Figure of speech. In the John F. Taylor speech
recited by Professor MacHugh, an Egyptian high priest
bludgeons the young Moses with contrasts between the highly
achieved civilization of the Egyptians and the Hebrews'
backwardness. These two paragraphs constitute an eloquent
demonstration of the rhetorical principle of antithesis.
Later in Aeolus, the professor observes that Stephen
has employed the device in his characterization of two old
women.
Antithesis (an-TITH-uh-sis, from Greek anti- =
against + tithenai = to set, place) means "setting
things against" one another. The American Heritage
Dictionary defines its rhetorical meaning as "The
juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or
parallel words, phrases, or grammatical structures; for
example, 'He for God only, she for God in him'
(Milton)." Ancient rhetoricians associated it with the very
similar principle of antitheton (an-TITH-uh-ton),
whose etymology is identical. Antitheton was a figure of
thought, building a persuasive argument from contraries.
Antithesis was the corresponding figure of speech.
Joyce's sentences clearly perform both functions. Their
finely balanced expressions are built on conceptual contrasts
that hammer home the utter disparity between the two cultures,
urging Moses to accept the inevitablity of subjugation and
assimilation:
— Why will you jews
not accept our culture, our religion and our language? You
are a tribe of nomad herdsmen: we are a mighty people. You
have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of
humanity and our galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with
all manner merchandise furrow the waters of the known globe.
You have but emerged from primitive conditions: we have a
literature, a priesthood, an agelong history and a polity.
— You pray to a local and
obscure idol: our temples, majestic and mysterious, are
the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra.
Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the
seas. Israel is weak and few are her children: Egypt is an
host and terrible are her arms. Vagrants and daylabourers
are you called: the world trembles at our name.
This is probably the most powerfully moving instance of a
rhetorical device in the Aeolus chapter. It is also
the longest, but antithesis can operate in smaller spaces, as
in these examples from oratory and literature: "To be, or not
to be" (Hamlet); "My only love sprung from my only hate"
(Romeo); "Float light a butterfly, sting like a bee" (Muhammad
Ali); "Give me liberty or give me death" (Patrick Henry); "The
sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought
stripes and death to me" (Frederick Douglass); "Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (Martin Luther
King); "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we
say here, but it can never forget what they did here" (Abraham
Lincoln); "The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, / And
wretches hang that jurymen may dine" (Alexander Pope).
When Stephen gives names to the women in his story, he also
attaches qualities to each: "Anne Kearns has the lumbago for
which she rubs on Lourdes water, given her by a lady who got a
bottleful from a passionist father. Florence MacCabe takes a
crubeen and a bottle of double X for supper every Saturday."
The professor remarks approvingly on the contrast: "— Antithesis,
the professor said nodding twice. Vestal virgins. I can
see them."
