5.Lotus Eaters

The Annotation situates: Time: 10am. After Odysseus escapes from Calypso’s island and the sea, he lands on Scheria and is entertained by King Alcinous’s court. Some of Odysseus’s crew meet the Lotus- Eaters and eat the Lotus, which makes them long ‘to stay forever.’
Blamires has a great deal to say about this short chapter. There is an emphasis of memory, or the loss of memory, which makes sense in light of the Lotus’s properties. The image of the dead sea recurs here, before a funeral, and shows Bloom’s clinical nature. This chapter seems to denote a new importance of objects. Blamires notes that the rolled up newspaper is “The Ulyssean sword of the modern advertising agent” (29), and it is passed to another character and used to parry conversational jabs. It is a form of verbal fencing- Blamires even says that Bloom “deflects the talk of his wife…”(30)
There is an interesting comparison of Marion/Mary/Molly (his wife) and Martha (‘pen pal’) that starts in this chapter. In a novel so obsessed with knowledge and language Bloom holds a privileged position in regard to these women, Molly asks him to explain metempsychosis and Martha asks him to “please tell [her] what is the real meaning of that word.” (77). In addition he pins the flower that Martha sends to his coat, and then there is a verse: “O, Mary lost the pin of her drawers” (78) this compares and links the two, as well as highlighting her infidelity.