Calling Forth the Future: Joyce and the Messianism of Absence

Abstract

Ulysses is so saturated with ruined futurities, false prophets, and parodic messiahs that we might be tempted to conclude that there is no place at all for an ethical or unironic future. However, this essay argues that Joyce is, in fact, invested in a kind of messianic futurity which emerges out of, rather than in opposition to, catastrophe and negativity. Beginning with an examination of the various political and religious broken promises that permeate the novel, I argue that the real temporal commitments in Ulysses are rooted not in what is said but what is unsaid and unsayable—the moments of blindness and absence that emerge in pivotal moments throughout the text. Ultimately, it is through Joyce's use of the figures of both Moses and the prophet Elijah that a radical temporality is best developed, culminating in Molly Bloom's comments on "omission" in "Penelope" and the articulation of an affirmative negation which confronts us with an ethical command to participate in calling forth the future.