He has been cast in a school play, taking the role of a stern and foolish teacher because of his height and serious manners.
He is waiting for his Dissertation fashion 6000 words backstage amidst the general clutter and tumult, which begins to annoy him, so he walks out of the school into the garden and watches the muffled noise and lights of the theatre from a comfortable distance.
From [MIXANCHOR], the music perfectly expresses his confused feeling, and he feels his emotions flow outward from him. He can only enjoy the tumult from afar, as an observer. There, he can transform experience into description.
Music seems to connect the spheres of his inner and outer life by calling his emotion out into the world.
He has recently been thinking about her and about the poem he wrote for her. Stephen feels alienated from others partly because he constantly forces himself to conceal his real feelings, which he judges as shameful or unsuitable. To his mind, the world he lives in has no room for the sort of high, romantic ambitions that consume him.
Therefore, as a defensive mechanism, he conceals and disguises much of his inner life.
Active [MIXANCHOR] Soon enough, though, Stephen begins joking with his friends.
The word calls up for Stephen a memory from the previous year, when he got into an argument with Heron and a few other boys about their favorite writers. Stephen insisted that Byron was the greatest poet but the other boys objected that Byron was a heretic. Half-jokingly, the other boys pinned Stephen down to force him to admit that Byron wasn't good as a poet or as a man.
Stephen wrestled free and ran away; somehow, he notes, he does not hold a grudge for this humiliation. That same day, a teacher had accused Stephen of writing heretical thoughts in an essay. The argument becomes fierce, despite the attempts of Uncle Charles and Mrs. Dedalus to keep the peace. Stephen's father expresses his opposition to the Catholic church in Ireland, saying that the Irish are a "priestridden" race.
But Dante replies that they should be proud of having many priests, since they are the representatives of God. She places God and religion before anything else. Casey shouts that they have had too much God in Link, and Dante screams at him that he is a blasphemer and then storms out of the room. Stephen is terrified, and his father is on the brink of tears.
Analysis The family quarrel is seen through Stephen's eyes. As a young boy, he does not know what the argument is about, but it makes a deep impression on him. [URL]
The incident shows how important [EXTENDANCHOR] and religion were in the life of Ireland at the time. The movement for independence from Britain was gathering force, and Charles Parnell aroused fierce passions, both for and against.
His aim was Home Rule, that is, the establishment of an Irish legislature in Dublin, with responsibility for domestic affairs. The incident the Dedalus family argues over began in November,when Parnell was named in a divorce suit.