THE PLEASURES OF ANTISEMITISM IN THE MORNING
We meet Stephen Dedalus first on the morning of 16 June 1904, engaging in edgy conversation with Mulligan, his Irish roommate and, a little later, with Haines, who Mulligan describes as ‘a ponderous Saxon… Bursting with money and indigestion.’ Stephen is afraid of Haines, who owns a firearm and has nightmares about hunting black panthers.
Later in the chapter, Stephen realises Haines is ‘not all unkind,’ and Haines’ eyes are ‘unhating.’ Indeed, a few moments after Stephen’s realisation, the Englishman reassures him that he does not hate the Irish.
‘We feel in England that we have treated you [the Irish] rather unfairly. It seems history is to blame. [–] Of course I’m a Britisher, Haines’ voice said, and I feel as one. I don’t want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either. That’s our national problem, I’m afraid, just now.’
Haines blames history for British oppression of the Irish and, apropos of nothing, his mind turns to the Jews, voicing a more urgent national problem, that of the international Jewish conspiracy.
Later that morning, near the end of the second chapter, ‘
Nestor’, the proud Unionist Mr. Deasy, headmaster at the school where Stephen is a teacher, expands ghoulishly on Haines’ theme of Jewish power, mixing old and new antisemitic slanders:
‘Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. And they are the signs of a nation’s decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the nation’s vital strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure as we are standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of destruction. Old England is dying.[-] They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can see the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the earth to this day.’
Stephen, mainly passive in this exchange, asks Deasy, ‘A merchant … is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew or gentile, is he not?’
As Stephen walks out, Deasy runs after him, anxious to belabor his point:
‘I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that? No. And do you know why? [-] Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly.[-] She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter … that’s why.’
These early passages – Haines’ reference to Jewish power and Deasy’s incontinent obsession with Jews – signal to the reader that antisemitism is not only well established in Ireland; it is multi-dimensional and thickly ambient in the culture. The venomous statements prompt Leopold Bloom’s appearance in the novel.
(full article online)
jewishjournal.com
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