Orpheus Descending: Images of Psychic Descent in “Hades” and “Circe”

Abstract

In Rilke’s sonnet, the poet claims that Eurydice may be better off in Hades, away from the tragic circumstances of the mortal world. This is slight consolation to Orpheus, who has lost his lover because of his overwhelming desire to gaze upon her once more. His instinctual urges have defeated his rational mind, which knew his contract with Hades could not be broken without devastating consequences. The ‘‘Hades’’ and ‘‘Circe’’ episodes of Joyce’s Ulysses feature metaphorical descents into comparable underworlds, descents in which Leopold Bloom is both Orpheus and Eurydice, the witness and the lost love object. In the course of these psychic journeys, Bloom’s heroism becomes apparent as he begins to excavate his unconscious wishes and fears, and in doing so rescues his lost self from a future of self-defeating stasis. The struggle to forgive himself for Rudy’s death is a thread that runs through both the ‘‘Hades’’ and ‘‘Circe’’ episodes and suggests their structural unity and interconnection. Freud asserted that all mental life arises from the dialectic of love and loss. As Jonathan Lear summarizes,