Mrs Riordan's Inferno

I'll call her Dante. I think the fact that the narrator/Stephen retains the childhood name says a lot more about him than about his "Auntie," but typing Dante is easier.

Is Dante blind?

Early in the section (I have a different edition) Simon Dedalus comments "pity the poor blind." Either Dante suffers from some ailment, or the comment sets up the implicit criticism of Dante's unthinking dedication to the Catholic Church. Dante very clearly believes that the priests' words, as representatives of religion, are law. She seems to see a trifecta of "God an religion and priests" as the most central values. Nationalism comes second-she views the priests as "the Lord's anointed."

That speaks to the complicated relationship to country that Dante embodies. The narrator notes that "she had hit a gentleman on the head with her umbrella because he had taken off his hat when the band played God save the Queen." The argument at the table does not represent a debate over whether or not to suppor the English, but the historical sectarian differences as a result of English influence in Ireland. Here it turns the pious Dante against the nationalistic Simon and John Casey.

That makes me wonder how negatively we should view Dante. It seems like she plays a role in Stephen's subtle conversion from believing "Dante must be right" to "that was the meaning of Tower of Ivory," which means something about her pushes Stephen away. I don't think its obedience, because it occurs in the context of his memories of Eileen and his fever-dream about Parnell's death. That means the response is to the content of her belief, not her piety.

I think the last paragraph also belittles Dante and her religious fervor. The detail of "upsetting her napkinring" makes the whole scene seem frivolous and inconsequential. Yet Dante moves "violently" with "her cheeks flushed and quivering," wildly overreacting to what ultimately amounts to nothing more than a dinner table conversation. She further claims credit for Parnell's death, adopting a vile stance in her alliance with religion. Something leaves Stephen "terrorstricken" at the end of this episode, and I suspect this is it.