Sarah who believed in me from the start
iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A debt of gratitude to the following: Deb and Mark who gave me a place to call home;
Tom who encouraged me to enroll in Dr. Hutchings’ class on James Joyce; Dr. Hutchings
who opened the world of James Joyce to me; my thesis committee which waded through
my many drafts; Dr. Temple who led me through the labyrinth of graduate school
guidelines; Dr. Bellis who kept me enrolled in the appropriate classes; Matthew who
listened; Dauphine who counseled; Reed who proofread; Sarah, Penny and AnnMarie
who provided technical assistance; Dr. Darmal who kept me on the middle path; Dr.
Olive and the Mervyn Sterne Library staff, The University of Alabama at Birmingham;
and the Lister Hill Library staff, The School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at
Birmingham.
vi
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
The text of James Joyce’s Ulysses used in this paper is that of the 1993 reprint of
the critically edited reading text of Ulysses first published as the so-called “Corrected
Text” in 1986 as edited by Hans Walter Gabler. This reprint follows exactly the line
divisions of Gabler’s 1984 critical and synoptic edition of Ulysses.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………...iii
DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………...v
A NOTE ON THE TEXT………………………………………………………………...vi
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………1
2 CHRONOLOGY OF “U.P: UP” THEORIES………………………………………….4
3 CONDENSATION OF THE PROPER NAME DENIS BREEN……………………..10
4 EXPLICATION OF THE MESSAGE “U.P: UP”…………………………………….31
5 INTERPRETATION OF THE TROUBLING DREAM OF DENIS BREEN………...56
6 AUTHOR OF THE “U.P: UP” POSTCARD…………………………………………66
7 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………...71
LIST OF REFERENCES………………………………………………………………...73
vii
That’s the fascination: the name.
(Joyce, Ulysses 8.512-13)
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
On June 16, 1904 Denis Breen, a minor character in James Joyce’s Ulysses,
receives an unsigned postcard which reads “U.p: up” (U8.258). All the barflies at
Barney Kiernan’s (U12.58 and 12.118), a Dublin watering hole, laugh uproariously every
time they hear the message “U.p: up” (U12.257-58 and 12.275-78). Despite being
troubled by last night’s dream, Breen also understands the postcard’s meaning. Breen is
incensed and outraged by this esoteric message and tromps all over Dublin trying to find
a barrister who will file a libel suit for ten thousand pounds to compensate him for the
injury which this “false” message has allegedly caused him (U8.229-30, 8.262-63, and
8.309-11). His wife follows obediently behind him in her role as custodian of the
evidence. Mrs. Breen, however, is so embarrassed by the postcard that she first folds it
and then places it inside her handbag which she snaps securely (U8.264). Unfortunately,
news travels fast in Dublin. Breen is unable to find a barrister—all the lawyers are
apparently in on the joke, too, and none wants to take this “frivolous” lawsuit. Breen has
become the laughingstock of Ulysses.
1
Scholars consider “U.p: up” to be a joke encoded in a puzzle or riddle. Although
the characters who hear the cryptic message on the postcard appear to understand it and
enjoy its humor, the reader has ostensibly been left in the dark for almost a century. This
thesis proposes to decode the “U.p: up” postcard and to identify the person who drafted
the postcard. This thesis posits that Denis Breen “pees up” or sprays his urine upward
when he urinates from a standing position because he has hypospadias and his urethral
opening is within or behind his testes. This thesis further posits that Breen’s diagnosis of
hypo-“spade”-ias is confirmed by Breen’s dream of the ace of “spades” going upstairs.
This thesis further posits that C. P. (“See Pee”) M’Coy saw Breen’s unusual urination
presumably in a public urinal and cryptically wrote Breen the postcard message “U.p:
up” which is read “you pee up.” This thesis further posits that Joyce parodied Sigmund
Freud and his theories when he created Denis Breen whose name condenses into the
Freudian theory of penis envy.
Joyce’s motive for using a postcard as the emissary of “bad” tidings dates back to
1902 when Joyce sent a photo-postcard of himself in Paris to John Francis Byrne, his
closest friend at University College, Dublin. Byrne then met mutual friend Vincent
Cosgrave who had also received the same photo-postcard of Joyce. Cosgrave’s postcard,
however, contained on the reverse a description of Parisian brothels in dog-Latin. Byrne
read the illicit postcard and was so incensed that he did not speak to Joyce for a year. It
was only at Joyce’s mother’s death that their friendship was rekindled (Ellmann, James
Joyce 115-31).
The juxtaposition of the illicit postcard which Byrne intercepted with the
unsigned postcard which Breen receives reveals similarities. In Joyce’s case, his postcard
2
describing Parisian brothels incensed Byrne. Likewise, the unsigned postcard alluding to
Breen’s unusual urination renders Breen incensed, outraged, and embarrassed. In short,
both postcards coincidentally connote aberrant sexuality while communicating “bad”
tidings. Joyce believed in the constancy of coincidence: his characters “pass through
sequences of situations and thoughts bound by coincidence with the situations and
thoughts of other living and dead men and of fictional, mythical men” (Ellmann, James
Joyce 551). For example, Joyce had a “picture of cork” which was coincidentally a
picture of Cork, Ireland housed in a cork frame (Ellmann, James Joyce 551). Joyce’s
“coincidence of cork” becomes Joyce’s “coincidence of postcards” with Joyce’s
“profane” photo-postcard and Breen’s highly embarrassing “U.p: up” postcard taking
center stage. And it all begins with the seemingly simple message, “U.p: up”.
3
CHAPTER TWO
CHRONOLOGY OF “U.P: UP” THEORIES
There are over thirty theories which document what the “U.p: up” postcard
purportedly means. Joyce himself predicted this volume of scholarship. When pressed to
reveal a schema for Ulysses, Joyce initially refused: “‘If I gave it all up immediately, I’d
lose my immortality. I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the
professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of
insuring one’s immortality’” (Ellmann, James Joyce 521). The “U.p: up” postcard is just
such an enigma.
Although Joyce eventually gave “up” two schemas for Ulysses, only the second
schema was published: 1) partial publication in Stuart Gilbert’s James Joyce’s Ulysses
and 2) full publication in Marvin Magalaner’s A James Joyce Miscellany (Gifford 12).
Yet what Joyce omitted from the published schema speaks volumes. The “U.p: up”
postcard is not mentioned in this schema. Joyce wanted this enigma to remain a puzzle
for the ages. When noted journalist Max Eastman asked Joyce why he didn’t provide
more help for his readers, Joyce responded:
‘You know people never value anything unless they have to
steal it. Even an alley cat would rather snake an old bone out of the
garbage than come up and eat a nicely prepared chop from your saucer’
(Ellmann, James Joyce 495).
4
Joyce, moreover, loved to play guessing games or “parlour mystery games”
(U15.461). For instance, Joyce would oftentimes ask his dinner guests to guess which
woman in the restaurant was really Molly Bloom or which man in the restaurant was
really the elusive man in the macintosh (Ellmann, James Joyce 516). Unfortunately,
Joyce was never known to have supplied his guests with the correct answers to his
guessing games.
The meaning of the “U.p: up” postcard is just such a Joycean guessing game.
Many scholars have played this game. A chronology of their theories follows:
•
the slanderous postcard concerns the confusion of urine and semen, as in
the birth of Orion [urine] and the term “piss-proud” (Richard Ellmann,
James Joyce 455:1959)
•
the postcard message “U.P.,” which gets a “rise” out of Breen, suggests
urination and erection (William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to James
Joyce 172:1959)
•
the postcard calls Breen’s sexuality into question because he is “neither
fish nor flesh” (Weldon Thornton, Allusions in Ulysses: An Annotated
List 276:1961)
•
the postcard means “you urinate” implying “you’re no good” (Robert
Martin Adams, Surface and Symbol: The Consistency of James Joyce’s
Ulysses 192:1962)
•
the postcard implies that Breen “puts his finger U.P. up his anus” (Adams,
192)
5
•
the postcard is a jeer at Breen’s sexual incapacity because Breen “can’t get
it U.P. up anymore” (Adams, 192)
•
the postcard is a threat of blackmail because “the jig is ‘U.P. up’” (Adams,
192)
•
the postcard announces Breen’s approaching death because “it’s all
‘U.P.up’ with Mr. Breen” (Adams, 192)
•
the postcard means that Breen is not compos mentis according to Ulysses
character J.J. O’Molloy (Adams, 192)
•
the postcard resembles an actual Dublin postcard which was the subject of
a libel suit as reported in the Nov. 5, 1903 Freeman’s Journal (Adams,
193)
•
the postcard resembles the actual expression “U.P. up” used in Arnold
Bennett’s novel, The Old Wives’ Tale, when a doctor exits a sickroom and
implies that it’s all up with the patient (Adams, 193)
•
the postcard’s message, when pronounced U.P., naming each letter
separately, means “settled” or “done” according to The Slang Dictionary
of J. C. Hotten (Adams, 193)
•
the postcard, when translated into the French “Fou Tu,” means “you’re
nuts,” “you’ve been screwed,” and “it’s all up with you” (Adams, 193)
•
the postcard means the emission of urine rather than sperm during
ejaculation (Richard Ellmann, Ulysses on the Liffey 75:1972)
•
“U.P.” stands for the fusion of Ulysses and Penelope (Ellmann, Ulysses on
the Liffey 84)
6
•
“U.P.” is used by an apothecary’s apprentice to announce the imminent
death of an old woman in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist (Don Gifford,
Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce’s Ulysses 163:1974)
•
“U.P.” stands for “under proof,” distilled spirits having less than a
standard amount of alcohol (Robert Byrnes, “‘U.P.: up’ Proofed,” 17576:1984)
•
“U.P.” stands for “Ulysses Pseudoangelos” who is embodied in the minor
character Murphy (Daniel Schwartz, Reading Joyce’s Ulysses 31:1987)
•
“U.P.” stands for the initials that precede the docket numbers in Irish
cemeteries (Gifford, Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce’s Ulysses
163:1988)
•
the postcard stands for “all is up. You pee up” (Patrick O’Brian, Post
Captain 398:1990)
•
“U.P.” stands for the Anglo-Irish locution “It’s all up with you” also found
in two detective books (R. B. Kershner, “More Evidence on Breen’s
Telegram,” 407-08:1992)
•
the postcard means that Breen was having a bisexual experience with one
of the barflies, and the force of sodomy precipitated Breen’s urination
(Casey Herrick, “Joyce’s Ulysses,” 47:1994)
•
the message “u.p.: up” is a semiotic symbol balancing what letters are
absent with what letters are present in the words constituting the message
(Mary Libertin, “Peirce’s Musement in Joyce’s Ulysses,” 61-85:1994)
7
•
the postcard reminds Bloom of his masturbating “Up like a rocket, down
like a stick” (Robert Bell, Jocoserious Joyce: The Fate of Folly in Ulysses
44:1996)
•
the postcard is purposively unsolvable (Tony Thwaites, Joycean
Temporalities: Debts, Promises, and Countersignatures 163:2001)
•
“U.P.” denotes “Ulysses Published” (Tim Conley, “Performance
Anxieties: On Failing to Read Finnegan’s Wake,” 76n.2:2003)
•
“U.p.” represents Bloom as a baseball batter approaching the plate
(Michael J. Bielawa, “James Joyce ‘U.p.’ at Bat: Baseball Symbolism in
Ulysses’ ‘Nausicaa,’” 143-50:2005)
•
the postcard symbolizes the particular enmeshed in the universal—the
postcard is the embodiment of Dublin communality and familiarity
because by the day’s end almost all the characters have heard about the
postcard (Evan Horowitz, “Ulysses: Mired in the Universal,” 12341:2006)
•
Murphy sent Breen the postcard as an oracular message for Bloom who
needs to be lifted “up” from misfortune (James Ramey, “Intertextual
Metempsychosis in Ulysses: Murphy, Sinbad, and the ‘U.P.: up’
Postcard,” 97-114:2007)
•
the postcard is purposively unsolvable (Maria DiBattista, “Ulysses’
Unanswered Questions,” 265-75:2008)
•
the postcard concerns the confusion of sperm and urine, citing with
approval Ellmann’s theory of the birth of Orion [urine] and the term “piss-
8
proud” (Thomas J. Farrell, “The Diegetic Achievement of Patrick
O’Brian,” 150-79:2009)
•
the postcard message was an actual May 1887 headline in the Celtic
Times—since the headline referred to a Unified Presbyterian’s
cancellation of the Dublin Caledonian games to keep “up” appearances,
the postcard contrasts Breen’s staunch Catholicism with the attempted
proselytization of Ireland (Luke Gibbons, “‘Famished Ghosts’: Bloom,
Bible Wars, and ‘U.P. up’ in Joyce’s Dublin,” 1-23:2009)
•
the postcard is purposively unsolvable (Richard Robinson, “The
Modernism of Ian McEwan’s Atonement,” 473-95:2010)
•
Breen has “querulous paranoia” which manifests itself in his frantic
reactions to the postcard—the contents of the postcard are not as important
as the paranoid construction Breen gives to it and the redress he seeks
(David Spurr, “Paranoid Modernism in Joyce and Kafka,” 178-91:2011)
•
“U.P.” stands for “unsigned postcard” (unknown attendee at a recent Joyce
conference)
These theories attest to the diversity of opinion as to what the postcard message
“U.p: up” really means. Theories ranging from urination to masturbation, from death to
cemetery plots, from semiotics to semen, from baseball to Caledonian games have sent
Joyce’s “U.p: up” postcard on a whirlwind tour de force. This paper posits yet another
theory. Fortunately, Joyce’s immortality no longer hangs in the balance.
9
CHAPTER THREE
CONDENSATION OF THE PROPER NAME DENIS BREEN
To decode the “U.p: up” postcard, this paper posits the following analysis: 1)
condensation of the proper name Denis Breen, 2) explication of the message “U.p: up”,
and 3) interpretation of the troubling dream of Denis Breen. The common denominator
of this tripartite analysis is Joyce’s parody of Sigmund Freud and his theories. Joyce
begins his Freudian frivolity with the name Denis Breen.
There is more to the name Denis Breen than meets the eye. Don Gifford in
Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce’s Ulysses states that an actual person named
Denis Breen lived in Dublin in 1904: “Thom’s 1904 lists a Denis Breen as proprietor of
the Leinster Billiard Rooms in Rathmines Road” (164).
Ulysses, moreover, refers to
Thom’s in the “Lestrygonians” episode, the same episode that introduces Breen (U8.157).
In her book Names and Naming in Joyce, Claire A. Culleton states that in an effort to
achieve verisimilitude “Joyce endows his texts with real names of real Dubliners” (14).
Although Joyce used the real name Denis Breen as the name of his character, there is no
evidence that Joyce modeled the eccentricities of his character upon the real Dubliner.
There is, however, significant evidence that Joyce used the proper name Denis
Breen as the vehicle to tell a joke. In particular, Joyce used two joke-techniques of
Sigmund Freud to condense the name Denis Breen first into the nonsensical phrase
10
“penis green” and then into the Freudian phrase “penis envy.” The punch-line of the
Denis Breen joke is “penis envy.” Joyce is giving the reader two huge clues. If Denis
Breen does have penis envy, then the reason for his envy could be related to the “U.p:
up” postcard and Breen’s troubling dream. Secondly, if Sigmund Freud and his theories
proved essential to the condensation of the proper name Denis Breen, then Freud and his
theories could be essential to the explication of the “U.p: up” postcard and the
interpretation of Breen’s troubling dream.
Historical precedent supports the premise that Joyce used Ulysses as a vehicle to
parody Freud and his theories. Joyce’s ultimate use of a proper name as a vehicle for
telling jokes involves Freud’s own name. Joyce “commented that the name Joyce meant
the same thing in English as Freud in German” (Ellmann, James Joyce 490). This joketechnique ironically equates the names Joyce and Freud. Nothing could be further from
the truth.
Joyce went to great lengths to distance himself from Freud. When critics
contended that Joyce “borrowed” the interior monologue from Freud, Joyce disagreed
and stated that he was influenced by Edouard Dujardin (Ellmann, James Joyce 126).
Joyce later disparaged the Freudian preoccupation with the unconscious: “‘Why all this
fuss and bother about the mystery of the unconscious?....What about the mystery of the
conscious? What do they know about that?’” (Ellmann, James Joyce 436).
When friends tried to persuade Joyce to see Dr. Carl Jung, Joyce refused and
parodied both Jung and Freud in a 1921 letter to Harriet Weaver: “‘A batch of people in
Zurich persuaded themselves that I was gradually going mad and actually endeavored to
11
induce me to enter a sanatorium where a certain Doctor Jung (the Swiss Tweedledum
who is not to be confused with the Viennese Tweedledee, Dr Freud) amuses himself at
the expense (in every sense of the word) of ladies and gentlemen who are troubled with
bees in their bonnets’” (Ellmann, James Joyce 510).
Scholars have documented Joyce’s views on Freud and psychoanalysis. In the
book James Joyce and the Problem of Psychoanalysis, Luke Thurston states that Joyce
believed that a “range of literary texts, chiefly those by Shakespeare,” anticipated
psychoanalysis (11). When a friend of Joyce “brought up the subject of psychoanalysis,
Joyce brushed it aside as being absurd, saying its symbolism was mechanical, a house
being a womb, a fire a phallus” (Ellmann, James Joyce 382). Joyce’s recitation of two
Freudian dream-symbols presupposes some familiarity with the subject on the part of
Joyce. Likewise, Joyce’s views on psychoanalysis presuppose some familiarity with the
subject as well.
Scholars have documented Joyce’s familiarity with the writings of Freud.
According to Phillip F. Herring in the book Joyce’s Ulysses Notesheets in the British
Museum, the following handwritten note appears on one of Joyce’s notesheets to the
“Cyclops” episode: “Wit. read Freud:” (101). Unlike most of the notes on this sheet,
Joyce did not mark out this note with one of his blue, red, green, or slate coloring pencils
for inclusion in the text of Ulysses (Herring 78). Instead Joyce left this note for posterity
to ponder. This note provides evidence that Joyce was reading Freud during the period
that he was writing Ulysses. Sheldon R. Brivic in his book Joyce between Freud and
Jung cites this note as evidence that Joyce was interested in Freud at the time that he was
writing Ulysses (10). Yet this note means much more.
12
Joyce punctuates the first letter “p” in the message “U.p: up” with a colon. The
colon, as the reader will see, tends to figure prominently whenever Denis Breen appears
or is mentioned. The colon becomes a symbol of Breen and his hypospadiac testes. Joyce
punctuates his mandate “read Freud” with a colon. Joyce connects Breen to his note
about Freud by using Breen’s “calling card,” the colon, immediately after Freud’s name
in the note. The mandate “read Freud:” is shorthand for the mandate “read Freud to
understand Denis Breen and his hypospadiac testes.”
In a notesheet to the “Circe” episode Joyce wrote the phrase “suckeress
psychoanalysed” (Herring 349). Joyce then crossed out this phrase with a green coloring
pencil for inclusion in Ulysses (Herring 349). It is significant that at the time Joyce was
writing “Circe,” the dream episode, he was thinking of psychoanalysis. In her book
Joyce and the Early Freudians: A Synchronic Dialogue of Texts, Jean Kimball presents
an elaborate timeline entitled “Joyce and Psychoanalysis” (12). In this timeline Kimball
shows that Joyce was learning German in 1905, the same year Freud published Jokes and
their Relation to the Unconscious (12). Kimball’s timeline also shows that Joyce
purchased psychoanalytic texts from 1910-1913, almost ten years before Ulysses was
published. Most importantly, Joyce’s 1920 library contained the German editions of two
books by Freud: The Psychopathology of Everyday Life and Leonardo da Vinci and a
Memory of his Childhood (Ellmann, The Consciousness of Joyce 109). Joyce was
evidently familiar with Freud and some of his works prior to the publication of Ulysses.
Joyce was also fascinated with the interpretation of dreams and kept a book
wherein he recorded his dreams and those of his wife Nora along with his interpretations
(Ellmann, James Joyce 436-38). According to Ellmann, Joyce’s interpretation of his
13
friend Frank Budgen’s dreams showed the influence of Freud upon Joyce (James Joyce
436). Joyce’s foray into dream interpretation supports the view that Joyce may have been
familiar with Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams and On Dreams at the time that he
was writing Ulysses. Yet despite this interest, Joyce still equated psychoanalysis with
blackmail (Ellmann, James Joyce 524).
Joyce’s distaste for Freud and psychoanalysis provides the authorial intent for
Joyce’s parodies of Freud and his theories in Ulysses. In the Denis Breen condensation
Joyce parodies the Freudian joke-technique of using proper names as a vehicle for telling
jokes while poking fun at the Freudian theory of penis envy. Denis Breen has penis
envy? Joyce is enjoying a bit of humor at the expense of Sigmund Freud. In his 1905
book Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud defines penis envy as a little girl’s
envy of a boy’s penis:
Little girls do not resort to denial … when they see that boys’
genitals are formed differently from their own. They are ready to
recognize them immediately and are overcome by envy for the
penis—an envy culminating in the wish, which is so important in its
consequences, to be boys themselves (The Standard Edition of the
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud VII:195).
According to this passage, penis envy is an exclusively feminine attribute. Joyce turns
Freud’s sexual theory upside-down when he imbues Denis Breen with penis envy. Joyce
is playing a joke on Freud while calling into question the validity of Freud’s theory.
Joyce is also using a Freudian joke-technique to tell a joke about Freud.
In his 1905 book Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Freud discusses
the use of proper names as a vehicle for telling jokes (SE VIII:20). Joyce’s move from
14
the name “Denis Breen” to the phrase “penis green” is an example of the simple joketechnique of condensation with slight modification (SE VIII:27). The capital letter “D”
in the given name “Denis” is changed to the lowercase letter “p” in the word “penis,” and
the capital letter “B” in the surname “Breen” is changed to the lowercase letter “g” in the
word “green.”
Joyce uses this simple joke-technique accompanied by the technique of rhyme in
the “Lestrygonians” episode. As Bloom sets foot on O’Connell bridge, he talks of
touring a brewery: “Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats get in
too….Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the things” (U8.47, 50). Joyce’s “ratsvats” rhyme involves the substitution of the initial letter of the word, a consonant, with
another consonant, thereby creating the simple rhyme, “rats-vats.” The condensation of
the name Denis Breen also involves the substitution of the initial letter of the word, a
consonant, with another consonant, thereby creating the simple rhymes, “Denis-penis”
and “Breen-green.” Joyce not only repeats the “rats-vats” rhyme twice in the same
paragraph, but he also presages the “U.p: up” message by using a colon to combine
“rats” with “vats.” Joyce also hints that the name Denis Breen might be a “[r]egular
world in itself” much like the brewery if only the reader “knew all the things” that
comprise the name and the person Denis Breen.
Bloom then sees a gull and rhymes a couplet: “The hungry famished gull/Flaps
o’er the waters dull” (U8.62-63). Joyce uses the same one letter substitution rhyme.
Bloom then muses that the couplet is “how poets write, the similar sounds” (U8.64).
Rhymes, or similar sounds, appear to be important to this episode. Denis Breen is
important to this episode also. When Mrs. Breen later tells Bloom of her husband Denis,
15
Bloom thinks of the rhyming “roly-poly” pudding from Harrison’s bakery (U8.232-33).
The connection between rhymes and the name Denis Breen is again emphasized. Joyce
provides direct evidence of this connection when he has Bloom rhyme the given name
“billy” with the adjective “silly”: “Silly billies: mob of young cubs yelling their guts
out….War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows used to” (U8.437, 439).
Bloom brings the Vinegar Hill rebellion to life while illustrating that Joyce’s repetitive
use of the colon connects Denis “U.p: up” Breen to both a given name rhyme, “[s]illy
billies,” and a multisyllabic rhyme, “helterskelter.”
The onomastic move from Denis to penis is anticipated by Culleton when she
equates the name Denis with the word Penis (82). Culleton also cites with approval
Freud’s books Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious and The Psychopathology of
Everyday Life when discussing Joyce’s use of proper names in Ulysses (82).
Most importantly, precedent exists for the condensation of the proper name Denis
Breen. Gordon Bowker in his book James Joyce: A New Biography contends that the
names of two characters in Ulysses “seem cunningly encoded” (98). Bowker argues that
the names of the barmaids in the “Sirens” episode, Rose Douce and Mina Kennedy, are
code for female genitalia. According to Bowker, the name “Rose Douce” becomes
“Sweet Briar” which is “sixteenth-century slang for female pubic hair” and that the given
name “Rose” is “eighteenth-century slang for a virgin vagina” (98). Bowker then states
that the given name “Mina” means “‘small and smooth’” in Gaelic (98). Bowker
concludes his argument by stating that “Joyce’s work is shot through with such obscure
imagery” (98). The encoded name Denis Breen contains just such imagery in the form of
the phrases “penis green” and “penis envy.”
16
The leap from the phrase “penis green” to “penis envy” requires a more
sophisticated joke-technique. The punch-line of “penis envy” results from the Freudian
joke-technique of double meaning with an allusion (SE VIII:41). The obvious word in
the phrase “penis green” which has a double meaning is the word “green” which has over
40 meanings in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Unabridged (996). A
famous allusion which contains the word “green” is found in Shakespeare’s Othello: “O,
beware, my lord, of jealousy!/It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock/The meat it
feeds on” (III.iii.178-80).
Joyce makes two references to Shakespeare’s “green-eyed monster” in the
“Circe” episode of Ulysses (U15.1994-95, 15. 4487). The phrase “green-eyed monster”
provides the missing link between the phrase “penis green” and the punch-line “penis
envy.” The reader must first substitute the colorful phrase “green-eyed monster” for the
color “green.” Because Shakespeare equates the word “jealousy” with the phrase “greeneyed monster,” the reader must then substitute the word “jealousy” for the phrase “greeneyed monster.” To provide the missing piece of the puzzle the word “jealousy” must be
connected to the other word in the phrase, “penis.” The phrase “penis jealousy” easily
leads the reader to substitute the synonym “envy” for the word “jealousy,” thereby
creating the Freudian phrase “penis envy.”
Yet neither the phrase “Denis Breen” nor the phrase “penis envy” is a joke in
and of itself. The juxtaposition of the two phrases leads to the humorous result that Denis
Breen has penis envy. As Zack Bowen remarks in his book Ulysses as a Comic Novel,
“incongruity …is the basis of comedy” (58). The incongruity of a man having penis envy
is the basis of this Joycean joke. The condensation of the proper name Denis Breen into
17
the Freudian theory of penis envy clearly pokes fun at Sigmund Freud. Joyce is also
having fun with Shakespeare while planting an anatomical clue to the meaning of the
phrase “U.p: up”.
In the Shakespearean passage the “green-eyed monster” mocks the “meat it feeds
on”. The third edition of Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines the term “meatus” as a
“passage or channel, especially the external opening of a canal” (548). Stedman’s further
defines the term meatus urinarius or urinary meatus as the “external opening of the
urethra” (548). Since Breen may have penis envy, then he might also “mock” the urinary
meatus upon which his envy “feeds.” This humor would not be lost on Joyce, the former
medical student (Ellmann, James Joyce 104). Yet Joycean frivolity becomes Joycean
severity: the situs of Breen’s urinary meatus is the key which unlocks the secret message
“U.p: up”. Yet the leap from Denis Breen to penis envy to urinary meatus to
hypospadias to “U.p: up” requires many steps. And the first step is Joyce, the former
medical student.
It is significant that Joyce understood the medical specialty of urology well
enough to allude to the diagnosis of hypospadias in the “Circe” episode (U15.1789). In
1902 Joyce enrolled as a medical student at the Royal University Medical School in
Dublin (Ellmann, James Joyce 104). Joyce became disenchanted with medical school in
Dublin and enrolled at the Ecole de Medecine in Paris in December 1902 (Ellmann,
James Joyce 106-09). Ellmann notes that Joyce forgoes Parisian medical school for
literature only to return in 1903 to Dublin and the Royal University Medical School once
again (James Joyce 116, 140). Unable to complete a chemistry course, Joyce withdraws
18
a third time and planned to start at the Trinity College Medical School—a plan which
never reached fruition (Ellmann, James Joyce 140).
Joyce may have traded medicine for literature, but he clearly retained a treasure
trove of medical oddities. Joyce’s time as an Irish and French medical student could have
exposed him to lectures and treatises on the urological subject of penile abnormalities
complete with anatomical drawings and photographs of hypospadiac penises and testes.
In particular, while in Paris Joyce could have read the preeminent teratological work
Histoire generale des anomalies de l’organisation chez l’homme et les animaux by
Isidore Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire who pioneered the field of teratology and birth defects.
Joyce uses the word “teratological” just two lines after he alludes to hypospadias in the
“Circe” episode (U15.1791).
According to Ellmann, moreover, Joyce’s library in 1920 contained Alexander
Haig’s book Uric Acid: An Epitome of the Subject (The Consciousness of Joyce 111).
Possession of this volume demonstrates Joyce’s interest in the medical specialty of
urology. Ellmann also states that Joyce had a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica while
writing Finnegans Wake (James Joyce 628n). In the “Ithaca” episode Joyce includes “the
Encyclopaedia Britannica and New Century Dictionary” in the contents of a “fumed oak
sectional bookcase” (U17.1522-24). This set of encyclopaedias and dictionary, or others
like them, could have provided Joyce with the medical knowledge needed to write about
hypospadias.
Yet irrespective the source of his knowledge, Joyce knew the
symptomology of hypospadias like a veteran urologist. And that medical knowledge is
the first step to decoding the postcard message “U.p: up”. The condensation of the name
Denis Breen into the phrase “penis envy” is the second step.
19
Joyce encoded the proper name Denis Breen with clues about proper names,
rhymes, male genitalia, colors, and Freud. These clues assist the reader in transforming
the proper name “Denis Breen” first into the penile rhyming phrase “penis Breen,” then
into the colorful rhyming phrase “penis green,” and finally into the Freudian phrase
“penis envy.”
Joyce begins with clues about names. In the “Proteus” episode protagonist
Stephen Dedalus includes a proper name in his own “creation” story: “God becomes man
becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed mountain” (U3.477-79). The
phrase “featherbed mountain” is a reference to the proper name “Featherbed Mountain”
located “in the Dublin Mountains south of Dublin” (Gifford 65). By writing the proper
name “Featherbed Mountain” in lowercase letters, Joyce is saying that another proper
name, Denis Breen, can also be written in lowercase letters and condensed into words
that are not proper names: Denis Breen becomes denis breen becomes penis breen
becomes penis green becomes penis envy. Joyce is also having a bit of fun with the
proper name “featherbed mountain.” The word “mountain” can also mean “mount one,”
so Joyce is humorously suggesting that a man “mount one” on a featherbed. The fact that
Joyce fused the words “feather” and “bed” into the word “featherbed” suggests another
act of fusion or coupling on the featherbed. Stephen’s story of metamorphosis has new
meaning, and Joyce’s fascination with the metamorphosis of proper names continues.
In “Lestrygonians” Joyce uses the name of a feast day for the Carmelites as a
vehicle for a joke about a “sweet” saint. Protagonist Leopold Bloom notices the place
name “Carmel” contained in the phrase “Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.” He then
transforms “Carmel” into “[s]weet name too: caramel” (U8.148-49). The
20
“Carmel/caramel” condensation with slight modification sets the stage for the
“Denis/penis” and “Breen/green” condensations with slight modification. It is interesting
to note that Joyce uses a colon as the punctuation mark connecting the phrase “[s]weet
name too” with the word “caramel.” Joyce also uses a colon as the punctuation mark
connecting the phrase “U.p” with the word “up” on the postcard which Breen received.
As will be shown, Joyce uses the colon as a visual representation of a penile anomaly
affecting Denis Breen. Joyce is also showing the reader that Denis Breen’s name can be
modified into a “[s]weet name too.”
Later in “Lestrygonians,” Bloom thinks of the famous proper name Charles
Stewart Parnell when he sees his brother, John Howard Parnell, walk by: “That’s the
fascination: the name. All a bit touched” (U8.512-13). Joyce plants two clues in this
passage to make the reader move from the proper name “Parnell” to the proper name
“Denis Breen.” Bloom’s remark about the alleged instability of Parnell’s family could
remind the reader of Breen who is also portrayed as mentally unstable. Joyce’s use of a
colon between the words “fascination” and “the” mimics his use of a colon on the “U.p:
up” postcard. Joyce is deliberately drawing the reader to the fascination with the name
Denis Breen.
In Davy Byrne’s pub Bloom uses a French woman’s surname to tell a joke:
“[M]iss Dubedat? Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad. Hugenot name I expect that. A
miss Dubedat lived in Killiney, I remember. Du de la French” (U8.889-91). Bloom’s
rhymes suppose that Miss “Do-be-that” was either dead, bad, or really a dad. The “datdad” rhymes of Miss Dubedat mimic the “Denis-penis” and “Breen-green” rhymes of
21
Denis Breen. Both jokes end in a similar punch-line—is Miss Dubedat really a dad, and
is Breen really a woman because only women are supposed to have penis envy?
In the “Scylla and Charybdis” episode which follows on the heels of Breen’s
initial peregrinations, Joyce speaks of names at least fifteen times. Within the short span
of eight lines, Stephen echoes the words “name” and “namesake” three times when
discussing Hamlet and Hamnet’s names (U9.169-76). Later in the episode, the word
“name” is referred to twice within six lines of text (U9.691-96). Joyce could be making a
suggestion—names are noteworthy.
The Shakespearean leitmotif climaxes with the “name” metaphor taking center
stage:
He has hidden his own name, a fair name … in the
plays….[H]is name is dear to him…. What’s in a name? That is
what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we
are told is ours (U9.921-28).
Joyce parodies Shakespeare to plant a clue to the condensation of the name Denis Breen.
Joyce has hidden the “real” name of Denis Breen in his book Ulysses just like
Shakespeare hid his own name in his plays. Once the reader goes beyond the “name”
clues to the clues of rhyme, male genitalia, and color, the “real” name of Denis Breen
will emerge.
Joyce uses the technique of rhyme at least fifteen times in the “Lestrygonians”
episode. When Bloom orders lunch, he waxes poetic on the subject of cannibalism:
“There was a right royal old nigger. Who ate or something the somethings of the
reverend MacTrigger” (U8.748-49). Bloom has succeeded in rhyming the surname of a
22
proper name, “MacTrigger,” with the word “nigger.” This surname rhyme portends the
surname rhyme, “Breen-green.” In this episode Joyce leaves the reader with rhymes of
both the given name and the surname. Once the reader goes beyond the “name” and
“rhyme” clues, the clues of male genitalia and color help the reader discover the
underlying meaning of Denis Breen.
Joyce uses images of male genitalia, often accompanied by images of urine,
eighteen times in the “Lestrygonians” episode. Before bumping into Mrs. Breen, Bloom
tries to remember a man’s name:
Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap
was always squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman.
Stopped in Citron’s saint Kevin’s parade. Pen something. Pendennis?
My memory is getting. Pen…? (U8.176-79)
Near the end of the episode Bloom remembers the man’s name: “Penrose! That was that
chap’s name (U8.1114). Joyce combines the “name” clue with the prefix “Pen” which is
repeated three times. Applying the “name” and “rhyme” clues to Breen’s given name
Denis, the rhyming word “penis” emerges. The name “penis” is reinforced by Bloom’s
use of the name prefix “Pen” four times and by “Pen” being the proper prefix for the
elusive name “Penrose.” Joyce next places the “stream of life” image near the color
“Citron.” The images “stream of life” and “Citron” are consistent with the name “penis”
because urine is a yellow stream emitted from the penis.
Joyce’s fascination with urine continues in “Lestrygonians.” The episode begins
with Bloom’s remembrance of his breakfast in the phrase “kidney burntoffering”
(U8.12). The slang word for urine is then reiterated in the phrases “t.t.’s” (U8.366) and
23
“Tea.Tea.Tea” (U8.371). Joyce later joins the word “urinal” to the phrase “meeting of
the waters” with his signature colon (U8.415). Usage of the “U.p: up” colon in this
symbol links Breen to public urinals and micturition. Bloom then likens urine to beer and
the color yellow in the phrases “men’s beery piss” (U8.671) and “it splashed yellow near
his boot” (U8.689).
Perhaps the most vivid symbols for the penis and urination in “Lestrygonians”
are Bloom’s “streams” of consciousness which combine the river Liffey, public urinals,
and ads for doctors who treat venereal disease:
How can you own water really? It’s always flowing in a
stream, never the same, which in the stream of life we trace. Because
life is a stream. All kinds of places are good for ads. That quack
doctor for the clap used to be stuck up in all the greenhouses (U8.9397).
“Greenhouses” are public urinals (Gifford 159). Joyce’s selection of the phrase “stuck
up” anticipates the “U.p: up” postcard which Breen receives and again links Breen to
public urinals and micturition. Penile imagery figures prominently in other episodes of
Ulysses. In “Proteus” Stephen urinates along Sandymount strand (U3.456-60) and talks
of a “urinous offal” (U3.479-80). In “Scylla and Charybdis,” Buck Mulligan states that
Stephen “pissed on [Synge’s] halldoor” (U9.570).
In “Cyclops,” another episode in which Denis Breen appears, Joyce places the
word “upwards” in close proximity to the words “penis” and “male organ,” thereby
connecting Denis “U.p: up” Breen to the word “penis” (U12.476-77). In “Oxen of the
Sun” the word “penis” is repeated when a purported resident of the Richmond Lunatic
Asylum “[t]hought he had a deposit of lead in his penis” (U14.1549). Because Denis
24
Breen is portrayed as mentally unstable, Breen is connected to the Richmond resident and
his “heavy” penis.
In the “Circe” episode images of male genitalia and urination appear 20 times.
The image of Bloom’s kidney from Lestrygonians becomes the “new Bloomusalem…a
colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the shape of a huge pork kidney” (U15.154849). The Weekly Freeman and National Press, the Dublin newspaper featured in the
“Aeolus” episode (U7.43-44), is transformed into the Freeman’s Urinal and Weekly
Arsewipe (U15.812).
Lewd and lascivious images of male sexuality also abound in “Circe.” Bloom
sees on a wall the “scrawled chalk legend Wet Dream and a phallic design” (U15.64950) and later hears the naughtily suggestive nursery rhyme “[r]ide a cockhorse”
(U15.3804) while he “clasps himself” to masturbate (U15.3815). “Circe” climaxes with
the hanging of The Croppy Boy: “A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts of sperm
spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones” (U15.4548-49). Moments
prior to the hanging, a character known as “The Bawd” says: “Up the soldiers! Up King
Edward!” (U15.4519-20). The twin references to the word “Up” not only refer to the
“violent erection” but also echo the twin references to the word “up” in the “U.p: up”
postcard. Breen is once again connected to penile imagery, in this instance the hanging
and its attendant erection. The move from “Denis” to “penis” easily follows. Now the
“rhyme” and “color” clues will help the reader understand the underlying meaning of the
surname “Breen.”
25
The obvious “color” rhyme for the surname Breen is the word “green.” Joyce
uses the color “green” nine times in “Lestrygonians.” Bloom initially thinks of three
proper names, two rhymes, and two colors: “The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain.
Before Rudy was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny. Very good for the
brain” (U8.24-26).
In this quotation the proper name “Spain” rhymes with “brain”, and the proper
name “Rudy” rhymes with the color “bluey.” The colors “bluey” and “greeny” end with
the letter “y” like the proper name “Rudy,” thereby suggesting a connection between
colors and proper names. Joyce then employs a very subtle hint—the words “brain” and
“Breen” both have five letters that begin with the prefix “br” and which end with the
letter “n.” If the word “brain” has a rhyme, then the word “Breen” must also have a
rhyme.
Decoding the proper name “Denis Breen” is “[v]ery good for the brain” or the
“Breen.”
Joyce uses the word “green” nine times in the “Scylla and Charybdis” episode.
From “his greencapped desklamp” (U9.29) to “darkgreener shadow” (U9.30) to “green
fields” (U9.37) to “greenroom gossip” (U9.187) to “green mugs” (U9.627), Joyce
permeates the episode with the color green. The word “green” goes from an adjective to
the proper name “Robert Greene” (U9.130), thereby implying the colorful proper name
“Denis Green.”
Yet the true “greening” of Breen occurs in the following passage about
Shakespeare wherein proper names rhyme with colors:
26
---The bard’s fellow countrymen, John Eglinton answered, are rather
tired perhaps of
our brilliancies of theorizing….Judge
Barton, I believe, is searching for some clues….
---The most brilliant of all is that story of Wilde’s, Mr. Best said, lifting
his brilliant notebook. That Portrait of Mr. W. H. where he proves that
the sonnets were written by a Willie Hughes, a man all hues.
---For Willie Hughes, is it not? The quaker librarian asked. Or Hughie
Wills? Mr. William Himself. W. H.: who am I?
---I mean, for Willie Hughes, Mr. Best said, amending his gloss easily.
Of course it’s all paradox, don’t you know, Hughes and hews and hues,
the colour, but it’s so typical the way he works it out (U9.516-29).
Buck Mulligan subsequently “drew a folded telegram from his pocket” (U9.546). The
telegram was “[s]igned: Dedalus” (U9.551). The telegram was sent from “College
Green” (U9.552). In this passage Judge Barton may be “searching for some clues,” but
Joyce provides the reader with several clues to the dissection of the proper name Denis
Breen. Joyce first employs name, rhyme, and color when combining the surname
“Hughes” with its homonyms “hues” and “hews.” Joyce wants the reader to rhyme the
surname “Breen” with the color “green.” Joyce then mimics the initialed “U.p: up”
postcard with the phrase “W. H.: who am I?” (U9.526) Because Breen received the
“U.p: up” postcard, Joyce is asking the reader who Breen is. Apparently, there is more
to Breen than meets the eye. The signed, folded telegram sent from College “Green”
resembles the unsigned, folded postcard sent to Breen. Joyce is now associating the
“U.p: up” postcard with the color “green.” The Breen-green color rhyme is “the way
[Joyce] works it out” so that the reader will know who Denis Breen really is.
In the “Cyclops” episode green imagery appears more than fifty times. From
forests of verdant trees (U12.75-78) to green, leafy vegetables (U12.92-93) Cyclops
27
“sees” Dublin through green-colored glasses. The colorful “Friends of the Emerald Isle”
(U12.554) review the tableaux of chartreuse guests while matches of “lawn tennis”
(U12.890, 945, 952) abound “down Limehouse way” (U12.678). The “greening”
continues with “the gallant young Oxonian …plac[ing] on the finger of his blushing
fiancée an expensive engagement ring with emeralds set in the form of a fourleaved
shamrock” (U12.665-68).
Most importantly, Alf Bergan sees Denis Breen walking down Green street
looking for a detective to investigate the name of the person who sent him the cryptic
postcard:
---Breen, says Alf. He was in John Henry Menton’s and then he went
round to Collis and Ward’s and then Tom Rochford met him and sent
him round to the subsheriff’s for a lark. O God, I’ve a pain laughing.
U.p: up. The long fellow gave him an eye as good as a process and
now the bloody old lunatic is gone round to Green street to look for a G
man (U12.267-71).
Joyce gives the reader two important clues in this passage. In placing Breen on “Green
street,” Joyce shows the reader the precise color which rhymes with Breen. The Breengreen game continues by having Breen look for a “G man” or detective. Although Breen
may need a “G man” to find clues as to the author of the postcard, the letter “G” is also a
clue to Breen’s true identity. Joyce then repeats “Green street” two more times in the
episode (U12.1121, 1918). Joyce surrounds Breen with the capital letter “G” and the
euphonious proper name “Green” to coax the reader to transform Breen’s surname into
the rhyming color “green.” The fact that the color green also symbolizes Ireland adds
another layer of humor to this joke. Pristine verdant fields now symbolize Denis Breen’s
28
penis envy. Denis Breen becomes penis Breen becomes penis green. The leap from
“green” to “envy” follows.
Joyce supplies the clues needed to understand what the phrase “penis green”
really means. Firstly, in the “Sirens” episode Bloom remembers a teaching tool that his
daughter Milly used when practicing the piano: “two together nextdoor neighbors”
(U11.842-43). Joyce emphasizes the kinship of two words, like two notes of music, by
spelling the words “next” and “door” as a compound word. The words “next” and “door”
have a special meaning when used in tandem. Perhaps the words “penis” and “green”
have “[t]wo together nextdoor neighbors” also.
The word “green” is often used with the word “envy” to create the phrase “green
with envy.” The word “penis” can also be used with the word “envy” to create the
Freudian construct “penis envy.” The word “envy” is the “nextdoor neighbor” which
supplants the word “green” and completes the phrase “penis envy.”
Joyce provides important clues which corroborate the conclusion penis envy.
Firstly, in “Proteus” Stephen says: “Green eyes, I see you” (U3.238). The phrase
“[g]reen eyes” refers to the “green-eyed monster” in the Othello allusion. To reinforce
the importance of this allusion, Joyce surrounds the phrase “[g]reen eyes” with seven
other references to the color green. Joyce then echoes the Shakespearean “green eyes” in
the “Circe” episode when Bloom says: “Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she
knew. The greeneyed monster” (U15.1994-95). Bloom later repeats the phrase
“[g]reeneyed monster” (U15.4487). Denis Breen becomes penis Breen becomes penis
green becomes penis jealousy. Another word for jealousy is envy. The word “envy” is
29
now the “nextdoor neighbor” to the word “jealousy.” Most importantly, Denis Breen is
now connected to the word “envy.” Denis Breen becomes penis green becomes penis
envy. When the reader explicates the message “U.p: up” and interprets Breen’s
troubling dream, the anatomical reason why Breen has penis envy emerges.
30
CHAPTER 4
EXPLICATION OF THE MESSAGE “U.P: UP”
To decode the “U.p: up” postcard Joyce left a trail of clues in Ulysses which
points to the conclusion that the postcard message “U.p: up” is read “you pee up.”
Someone saw Breen’s urine spray upward when he urinated from a standing position in a
public urinal. Breen’s unusual urination is the subject of the postcard.
Joyce begins with clues about initials. He then travels to clues about punctuation,
phonetics, and direction. These clues assist the reader in transforming the postcard
message from the initialed phrase “U.p:” into the punctuated phrase “U.p: up”, then into
the phonetic phrase, “you pee up,” and then into the directional phrase, “you spray your
urine upward when urinating from a standing position because your urethra is located
within or behind your scrotum.” Denis Breen may have hypospadias.
Laurence S. Baskin in the book Hypospadias and Genital Development defines
hypospadias as a penile abnormality “with the urethral opening being anywhere along the
[underside] of the penis, within the scrotum or even in the perineum” (3). According to
Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, the word “perineum” means the “external surface …lying
between …the scrotum and the anus in the male” (698). Pamela Ellsworth in The Little
Black Book of Urology defines the most severe form of hypospadias as posterior
hypospadias which can be either penoscrotal (where the penile shaft intersects the
31
scrotum), scrotal (within the scrotum), or perineal (in the perineum) (227). In severe
forms of hypospadias the penis may be small and curved (Baskin 3); the ability to urinate
in a straight stream may be compromised (Ellsworth 227); and “patients with severe
hypospadias may need to sit down to void” (Baskin 4).
To understand how the diagnosis hypospadias follows from the cryptic postcard
message “U.p: up,” the reader must begin with evidentiary proof in the form of initials.
Joyce uses initials twenty times in the “Lestrygonians” episode. Joyce begins the episode
with a reference to a “sombre Y.M.C.A. young man” who places a “throwaway” in
Bloom’s hand (U8.5-6). Bloom then repeats the phrase “Y.M.C.A.” later in the episode
while thinking of Mrs. Purefoy’s Methodist husband (U8.359). Joyce might want the
reader to say the initials “Y.M.C.A.” phonetically as “wye em see eh.” Joyce then
prepares the reader for the initialed “U.p: up” message by leaving two initialed clues
which presage the arrival of Mrs. Breen with the shameful postcard hidden in her
handbag.
Firstly, Bloom thinks of Dr. Hy Franks “on the q. t.” running into a public urinal
or greenhouse “to loosen a button” and stick “up” a flyer advertising his practice treating
venereal disease (U8.99-100). The initials “q. t.” rhyme with the initials “U.p:”. Joyce
then surrounds the rhyming initials “q. t.” with the word “up” three times to reinforce the
connection between spoken initials and the postcard message. Joyce also uses the word
“greenhouse” signifying Denis Breen’s color green and micturition in the same passage
as the spoken initials “q. t.” Other initials might be spoken as well.
32
Joyce then parades five sandwichmen sporting the initials “H.E.L.Y.’S” in front
of Bloom (U8.126). Bloom notices that “apostrophe S had plodded by” (U8.155), and
the reader notices that Joyce is spotlighting a spoken initial once again. Likewise, Joyce
pairs the initials “t. t’s” (U8.366) with the spoken words “tea” (U8.367) and “Tea. Tea.
Tea” (U8.371). Bloom also speaks the initial “R.” when he says “June has no ar no
oysters” (U8.868).
Initials reappear when Bloom sees George William Russell coming from a
vegetarian restaurant and remarks:
A.E.: what does that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward,
Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. What was he saying?
(U8.527-29).
Although Bloom knows that Russell’s pseudonym is A.E., he does not know what the
initials represent. Similarly, although Bloom associates Breen with the message “U.p:
up”, Bloom does not know what the initials “U.p:” represent. By connecting the initials
“A.E.” and the phrase “what does that mean?” with the signature “U.p: up” colon, Joyce
invites the reader to discern the meaning of the initials “U.p:”. The initials “U.p:” stand
for something.
Joyce subsequently combines Denis Breen’s color green with the signature “U.p:
up” colon when he says: “Something green it would have to be: spinach, say”
(U8.1029). Two lines later Joyce uses the word “up” (U8.1031). Joyce is clearly linking
the word “up” to the color green and Denis Breen.
33
Yet Joyce is also giving a huge hint to the explication of the message “U.p: up”.
By connecting the word “be” via colon to the word “say,” Joyce wants the reader to
realize that when one “says” an initial, like the initial “B,” the word “be” is formed.
Likewise, when one says the initials “U.” and “p:” in the “U.p: up” message, the
words “you” and “pee” are formed. Because there is no punctuation separating the
second “u” and “p” in the “U.p: up” message, the word “up” is formed, and the sentence
“you pee up” results. Patrick O’Brian parodies this explication of the postcard in his
novel Post Captain when his character “the Grapes” says to Jack, “‘You pee, up’” (398).
Spoken initials feature in the “Proteus” episode as well when Stephen discusses
books with letters for titles:
No-one saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with
letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W
is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green
oval leaves, deeply deep (U2.138-41).
Joyce cleverly links this passage to Denis Breen and his postcard with the signature “U.p:
up” colon and the color green. The repetitive phrase “deeply deep” presages the “p”
sounds in “U.p: up” and has the same number of syllables as “you pee up.” Likewise,
the word “epiphanies” with its two letter “p”s shares the same consonants as “U.p: up”
with its two letter “p”s. Joyce’s double use of the letter “W,” which is pronounced
“double you,” repeats the “u” sounds of the “U.p: up” message and its pronunciation
“you pee up.” “Proteus” is the precursor to the postcard.
Joyce uses initials eleven times in the “Scylla and Charybdis” episode, and he
continues his fascination with spoken letters in the “Sirens” episode: “Remember write
34
Greek ees” (U11.860). Yet it is in “Cyclops” where Joyce literally litters the episode
with letters. In one twelve-line paragraph Joyce uses initials 42 times (U12.927-38).
Later in this episode the citizen, Matt Lenehan, John Wyse, Joe Hynes, Ned Lambert, and
J. J. O’Molloy discuss the authorship of a United Irishman article on a Zulu chief’s visit
to England:
---Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse.
---No, says the citizen. It’s not signed Shanganagh. It’s only
initialled: P.
---And a very good initial too, says Joe.
---That’s how it’s worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag
(U12.1538-41).
Although the initial “P” may signify Griffith, Joyce draws the reader’s attention to the
initial “P” for a much more important reason. In this passage Joyce pairs the initial “P”
with his signature “U.p: up” colon to show the reader that this initial is very important to
the explication of the “U.p: up” postcard. To show the reader “how it’s worked” Joyce
leaves an imperialistic imprimatur—“Trade follows the flag.”
Joyce is painting a picture: the “flag” is the initial “P”: the tail of the initial “P”
is the flagpole, and the head of the initial “P” is the flag of the British empire. The
significance of “Trade” is a bit more tricky. Trade implies colony. In the quote the
initial “P” is “nextdoor neighbors” to a punctuation mark: the colon. Colony implies
colon. The initial “P” plus the punctuation mark “colon” equals “P:”. Yet in the “U.p:
up” message, the initial “P” which is flanked by a colon is a lowercase initial “p”.
Joyce’s move from uppercase to lowercase is deliberate. The lowercase “p” stands for
Breen’s effeminate penis: the tail of the lowercase “p” is the shaft of the penis, and the
head of the lowercase “p” is the head of the penis. The two periods which comprise the
35
colon are Breen’s testes. If trade follows the flag from the head of Breen’s penis to his
testes, [t]hat’s how it’s worked.” Breen’s urethra “follows” the head of his penis to his
testes. Trade does indeed follow the flag. Breen’s hypospadias makes him hold his
“flag” and testes high while urinating.
The facsimiles of Ulysses corroborate this theory. In the original manuscript to
“Lestrygonians” Joyce wrote the postcard message as “U.P.: up” for Mrs. Breen and
“U.P: up” for Bloom (The James Joyce Archive, Ulysses: A Facsimile of Placards for
Episodes 7-10, 94, 102, 106, 114). Joyce deleted the period following the capital “P” in a
subsequent draft, thereby changing the “P” from an initial to a capital letter (The James
Joyce Archive, Ulysses: Notes, Schemata, Errata in Lestrygonians and Scylla and
Charybdis, 308). Gabler, in the June 1984 critical and synoptic edition of Ulysses, found
that Joyce’s change from the capital “P” to a lowercase “p” was an editorial emendation
combining features from the Rosenbach manuscript and a typed reading in typescript
copied from a lost final working draft (Ulysses: A Critical and Synoptic Edition, 332-33,
336-37). Hence, the Gabler corrected text has the postcard read “U.p: up”.
Again, Joyce is the artist before his easel. Joyce has drawn a picture of Breen’s
petite penis when he chose a lowercase “p” which represents the tiny head and shaft of
Breen’s penis. The two periods which comprise the colon following the lowercase “p”
represents Breen’s testes. It is unclear what the uppercase letters “U.P.” represent in the
following dialogue between Bloom and Mrs. Breen:
She took a folded postcard from her handbag.
---Read that, she said. He got it this morning.
---What is it? Mr. Bloom asked, taking the card. U.P.?
---U.p: up, she said (U8.255-58).
36
The notesheets to the “Cyclops” episode provide the answer to what Bloom is actually
saying when he says “U.P.” Joyce wrote the phrase “U.P. = up” on a “Cyclops”
notesheet (Herring 82). Joyce then used a red coloring pencil to cross out the phrase for
inclusion in Ulysses (Herring 82). The only time that Joyce uses “U.P.” in Ulysses is in
the interchange between Bloom and Mrs. Breen quoted above. If the uppercase letters
“U.P.” are identical to the word “up,” then Bloom is saying the word “up” to Mrs. Breen,
and she “corrects” him by saying the entire postcard message “U.p: up”. It is significant
to note that Joyce does not equate the letters “U.p:” with either the letters “U.P.” or the
word “up.” It appears that the letters “U.p:” stand for something else.
It is significant that all nine times in which “U.p: up” appears in Ulysses, the first
letter “p” is always a lowercase “p” followed by a colon (U8.258, 8.274, 8.320, 12.258,
12.1031, 12.1044, 15.485, 15.1609, 15.1609). A picture says a thousand words. To
demonstrate the significance of the colon to Breen’s anatomy Joyce punctuates Ulysses
with colons: in “Lestrygonians” the colon is used 56 times; in “Cyclops” the colon is
used 17 times; in “Scylla and Charybdis” the colon is used 44 times; in “Nestor” the
colon is used 32 times; and in “Proteus” the colon is used 43 times. In the “Cyclops”
episode, Bloom remarks on the need for repetition: “Because, you see, says Bloom, for
an advertisement you must have repetition. That’s the whole secret” (U12.1147-48).
While Bloom is praising the efficacy of repetition in advertising, Joyce is
“advertising” a different subject—his signature “U.p: up” colon. Bloom begins this
passage with the simple words “you see” which rhyme with the initials “U.p:” or their
phonetic counterpart “you pee:”. The “whole secret” to the “U.p: up” postcard lies in the
37
repetition of a simple punctuation mark, the colon. Joyce has saturated Ulysses with
pictures of the “whole secret” of Breen’s anatomy. The colon represents Breen’s testes,
the situs of Breen’s hypospadias.
Joyce uses the colon as a pictorial representation of Breen’s hypospadiac testes
for another reason. The colon, which is comprised of two dots, is also connected to
Breen’s purported mental instability when Joyce uses the words “dotty” (U8.301) and
“Dottyville” (U1.128). Gifford contends that the word “Dottyville” is a “mocking name
for the Richmond Lunatic Asylum” in Dublin (16). For Joyce these words connote
mental instability while denoting Breen’s hypospadiac testes which are pictured as two
dots or the punctuation mark the colon. Of course Joyce is also enjoying the difference
between the colon as punctuation mark and the testes and the colon as part of the
intestinal tract. Urination meets defecation in this mixed metaphor.
The twoheaded octopus also represents Breen’s hypospadias:
---Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon
which the ends of the world have forgotten to come while the other
speaks with a Scotch accent. The tentacles….
They passed from behind Mr. Bloom along the curbstone. Beard
and bicycle. Young woman.
And there he is too. Now that’s really a coincidence: second time.
Coming events cast their shadows before. With the approval of the
eminent poet, Mr. Geo. Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with
him. A. E.: what does that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward,
Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. What was he saying?
The ends of the world with a Scottish accent. Tentacles: octopus.
Something occult: symbolism. Holding forth. She’s taking it all in.
Not saying a word. To aid gentleman in literary work (U8.520-32).
According to Gifford, the twoheaded octopus may refer to “George William Russell’s
uneasy relation with his friend and colleague in Theosophy S. Liddell MacGregor
38
Mathers,…a wild professional Scot” (173). Gifford also surmises that the two heads
could refer to “Walter Pater’s description of the Mona Lisa in The Renaissance (1873)”
(173). Gifford notes that the intials “A.E.” refer to the pen name of George William
Russell (173). Hugh Kenner contends in “Taxonomy of an Octopus” that the twoheaded
octopus refers either to British economic power concentrated in London and Edinburgh
or to George William Russell and Prime Minister Balfour of Scotland (205).
The twoheaded octopus can also refer to Breen’s testes. Joyce connects the word
“tentacles” to the word “octopus” with his signature “U.p: up” colon. Joyce follows
immediately by connecting the words “[s]omething occult” and “symbolism” with
another colon. Joyce wants the reader to connect Breen to the symbolism of the
twoheaded octopus.
The “head upon which the ends of the world have forgotten to come” is Breen’s
normal testis which has no urethra from which urine or sperm can “come.” The second
head “speaks with a Scottish accent” or brogue. The word “rogue” rhymes with the word
“brogue.” The word “rogue” can refer to a vagabond, scoundrel, or villain but can also
mean an “individual exhibiting a chance biological variation or deviation” (Webster’s
1967).
Denis Breen, and his affected testis, are rogues. The octopus’ second head,
which speaks with a brogue, is Breen’s rogue or hypospadiac testis which can urinate and
ejaculate or “come” from its perineal urethra. The tentacles of the twoheaded octopus
refer to the urine and sperm flowing out of the second “head” or rogue testis’ urethra.
Joyce purposively joins the words “two” and “headed” to make the Joycean compound
39
word “twoheaded” to illustrate that the two testicles are “nextdoor neighbors” in one
scrotal sac. The three-syllable word “tentacles,” moreover, sounds like the three-syllable
word “testicles” to reinforce the view that Breen’s testicles are the two heads of the
octopus.
Joyce gives the reader a huge clue to the mystery of the twoheaded octopus
earlier in “Lestrygonians”: “He crossed under Tommy Moore’s roguish finger. They did
right to put him up over a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for women”
(U8.414-15). Irish poet Thomas Moore’s “roguish finger” foreshadows Denis Breen’s
“rogue” testicle. In this passage Joyce associates the adjective “roguish” with symbols of
Breen and the “U.p: up” postcard. In the phrase “up over a urinal: meeting of the
waters’ Joyce uses the signature “U.p: up” colon together with the word “up” to make
the reader think of the “U.p: up” postcard and its recipient, Breen. Joyce also follows
these symbols with the phrase “to be” which sounds similar to the postcard message “you
pee.” Breen urinates from his urethra which is located under his “roguish” hypospadiac
testicle. Little does the reader know but Tommy Moore is also pointing his roguish
finger at the rogue testicle of Denis Breen.
Joyce also provides a veiled clue to Breen’s rogue testicle when he uses the
phrase “rogue elephant” in a notesheet to the “Circe” episode (Herring 328). Joyce did
not cross out this phrase for inclusion in Ulysses (Herring 328). This phrase serves as an
allusion to the rogue head of the twoheaded octopus: the elephant and octopus are both
animals with wrinkly skin resembling the perineum enclosing the testicles; the elephant’s
trunk resembles the octopus’s tentacles; and the words “elephant” and “octopus” each
40
contain three syllables. Denis Breen’s hypospadiac testicle now has another zoological
symbol.
After Joyce provides the reader with visual clues to the meaning of “U.p: up”, he
provides clues which suggest that the postcard message should be read phonetically as
“you pee up.” In the “Cyclops” episode the citizen regales the bar with tales of the feats
of his “Irish red setter wolfdog” (U12.715) named Garryowen or Owen Garry:
Our greatest living phonetic expert (wild horses shall not drag it
from us!) has left no stone unturned in his efforts to delucidate and
compare the verse recited and has found it bears a striking resemblance
(the italics are ours) to the ranns of ancient Celtic bards. We are not
speaking so much of those delightful lovesongs with which the writer
who conceals his identity under the graceful pseudonym of the Little
Sweet Branch has familiarised the bookloving world but rather (as a
contributor D. O. C. points out in an interesting communication
published by an evening contemporary) of the harsher and more
personal note which is found in the satirical effusions of the famous
Raftery and of Donal MacConsidine to say nothing of a more modern
lyrist at present very much in the public eye (U12.719-30).
An archaic meaning for the word “stone” is a testis (Webster’s 2249). Hence, the
proverbial “no stone unturned” has two urinary meanings. The word “stone” can refer to
a kidney stone which invokes imagery of micturition. The phrase “no stone unturned”
refers to Denis Breen’s unusual urination—Breen’s urethra is located in the perineum
within or behind his testes. Before urinating, Breen must perforce point his penis in an
upward direction and lift one or both of his testes, or “stones” to urinate. Breen, whose
urine “strikes” the urinal with no testis unturned, bears a “striking” resemblance to his
41
pseudonym “Little Sweet Branch.” Breen’s petite penis or “Little Sweet Branch” is
another comedic dissection of the name “Denis Breen.”
Joyce provides other phonetic clues in “Lestrygonians” when Bloom remembers
the questions which some women posed to him in the replies to his personal
advertisement: “Please tell me what is the meaning. Please tell me what perfume does
your wife. Tell me who made the world” (U8.328-29).
The words “tell me” are similar to the words “you pee” and tell the reader to
speak the initials “U.p:” as the words “you pee.” Joyce repeats the telling phrase “tell
me” two more times to saturate the passage with the similar sounds “you pee.” The “U.p:
up” postcard is thus transcribed into the phonetically simple sentence “you pee up.”
Joyce moves from the phonetic expression “you pee up” to directional clues of
Breen’s unusual micturition. Although the phrase “you pee up” refers to Breen’s upward
urine stream, Joyce has much more on hand for Breen. Joyce leaves a trail of clues
pointing to the conclusion that Breen holds his penis and testes in an upward direction
while urinating in an upward stream.
In “Lestrygonians” Joyce uses the word “up” 52 times. When Mrs. Breen sees
Bloom dressed in black, she asks:
---You’re in black, I see. You have no…?
---No, Mr. Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral.
Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who’s dead, when and what did
he die of? Turn up like a bad penny.
---O, dear me, Mrs. Breen said. I hope it wasn’t any near relation.
May as well get her sympathy.
---Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite
suddenly, poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this
morning.
42
Your funeral’s tomorrow
While you’re coming through the rye.
Diddlediddle dumdum
Diddlediddle …
---Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen’s womaneyes said
melancholily.
Now that’s quite enough about that. Just: quietly: husband.
---And your lord and master?
Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn’t lost them anyhow.
---O, don’t be talking! she said. He’s a caution to rattlesnakes.
He’s in there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He
has me heartscalded. Wait till I show you (U8.213-31).
It is no coincidence that Denis Breen is “finding out the law of libel.” In 1918 Joyce filed
a libel action against Henry Carr, a staff member of the Zurich post of the British
consulate (Ellmann, James Joyce 427-28). Joyce alleged that Carr accused Joyce of
being a “cad” and a “swindler” and threatened Joyce with bodily harm in the offices of
the consulate (Ellmann, James Joyce 427-28). Although Joyce eventually agreed to
withdraw the suit, Joyce was required to pay fifty francs before the proceedings were
closed (Ellmann, James Joyce 452-57). Joyce’s failure to find “justice” in his libel action
paves the way for Breen’s thwarted attempts to file a libel action.
Yet much more than the law of libel is at stake here. Joyce plants at least ten
clues which connect Denis Breen to this passage. The first clue is the phrase “I see”
which sounds like the phonetic phrase “you pee” of the “U.p: up” postcard. Joyce
repeats this clue a second time in the phrase “I foresee” which again reminds the reader
of the phrase “you pee.” Joyce then completes the phonetic phrase “you pee” by adding
the word “up” in the clue: “Going to crop up all day, I foresee.” Reading these three
43
clues together reveals the postcard message “you pee up.” Denis Breen and the “U.p:
up” postcard are beginning to materialize.
Yet the clue “[g]oing to crop up all day, I foresee” means so much more. The
prefix “fore” in the word “foresee” is the same as the prefix “fore” in the penile word
“foreskin.” The verb “crop” denotes trimming (Webster’s 540) and could refer to the
trimming of the foreskin or circumcision. The noun “crop” denotes the “top, head, or
highest part … of an herb, flower or tree” (Webster’s 540). The directional word “up”
which follows the verb “crop” presages the word up in the “U.p: up” postcard and
provides further evidence that Breen points the “crop” or head of his penis “up” when he
urinates from his affected, hypospadiac testis. Under the dual definitions of the word
“crop” the “Circe” character The Croppy Boy as well as Ulysses’ allusions to the Irish
ballad The Croppy Boy also refer to the head and foreskin of a penis.
In the clue “[t]urn up like a bad penny” Joyce again uses the word “up” to remind
the reader of Denis Breen and the “U.p: up” postcard. Most importantly, this clue is a
reference to Breen’s affected testis which must be “turned up” to urinate because Breen’s
urethra is located in the perineum beneath his affected testis or “bad penny.” The phrase
“turn up” can also represent the vegetable “turnip” whose bulbous root could be the
affected testis. The affected testis is a “near relation” or an “old friend” to the normal
testis situated side by side in the scrotal sac. Joyce repeats the “turn up” clue later in the
passage when he states: “Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes.” Mrs. Breen’s eyes,
described as “womaneyes” and “two large eyes” are now images of her husband’s
testicles which must be “turned up” to urinate from the perineal urethra. Joyce cleverly
44
fashions the word “womaneyes” to describe Breen’s testicles which appear womanly due
to his hypospadias.
Joyce has Mrs. Breen’s eyes take center stage for another reason. He is telling
another joke at the expense of Freud. In his book On Dreams Freud describes a dream
which he actually had:
‘Company at table or table d’hote …spinach was being eaten …Frau E.L. was
sitting beside me; she was turning her whole attention to me and laid her hand on my
knee in an intimate manner. I removed her hand unresponsively. She then said: “But
you’ve always had such beautiful eyes.” …I then had an indistinct picture of two eyes, as
though it were a drawing or like the outline of a pair of spectacles’ (SE V:636-37).
Freud’s “two eyes” are so beautiful in his dream as to warrant the advances of a woman
not his wife. For Joyce beauty is not always in the eye of the beholder as he takes Mrs.
Breen’s “two large eyes” and turns them into symbols of hypospadiac testicles. As
further evidence that Joyce is parodying Freud’s “spinach” dream, Joyce plants three
more clues in “Lestrygonians”: “oyster eyes” (U8.322), “[c]lerk with the glasses”
(U8.325), and “spinach” (U8.1029).
Firstly, Joyce refers to Breen’s eyes as “oyster eyes staring at the postcard”
(U8.322). Joyce wants the reader to see Breen’s two eyes as two slimy, grey “oysters on
the half shell” which resemble Breen’s two testicles in size, color, and texture. Joyce
also wants the reader to see that Breen’s “testicular” eyes are ironically “reading” the
postcard message which makes fun of Breen’s “oyster-like” testicles. Secondly,
immediately after thinking of Breen’s “oyster eyes,” Bloom passes the Irish Times and
thinks “[t]here might be other answers lying there. …Code….Clerk with the glasses there
doesn’t know me” (U8.323-25). Joyce’s “clerk with the glasses” mimics the “spectacles”
45
in Freud’s “spinach” dream. Joyce wants the reader to associate the “clerk with the
glasses” with some sort of “code” or shorthand for Freud’s “spinach” dream. If the
reader will only look, “[t]here might be other answers lying there.” Bloom thinks of
spinach later in “Lestrygonians”: “Something green it would have to be: spinach, say”
(U8.1029). Freud’s “spinach” dream has now come full circle.
Joyce moves from vegetarian images to reptilian images to plant a clue which
tells the reader the sounds that Breen’s urination makes. Mrs. Breen tells Bloom that her
husband Denis is “a caution to rattlesnakes” (U8.229). Breen makes such a distinctive
and unusual “rattle” when urinating that he effectively “warns” others, even noisy
rattlesnakes, of his urination much like a rattlesnake shakes its rattles to warn its victim of
an approaching strike. Breen’s “rattle” provides clear evidence of severe hypospadias—
where hypospadias compromises a straight urine stream, a “rattling,” noisy urine spray
results (Ellsworth 227). Secondly, Breen holds his penis and testes or “rattles” up so
“high” when urinating that he effectively warns others of his presence in the public
urinals. Bloom’s nonsensical song lyrics “Diddlediddle dumdum/Diddlediddle” could
also mimic the sounds which Breen’s urine makes when striking the urinal.
Joyce then makes two direct references to Breen in this passage. When thinking
of Mrs. Breen, Bloom thinks: “Just: quietly: husband.” Joyce uses the signature “U.p:
up” colon two times together with the word “husband” to conclude that Bloom is
referring to Mrs. Breen’s husband, Denis. Bloom later refers to Mrs. Breen’s “lord and
master” who is Denis Breen. Breen is intimately associated with this passage.
46
Joyce plants another Breenian clue while enjoying a bit of wordplay. Joyce uses
the phrase “[h]eart trouble” and the word “heartscalded” in this passage. The word
“heart” can mean affection, fertility or “a firm part” (Webster’s 1044-45). The word
“scald” can mean an injury to skin or flesh or a scabby spot (Webster’s 2022-23).
Dignam’s “heart trouble” becomes Breen’s “love” trouble. Breen mourns the loss of his
penile urethra which would allow him to “come” from the tip of his penis instead of
“coming through the rye” or his testicles. Denis Breen’s penis is “heartscalded” because
the firm part has been injured and has no urethra, making Mrs. Breen mourn the “old
friends” or normal penises.
Mrs. Breen then provides another directional clue when she says: “U.p:
up.…Someone taking a rise out of him” (U8.258). The phrase “taking a rise out of him”
denotes Denis Breen’s “angry reaction” to the postcard (Webster’s 1961). Yet Joyce is
also enjoying a bit of wordplay. The word “rise” can also mean “to assume an upright or
standing position,” “to extend upwards,” “to swell in size or volume,” and “the distance
from the crotch to the waistline” (Webster’s 1960-61). Breen’s bruised ego is not the
only thing swelling in size—perhaps Joyce wants the reader to think of Breen’s genitalia
fitting inside the crotch of his pants and then extending upwards during micturition.
Joyce then plants one of the most significant clues to the explication of the “U.p:
up” postcard. Mrs. Breen says: “It’s a great shame for them whoever he is” (U8.259).
Initially, Mrs. Breen believes that a man wrote and sent the postcard due to her words
“whoever he is.” The clue lies in the other part of the sentence: “It’s a great shame for
them….” The object of the preposition “for” is plural. If Joyce had said “It’s a great
shame for him,” the reader would know at once that the object of the preposition was
47
Denis Breen. Yet because the prepositional phrase is “for them,” the reader must look
beyond the entity of Denis Breen to other persons, places, or things that might be shamed
by the postcard. Because Mrs. Breen is the speaker, she cannot be included in the class
of persons, places, or things that comprise the pronoun “them.” Joyce’s humor now takes
center stage. Mrs. Breen is referring to not only her husband but also her husband’s penis
and testes which are personified so that Breen and his genitalia are “shamed” by the
postcard message “U.p: up”. Mrs. Breen is obviously so ashamed of her husband’s
hypospadias that she endows her husband’s genitalia with feelings of shame. Mrs.
Breen’s shame provides another directional clue for the reader. The “U.p: up” postcard
which Mrs. Breen shamefully “folded” and placed in her purse mimics her husband’s
hypospadiac genitalia which is “folded” and secreted in his pants but which must be
“folded” upwards to permit urination from Breen’s perineal urethra (U8.264).
Joyce provides further direction when Bloom orders lunch in “Lestrygonians”:
Potted meats. What is home without Plumtree’s potted
meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the obituary notices
they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam’s potted meat. Cannibals
would with lemon and rice. White missionary too salty. Like
pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour. Ought
to be tough from exercise. His wives in a row to watch the effect.
There was a right royal old nigger. Who ate or something the
somethings of the reverend Mr MacTrigger. With it an abode of
bliss. Lord knows what concoction. Cauls mouldy tripes windpipes
faked and minced up. Puzzle find the meat (U8.742-51).
Joyce ends this passage with an important clue to its explication” “Puzzle find the meat.”
To unlock the puzzle, the reader must “find the meat” and determine what Plumtree’s
potted meat really is. The expression “to pot one’s meat” is slang for “to copulate”
48
(Gifford 87). The expression “up a plumtree” is slang for “cornered, done for; or, trapped
in an unwanted pregnancy” (Gifford 179).
Yet there is more to these phrases than meets the eye. Joyce begins the phrase
“up a plumtree” with the directional word “up” to make the reader remember Denis
Breen and the “U.p: up” postcard. The plumtree represents Breen’s genitalia: the tree is
Breen’s penis and the plums on the tree are Breen’s testes. This “meaty” passage talks of
not only potted meat and plumtrees but also cannibals dining on the genitalia of white
missionaries. Breen’s genitals are in good company in this gastronomic episode.
Joyce refers to Breen with other symbols in this passage. The surname “Dignam”
has the same ending sound as the word “scrotum.” The phrase “Dignam’s potted meat”
becomes “scrotum’s potted meat” becomes “Breen’s scrotum’s potted meat” becomes
“Breen’s scrotum’s urinary meatus.” Shakespeare’s “green-eyed monster” which
“mocks” the urinary meatus it “feeds on” has come full circle.
The advertising jingle further corroborates this position. The jingle begins, “What
is home without Plumtree’s potted meat?” The answer to the advertising jingle is :
“Incomplete.” Breen’s urinary meatus is incomplete because Breen’s urethra is located
under a testis instead of at the tip of his penis. Once the reader “finds the meatus” and
discovers the situs of Breen’s urethra, the pieces to the puzzle of Denis Breen and the
“U.p: up” postcard can be put together.
Breen is connected to the directional word “up” in “Cyclops” as well. Joyce uses
the word “up” 41 times in this episode. From “squeezed up with the laughing” (U12.250)
to “what was up” (U12.252) to “doubled up” (U12.259) to “something was up”
49
(U12.264) to “prowling up” (U12.300), Joyce surrounds the postcard message “U.p: up”
(U12.258) with an upward direction. Joyce then shifts his focus to images of posthanging penile erections:
---There’s one thing [capital punishment] hasn’t a deterrent effect
on, says Alf.
---What’s that? says Joe.
---The poor bugger’s tool that’s being hanged, says Alf.
---That so? says Joe.
---God’s truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warden that was
in Kilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told
me when they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in
their faces like a poker (U12.455-62).
The directional clue is the phrase “it was standing up in their faces like a poker.” The
pronoun “it” refers to an erect penis or the “poor bugger’s tool.” Joyce compares Breen’s
standing up to urinate to an erection following death by hanging. Both are unfortunate
events and both include upright penises. In the instance of hanging, the penis is erect. In
the case of Breen’s micturition, the penis is held in an upward direction. Joyce is again
paying homage to Freud in this passage. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams Freud
states that “tools are used as symbols for the male organ” (SE V:356). Alf Bergan uses
the word “tool” as a symbol for the penis. Joyce expands his toolbox to include as a
phallic symbol a “poker.” Joyce also wants the reader to think of the phrase “poke her”
when talking of penises. Finally, the “‘May-Beetle Dream’” from Freud’s The
Interpretation of Dreams also includes an erection following hanging (SE 289-92).
Joyce continues this genital joke by having “the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von
Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler” as a member of the “picturesque foreign delegation known
as the Friends of the Emerald Isle” (U12.559-60, 554). According to Gifford, this
50
German name means “‘Penis-in-bath-Inhabitant-of-the-valley-of-testicles’” (334). In his
capacity as “Archjoker,” Joyce might be telling the reader that Breen’s urethra or “Penisin-bath” inhabits the “valley” of Breen’s testicles.
Perhaps the most important clue to the explication of the “U.p: up” postcard is
found in the “Circe” episode. When “Dr Bloom” is being examined by “Dr Madden,” Dr
Madden gives Bloom the following diagnosis:
Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming generations I
suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in spirits of wine
in the national teratological museum (U15.1788-91).
.
The diagnosis of “hypsospadia” is really for Denis Breen, not Bloom. Bloom‘s title of
“Dr Bloom” provides an important link to Denis Breen. Earlier in “Circe” Bloom refers
to himself as “Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon” (U15.721). The proper name “Dr
Bloom” has the initials “DB” which are the initials of Denis Breen. The word “Doctor”
can include the word “Dentist.” The word “Dentist” rhymes with the name “Denis” and
invokes the name Denis Breen.
After calling himself “Dr Bloom,” Bloom produces a calling card which says
“Henry Flower” (U15.733). Bloom is then “cautioned” to give an alibi (U15.736).
Bloom jokes about his “change of name” (U15.740-41) and pleads: “Mistaken identity”
(U15.760). The word “cautioned” invokes Denis Breen whose noisy urination is a
“caution to rattlesnakes.” There is a case of “mistaken identity”: Bloom is being
mistaken for Breen, and Breen is being mistaken for Bloom. In the notesheets to “Circe”
Joyce included the handwritten notes “dream of contrary” and “dream goes by contraries”
51
(Herring 288). Joyce then crossed out both of these notes with a blue coloring pencil for
inclusion in the text (Herring 288). If Joyce wanted the “Circe” episode to be a “dream
of contrary,” then Bloom’s diagnosis could really be for his “contrary” Denis Breen. To
identify Breen as Bloom’s “contrary” Joyce leaves a huge hint. Directly below these two
notes about “contraries” appears the handwritten note “spades—unhappy in children”
(Herring 288). This note was not interlined but was left untouched for future generations
to ponder. In this cryptic note Joyce could be saying that spades, when used to dig a
child’s grave, would symbolize childhood unhappiness for parents such as Bloom who
had to bury his son Rudy. Joyce could also be saying that the spade-like penile
abnormality hypospadias would be an unhappy occurrence in male children such as
Breen. Bloom and Breen, as contraries, are both connected to “spades” in an unhappy
way. Bloom’s spade-like diagnosis appears to be for his “contrary,” Denis Breen.
Dr Madden’s surname provides further evidence that this diagnosis is really for
Denis Breen. The surname “Madden” invokes the adjective “mad” which connotes the
adjective “crazy.” Denis Breen is portrayed as being very eccentric. It is no coincidence
that the doctor who pronounces the diagnosis of hypospadias is named “Dr Madden.”
Denis Breen is linked to madness and hypospadias.
The diagnosis “hypsospadia” is also a clue to Denis Breen’s diagnosis. Joyce
took the urological word “hypospadia” and added the letter “s” to the prefix “hyp” to
create the prefix “hypso” plus the suffix “spadia” to form the Joycean word
“hypsospadia.” The prefix “hypso” means “up” (Webster’s 1117). Joyce has now
connected Denis Breen to the remaining word “hypospadia.” Joyce concurs that Denis
Breen has hypospadia or hypospadias, the preferred spelling. Perhaps Joyce did not want
52
the reader to go from the suffix –ias to the word “ass,” the location of the anal orifice.
Joyce also provides a clue to the extent of Breen’s hypospadias. “Dr Madden requests
that “the parts affected” be preserved for display in a teratological museum following
Breen’s demise. The phrase “the parts affected” is plural, suggesting that both Breen’s
penis and testes are affected by his hypospadias.
The word “hypsography” is a “branch of geography that deals with the
measurement and mapping of the varying elevations of the earth’s surface with reference
to sea level” (Webster’s 1117). Applying this word to the field of urology, the
measurement of penile erections instead of mountain elevations would result. Joyce is
having a bit of fun with his new diagnosis. Men with severe hypospadia or hypospadias
often have very small penises, many of which are chordee or curved downward and
tethered to the perineum (Baskin 3). Measuring their erections would hardly be
significant. It is no coincidence that the word “chordee” rhymes with the phonetic phrase
“you pee.”
Joyce is using another Freudian joke-technique to tell another joke about penises.
In Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Freud discusses the joke-technique of
condensation accompanied by the formation of a substitute (SE VIII:19). The
substitution in this instance is the creation of the composite word “hypsospadia”—a word
“which is unintelligible in itself but is immediately understood in its context and
recognized as being full of meaning [as] the vehicle of the joke’s laughter-compelling
effect” (SE VIII:20). The composite word “hypsospadia” is composed of the words
“hypsography” and “hypospadia” The juxtaposition of the field of geography (mountain
elevations) with the field of anatomy (penile anomalies) creates a humorous diagnosis.
53
The composite word “hypsospadia” also constitutes a “slip of the tongue.” In The
Psychopathology of Everyday Life Freud holds that “paraphraxes” or slips of the tongue
are the result of positive sound-associations and word-associations and negative
suppressed thoughts (SE VI:60). Under Freud’s model, the doctor’s slip of the tongue,
“hypsospadia,” is the result of the doctor’s suppressed thoughts about the elevation of
mountains or penises or both. The doctor’s “elevated” diagnosis of “hypsospadia”
humorously becomes a diagnosis of the doctor as well as his “patient” Bloom/Breen.
Joyce’s creation of the word “hypsospadia” is also a parody of Freudian dream
interpretation. In the book On Dreams Freud discusses conflicting dream-thoughts:
“The most convenient way of bringing together two dream-thoughts which, to start with,
have nothing in common, is to alter the verbal form of one of them, and thus bring it halfway to meet the other, which may be similarly clothed in a new form of words” (SE
V:650). Joyce thus brings together dream-thoughts of erections with dream-thoughts of
hypospadiac penises to create the science of measuring insignificant elevations. Hardly
what Freudian dream interpretation would suggest. Perhaps Breen’s upward urine stream
during his unusual urination is the appropriate “elevation” to measure.
Joyce based the “U.p: up” postcard in part upon a dream which Freud had of
urinating in an upward direction. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams Freud
discusses his dream of micturition:
A hill, on which there was something like an open-air closet:
a very long seat with a large hole at the end of it. Its back edge was
thickly covered with small heaps of faeces of all sizes and degrees of
freshness. There were bushes behind the seat. I micturated on the
seat; a long stream of urine washed everything clean; the lumps of
54
faeces came away easily and fell into the opening. It was as though
at the end there was still some left (SE V:468-69).
Freud likened his powerful micturition in his dream to Hercules’ cleansing the
Augean stables, Gulliver’s extinguishing the great fire in Lilliput, and Gargantua’s
urination upon the city of Paris (SE V:469). Joyce takes Freud’s “superhuman” urination
to new heights when he has Denis Breen lift his nonfunctioning penis while spraying
urine from his urethra located within or behind his scrotum. Like Freud, Breen must
perform Herculean labors to micturate. Unlike Freud, Breen’s urine stream is weak and
could not wash Freud’s lumps of faeces “clean.” Instead of cleansing the Augean stables,
Breen’s wayward urine sprays would require a Herculean labor to cleanse. Only Joyce
could parody Freud’s dream of “superhuman” urination by creating a male character with
a feminine urine stream. Breen’s unusual urination is also the subject of Breen’s
troubling dream.
55
CHAPTER 5
INTERPRETATION OF THE TROUBLING DREAM OF DENIS BREEN
In “Lestrygonians” Mrs. Breen tells Bloom of the troubling dream which her
husband Denis had last night:
---There must be a new moon out, she said. He’s always bad then.
Do you know what he did last night?
Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him,
wide in alarm, yet smiling.
---What? Mr Bloom asked.
Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.
---Woke me up in the middle of the night, she said. Dream he had, a
nightmare.
Indiges.
---Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs.
---The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said (U8.245-54).
On Monday, 13 June 1904 a new moon rose over Dublin (Gifford 163). The word
“indiges” means indigestion, and the ace of spades is not only a playing card but also a
fortune-telling card of “ill omen: malice, misfortune, perhaps death” (Gifford 163).
Denis Breen wakes his wife “up” in the middle of the night to tell her of his
dream of the ace of spades walking “up” the stairs. Although the ace of spades is an
important clue, it is also used as a “[d]ecoy duck” (U8.449) to keep the reader from
seeing the small clue which unlocks the secret to this passage. The tiny clue takes the
56
form of one word—indiges. Bloom interprets Breen’s dream as being the result of
“[i]ndiges” or indigestion. Bloom is right on track.
Joyce modeled Breen’s “indigestion” upon another well-documented case of
indigestion which also involved a dream. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams
Freud recounts a dream he had of riding a horse:
I was riding on a grey horse, timidly and awkwardly to begin with,
as though I were only reclining upon it. I met one of my colleagues,
P., who was sitting high on a horse, dressed in a tweed suit, and
who drew my attention to something (probably to my bad seat). I
now began to find myself sitting more and more firmly and
comfortably on my highly intelligent horse, and noticed that I was
feeling quite at home up there. My saddle was a kind of bolster,
which completely filled the space between its neck and crupper (SE
IV:229).
Freud interprets this dream as being the result of an apple-sized boil on his scrotum
which was caused from eating “highly spiced” food:
I had been suffering from boils which made every movement a
torture; and finally a boil the size of an apple had risen at the base of
my scrotum, which caused me the most unbearable pain with every
step I took…..But in this dream I was riding as though I had no boil
on my perineum—or rather because I wanted not to have one. My
saddle…was the poultice which had made it possible for me to fall
asleep. Under its assuaging influence I had probably been unaware
of my pain during the first hours of sleep. The painful feelings had
then announced themselves and sought to wake me; whereupon the
dream came and said soothingly: ‘No! Go on sleeping! There’s no
need to wake up. You haven’t got a boil; for you’re riding on a
horse, and it’s quite certain that you couldn’t ride if you had a boil in
that particular place.’ And the dream was successful. The pain was
silenced, and I went on sleeping.
….The cause of my boils had been ascribed to my eating highlyspiced food—an etiology that was at least preferable to the sugar
[diabetes] which might also occur to one in connection with
boils…..A still deeper interpretation led to sexual dream-thoughts,
and I recalled the meaning which references to Italy seem to have
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had in the dreams of a woman patient who had never visited that
lovely country: ‘gen Italien [to Italy]’—‘Genitalien [genitals]’; and
this was connected, too, with the house in which I had preceded my
friend P. as physician, as well as with the situation of my boil (SE
IV:230-32).
Freud has a perineal boil caused by eating highly-spiced food and dreams of riding a
horse. Breen has perineal hypospadias and dreams of the ace of spades because he has
indigestion. Joyce takes Freud’s boil and uses it as the situs of Breen’s hypospadias.
Joyce takes Freud’s indigestion and uses it as the cause of Breen’s dream. Joyce is once
again enjoying a joke at the expense of Freud.
Joyce is also describing Breen’s penile anomaly. The ace of spades represents not
only death or misfortune but also Breen’s scrotal secret—hypo-“spade”-ias. The ace of
spades is Denis Breen’s hypospadias. Both Freud and Breen are dreaming of their
genitalien—Freud dreams of the apple-sized boil on his perineum, and Breen dreams of
the hypospadiac urethra on his perineum. According to Elliott Oring in his book The
Jokes of Sigmund Freud: A Study in Humor and Jewish Identity, Freud’s boil at the base
of his scrotum was “so painful that he was even prevented from fulfilling his medical
duties” (53). Denis Breen’s perineal hypospadias could be deemed equally debilitating.
Breen’s dream contains another parody of Freudian theory. In the book The
Interpretation of Dreams Freud describes dreams as being “‘a somatic process of
excretion’” (SE IV:79). Just as the body disposes of wastes, “[d]reams serve as a safetyvalve for the over-burdened brain” (SE IV:79). Joyce takes Freud literally when he has
Breen dream of the ace of spades which symbolizes Breen’s organ of excretion, his
hypospadiac genitalia. Breen dreams of excretion while his dream excretes thoughts of
58
his organ of excretion. Joyce turns Freudian dream theory into a bout of circular
reasoning. Which came first, the mental or physical excretion?
Evidence exists that Joyce was familiar with Freud’s dream theory of excretion.
As discussed earlier, Joyce disparaged the Freudian theory of a house as a symbol of the
womb (Ellmann, James Joyce 382). The “house as womb” theory is in the same chapter
as, and just six pages from, the dream excretion theory in The Interpretation of Dreams
(SE IV:85). If Joyce read about the “house as womb” theory in The Interpretation of
Dreams, then Joyce clearly had the opportunity to read about the excretion theory in the
same chapter.
Yet the fact that the ace of spades is going upstairs in Breen’s dream adds
another layer of Freudian interpretation to Breen’s dream. In the 1901 book On Dreams
Freud states that the dream-symbol of “a staircase or going upstairs” represents “sexual
intercourse” (SE V:684). Yet the dream of going upstairs can also have other meanings.
In The Interpretation of Dreams Freud recounts a dream he had of going upstairs in
incomplete dress and being frozen on the stairs as a maid-servant approached from above
(SE IV:238). Freud interpreted this dream as being the result of reprimands he had
received from two maid-servants for spitting on the stairs and tracking mud on the stairs
(SE IV:239). According to Gay, Freudian reprimand dreams find their origin in the
micturition of seven-year-old Freud in front of his parents in their bedroom and the harsh
reprimand of his father that Freud would never amount to anything (112).
Applying Freudian dream interpretation to Breen’s dream leads to amusing
results. On the one hand Breen dreams that he is having sexual intercourse. On the other
59
hand Breen cannot have sexual intercourse because his penis has no urethra from which
to emit sperm. Breen’s dream could also be the result of childhood reprimands he
received for “peeing up.” Ironically, Breen does not receive a written reprimand in the
form of the “U.p: up” postcard until the morning after his dream. Breen’s dream of the
ace of spades is thus a form of fortune-telling after all.
Joyce is also having fun with wordplay in Breen’s dream. The word “ace” can
mean “the playing card marked in its center with one large pip” (Webster’s 14). The
word “ace” can also mean “such a card ranking highest in its suit” (Webster’s 14). An
“ace” can be a person who excels at something such as an “airplane combat pilot who has
brought down at least five enemy airplanes” (Webster’s 14). In his dream Breen is the
“ace” of hypospadias—Breen has achieved the honor of having the most severe form of
hypospadias. Instead of bringing down enemy airplanes, Breen excels at lifting his
genitalia to urinate in an upward stream.
The ace of spades casts its deathly pall upon Denis Breen once again in the
“Circe” episode when Denis Breen appears with Wisdom Hely’s sandwichboards and Alf
Bergan:
Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely’s sandwichboards, shuffles past
them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out, muttering to right and left. Little Alf
Bergan, cloaked in the pall of the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in
laughter (U15.479-83).
Alf Bergan then “points jeering at the sandwichboards” and says “U.p: up” (U15.485).
Joyce has placed a big clue to the interpretation of Breen’s dream in the shape of Little
Alf Bergan. The word “bergan” means “a rucksack supported by a wooden frame and
60
having a belt to fasten around the waist” (Webster’s 206). The “little” rucksack
represents Breen’s scrotal sac which contains his normal testicle and his hypospadiac
testicle.
The “pall of the ace of spades” which cloaks Bergan represents several things.
The word “pall” can mean an altar cloth; a linen cloth for covering the chalice; or a heavy
cloth draped over a coffin (Webster’s 1625). The “pall” cloaking Bergan could be a
parody of mass by having the cloth cover Breen’s scrotal secret. The ace of spades is
now a literal representation of Breen’s hypospadias and a symbolic representation of
Breen’s misfortune. Joyce has taken Freudian dream interpretation to a new level.
Joyce left other clues to show the reader that Breen’s dream finds its origin in
Freud’s apple-sized perineal boil. Unusual character Cashel Boyle O’Connor
Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell has “Boyle” as one of his middle names. According to Oliver
St. John Gogarty in As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, Joyce modeled his character
Cashel Farrell upon eccentric Dubliner James “Endymion” Boyle Tisdell Burke Stewart
Fitzsimons Farrell (7). The changes which Joyce made to “Endymion’s” name are
important. Joyce changed “Endymion’s” first name from “James” to “Cashel” because
when the middle name “Cashel” is paired with “Boyle” to create “Cashel Boyle,” the
rhyming clue “mash boil” results. Joyce just provided a huge clue to Freud’s perineal
boil and Breen’s perineal hypospadias. Joyce then changes “Endymion’s” middle name
“Tisdell” to “Tisdall” which rhymes with the hypospadiac term “distal” which means
“located away from the center of the body” (Webster’s 658). Breen’s urethra, which is
located within or behind his scrotum, is located away from the center of his body. Joyce
wants the reader to associate the name “Boyle” and its homonym “boil” with Breen’s
61
hypospadias. Freud’s boil is located on his perineum. Breen’s hypospadias is located on
his perineum. Sigmund Freud and Denis Breen are related once again. It is ironic that
Freud, who often found a sexual cause for his clients’ behaviors, found only indigestion
as the cause of his perineal boil. Freud may have more to digest than highly spiced food.
Joyce also uses the prefix “Boyl” when Bloom ruminates about sandwichboard
men and advertising: “They are not Boyl: no, M’Glade’s men. Doesn’t bring in any
business either. I suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls
sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper” (U8.128-33).
Gifford contends that the prefix “Boyl” refers to Blazes Boylan and his
advertising firm and that “M’Glade” refers to a real advertising firm in Dublin (160).
Joyce appears to have much more in mind.
The word “glade” can mean a bright streak
or patch of light (Webster’s 961). Joyce is throwing a patch of light upon the phrase “not
Boyl: no” which includes veiled references to Freud and Breen.
Joyce flanks the prefix “Boyl” with the words “not” and “no,” which double
negative translates into the affirmation “yes.” Joyce then uses the prefix “Boyl” which
rhymes with “boil” to suggest that Freud’s perineal boil is being advertised. Joyce then
punctuates the phrase with the signature “U.p: up” colon to connect Denis Breen and his
perineal hypospadias to Freud’s perineal boil.
Joyce corroborates this conclusion by “showcasing” male genitalia in the image
of the “transparent showcart with two smart girls sitting inside writing letters, copybooks,
envelopes, blottingpaper.” Joyce modeled the image of the transparent showcart upon an
62
image in another dream of Freud. In the book On Dreams Freud recounts a dream of
sitting in a railway carriage:
I was sitting in a railway carriage and holding on my lap an
object in the shape of a top-hat, which however was made of
transparent glass….The glass cylinder led me by a short detour to
think of an incandescent gas-mantle; and I soon saw that I should
like to make a discovery which would make me as rich and
independent as my fellow-countryman Dr. Auer von Welsbach was
made by his, and that I should like to travel instead of stopping in
Vienna. In my dream I was travelling with my discovery, the hat in
the shape of a glass cylinder—a discovery which, it is true, was not
as yet of any great practical use (SE V:652).
Joyce parodies Freud’s transparent top-hat which will make Freud rich with his
transparent showcart which will make its two girls smart. Joyce transforms Freud’s
transparent top-hat representing an erect penis into a transparent showcart encasing the
testicles. Yet Joyce’s “showcart” is “showing” much more than two smart girls
demonstrating their writing skills.
The word “show” can mean to make a conscious display of or to hang out or
carry (Webster’s 2105). The word “show” can also mean “the discharge of mucus
streaked with blood from the vagina at the onset of labor” or “the first appearance of
blood in a menstrual period” (Webster’s 2106). The word “girl” is slang for a prostitute
(Webster’s 959). The word “blot” can include a stain or flaw, an exposed point or mark,
or an exposed man in the game of backgammon (Webster’s 238). “Blotting paper” is
“soft spongy paper used to absorb ink” (Webster’s 239).
The “transparent showcart” represents the thin perineum which “shows” or carries
the wheeled outlines of the two testes enclosed therein. Later in “Lestrygonians” Joyce
alludes to the wheels of the “transparent showcart” and the “wheels” of the enclosed
63
testes when Bloom ruminates upon concentric circles: “Wheels within wheels” (U8.431).
Gifford notes that the image of “wheels within wheels” also refers to Ezekiel’s vision of
God’s creation (168).
The “two smart girls sitting inside” the cart are the two testicles housed inside the
perineum. Joyce is also having a bit of fun with the phrase “two smart girls sitting inside
writing letters.” The word “smart” can mean a cutting pain or quick vigorous activity
(Webster’s 2149-50). The word “letter” can be shorthand for the phrase “let her.” Let the
two prostitutes engage in the quick vigorous activity of sexual intercourse. As a result of
their actions, the prostitutes could “show” a bloody discharge and could “smart” from a
cutting pain.
The scrotum is also represented by the “envelope” which encloses or surrounds
the testes and by the “blotting paper” which is soft and spongy. Freud’s perineum or
“blotting paper” cannot absorb the boil or “blot” thereon. Breen’s perineum or “blotting
paper” cannot absorb the urethra or “blot” thereon. Joyce deliberately connects the words
“blotting” and “paper” to make the compound word “blottingpaper” to suggest the testes
which are “nextdoor neighbors” in the scrotal sac.
The copybook also represents the scrotum which encloses the testes, one of which
is the duplicate of the other. Breen’s “copybook” is damaged because his hypospadiac
testicle is not a duplicate of his normal testicle. Freud’s “copybook” is damaged because
the testicle upon which his apple-sized boil sits is not the duplicate of the other. The
“two smart girls” are having penmanship problems.
64
The author of the “U.p: up” postcard had no penmanship problems. This mystery
man saw Breen urinate in a public urinal and then wrote and mailed the “U.p: up”
postcard to Breen. Once the author is identified, the final mystery of the “U.p: up”
postcard will be solved.
65
CHAPTER 6
AUTHOR OF THE “U.P: UP” POSTCARD
The identity of the person who drafted and mailed the “U.p: up” postcard is one
of the many puzzles in Ulysses. Joyce leaves many hints as to the identity of this person
in Ulysses. Some of these hints are valid, and some are “[d]ecoy ducks” to lure the
reader from the right path. Mrs. Breen thinks that the culprit is a man when she says,
“U.p: up….Someone taking a rise out of him. It’s a great shame for them whoever he is”
(U8.258-59). Bloom thinks that Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding wrote the postcard:
“U.p: up. I’ll take my oath that’s Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. Wrote it for a lark in
the Scotch house I bet anything” (U8.320-21). Joe Hynes asks Alf Bergan if he wrote the
postcard: “Was it you did it, Alf?” (U12.1038). Alf replies, “Me?...Don’t cast your
nasturtiums on my character” (U12.1040).
Another character in Ulysses had the opportunity to write and mail the “U.p: up”
postcard: C. P. M’Coy.
Joyce first used the character C. P. M’Coy in the story
“Grace.” In this story M’Coy “is identified there as having been a clerk in the Midland
Railway, a canvasser for advertisements for the Irish Times and Freeman’s Journal, a
town traveler for a coal company on commission, a private inquiry agent, a clerk in the
office of the subsheriff, and secretary to the City Coroner. His wife had been a soprano
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and still taught young children to play the piano at low terms” (Ellmann, James Joyce
375).
In Ulysses M’Coy works for the coroner (U5.170-72), and his wife sings
professionally (U5.148). Ellmann contends that the character C. P. M’Coy is based upon
actual Dubliner Charles Chance “whose wife sang soprano at concerts in the ‘nineties
under the name of Madame Marie Tallon” (James Joyce 375). Assuming that Ellmann is
correct and that character C. P. M’Coy is based upon actual Dubliner Charles Chance,
Joyce chose not to appropriate Chance’s name for the name of his character.
Yet according to Culleton, Joyce sought to achieve verisimilitude in Ulysses by
using the actual names of Dubliners for many of his characters (14). Joyce thus adopted
a pattern of using actual names as character names. Joyce, moreover, adopted another
pattern of using a given name or nick-name and a surname as the name of a character.
Initials were almost never used. Yet in this instance Joyce broke both patterns. He
declined to use the actual name Charles Chance and instead opted for the initialed name
C. P. M’Coy.
It is no accident that the initials “C. P.” are similar to the initials “U.p:” of the
“U.p: up” postcard. When the initials “U.p:” are spoken, the phrase “you pee” results.
When the initials “C. P.” are spoken, the phrase “see pee” results. The phrase “you pee”
means that “Breen pees.” The phrase “see pee” means that “someone sees pee” or
“someone sees Breen pee.” That “someone” is C. P. “See Pee” M’Coy. C. P. M’Coy
saw Denis Breen “pee up.” C. P. M’Coy saw Denis Breen spray his urine upward while
urinating in a standing position in a public urinal. M’Coy then wrote a postcard
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addressed to Breen which contained the cleverly cryptic message “U.p: up”. M’Coy
then mailed the postcard to Breen.
The surname M’Coy is also linked to Denis Breen. The word “coy” can mean
“shrinking bashfully from familiarity,” inaccessible or secluded, and to caress (Webster’s
526). Breen’s hypospadiac genitalia, which are normally bashful, inaccessible and
secluded, must be “caressed” in an upward direction when Breen urinates in a standing
position in a public urinal. M’Coy saw Breen’s “coy” hypospadiac genitalia in the public
urinal where M’Coy saw Breen urinate.
Bloom’s first encounter with M’Coy in the Lotus Eaters episode is filled with
clues to M’Coy’s secret identity. Bloom initially meets M’Coy outside the postoffice
(U5.76). Joyce wants the reader to associate M’Coy with the postoffice because M’Coy
could have mailed the “U.p: up” postcard to Breen from that very postoffice. Joyce then
uses the signature “U.p: up” colon nine times during their meeting to link M’Coy to the
postcard. Joyce also has Bloom take a folded newspaper, unfold it, and roll it into a
baton just moments before entering the postoffice (U5.48-50). The folded newspaper
foreshadows the folded “U.p: up” postcard. In the midst of his meeting with M’Coy,
Bloom unrolls the newspaper baton. Joyce wants the reader to associate the folded and
unfolded newspaper with the folded and unfolded postcard and its author, M’Coy.
M’Coy then asks Bloom about his wife’s next singing engagement in the sexually
suggestive query, “Who’s getting it up?” (U5.153). Bloom thinks, “Not up yet”
(U5.154). Joyce’s repetition of the word “up” presages the repetition of the word “up” in
the “U.p: up” postcard written by M’Coy.
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Bloom then thinks of “[b]lackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens”
(U5.155). The image of a blackened playing card is just two lines after M’Coy uses the
word “up.” Joyce is giving the reader a huge clue. The “blackened court cards”
foreshadow Denis Breen’s dream of the ace of spades. Denis Breen is connected to this
blackened playing card. M’Coy’s use of the word “up” foreshadows the “U.p: up”
postcard. M’Coy is connected to this postcard. The ace of spades represents Breen’s
hypospadias. M’Coy saw evidence of Breen’s hypospadias when he saw Breen urinating
in a standing position in a public urinal. The fact that Joyce combined a playing card
image in close proximity to the character M’Coy who is saying the Breenian word “up”
lends credence to the view that M’Coy is indeed the author of the “U.p: up” postcard.
M’Coy is clearly connected to blackened playing cards. Joyce adds a humorous touch to
this image by having the blackened court cards “laid along her thigh.” Denis Breen’s
dream of the ace of spades invokes his hypospadiac testicle which is laid along his thigh.
An even funnier interpretation of the phrase “laid along her thigh” would be Breen’s
hypospadiac testicle laid along his wife’s thigh during attempted intercourse.
Although Gifford contends that the phrase “blackened court cards” refers to the
“king, queen, and knave” in a deck of playing cards (87), Joyce had much more in mind.
The word “court” can mean “persons duly assembled under authority of law for the
administration of justice” (Webster’s 522). The word “court” can also mean to woo or
“to engage in play, display and similar activity leading to mating” (Webster’s 523).
Breen’s “blackened court card” is the ace of spades. The ace of spades symbolizes
Breen’s hypospadias. Breen’s “blackened court card” could foreshadow his attempt to
“go to court” to seek redress for any alleged wrongs which M’Coy’s postcard might have
69
caused him. On a more humorous note, Breen’s “blackened court card” could be Breen’s
display of his hypospadiac genitalia in a seemingly futile attempt at mating.
M’Coy delivers the biggest clue to his secret identity as the author of the “U.p:
up” postcard when he asks Bloom to put down his name at the Paddy Dignam funeral:
“You just shove in my name if I’m not there, will you?” (U5.172-73). M’Coy further
instructs Bloom: “Just C. P. M’Coy will do” (U5.176). M’Coy speaks his initials to
Bloom and the reader: “See Pee” M’Coy will do.” Funerals signify solemnity and
formality, yet C. P. M’Coy does not want his given name entered in the guest book.
M’Coy and the reader focus instead on the initials “C. P.” M’Coy’s use of the verb
“shove” provides the best evidence of his secret identity. The word “shove” implies the
garden implement “shovel” which further implies the smaller garden tool “spade.” The
word “spade” implies the playing card “the ace of spades” which implies the penile
anomaly “hypospadias” which further implies “Denis Breen.” M’Coy’s use of the word
“shove” inextricably links him to Denis Breen and his hypospadias. C. P. M’Coy saw
Denis Breen spray his urine upward while urinating from a standing position in a public
urinal. C. P. M’Coy wrote the message “U.p: up” on a postcard and mailed it to Denis
Breen. And life was never the same for the characters in Ulysses.
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CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSION
Joyce anticipated the text message when he created the postcard message “U.p:
up”. Denis Breen understood the meaning of the postcard. Now the reader can
understand its meaning too. Joyce left a trail of clues in Ulysses which points to the
following conclusions: 1) the postcard message “U.p: up” means “you pee up”, 2) the
postcard message refers to Denis Breen’s hypospadias which is so severe that his urine
sprays upward when he urinates from a standing position because his urethra is located
within or behind his scrotum, 3) C. P. M’Coy saw Breen urinate in a public urinal and
later wrote and mailed the “U.p: up” postcard to Breen, and 4) Denis Breen, whose name
condenses into the Freudian phrase “penis envy,” possessed penis envy because of his
hypospadias.
Sigmund Freud’s connection to the “U.p: up” postcard is significant. Joyce went
to great lengths to parody Freud and his theories when he created the character of Denis
Breen whose pusillanimous penis “up”staged Freud’s phallic symbols. Perhaps Joyce
believed that Freud left the realm of medicine and invaded the province of letters when
Freud created a hierarchy of dream-symbols. Turnabout is fair play. Joyce typically
wore what looked like a doctor’s white coat when he wrote Ulysses (Bowker 344). Joyce
took his red, blue, green, and slate coloring pencils and turned Freud and his theories into
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a palette of humorous hues. In the end it all comes down to humor. While the actual
Denis Breen of Rathmines Road may have been preoccupied with billiard balls, the
fictional Denis Breen is humorously preoccupied with another type of balls: testicles.
In a 1922 Parisian interview Joyce discussed Ulysses: “‘The pity is, the public
will demand and find a moral in my book—or worse, they may take it in some more
serious way, and on the honour of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it’”
(Bowker 298). The “U.p: up” postcard is an example of this fictional frivolity. Joyce
continued this interview as follows: “‘I have recorded, simultaneously, what a man says,
sees, thinks, and what such seeing, thinking, saying does to what you Freudians call the
unconscious—but as for psychoanalysis, it’s neither more nor less than blackmail’”
(Bowker 299). Joyce’s “message” to the Freudians was no coincidence because he left
an elaborate pattern of Freudian allusions in Ulysses which helps the reader decode the
“U.p: up” postcard. For instance, Joyce takes Freud’s apple-sized perineal boil and uses
it as the situs of Breen’s hypospadias. Joyce also takes Freud’s indigestion and uses it as
the cause of Breen’s “ace of spades” dream. Finally, Joyce encodes the name Denis
Breen with the Freudian theory of penis envy. A man has penis envy. Now we can join
in the laughter.
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