Chapter 3 - Paris Digested: “Lestrygonians”

Summary

The third chapter, “Paris Digested,” shows how Joyce extends this singular exchange into the sentient thinking of the Ulyssean stream of consciousness by drawing on the interior monologue form pioneered by the post-Symbolist Edouard Dujardin in Les Lauriers sont coupés. Initiated into an embodied aesthetic practice through Molly’s sharing of the seedcake on Howth Head, Bloom models a permeable digestive being who traverses the binaries of aggression and the predatory structures in which he finds himself in “Lestrygonians.” This embodied aesthetic practice guides Bloom’s informal commentary on neoclassical aesthetics in his reflections on Greek statues and excretion at the counter of a public house.