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ancient Irish church and the Catholic church, and the Four Old Men specifically ask Shaun whether or not he is a Roman Catholic. However, in a typical Joycean pun, they ask him if he is "roman cawthrick." Now, /to caw/ is the crow's cry and, even if we put to one side the fact that Joyce, in Trieste, perhaps learned the anticlerical sense of the word /cornacchia/, 'crow' (used in Italy to designate priests), there is still the problem of this /thrick/ which deforms (in order to echo one of the phonemes of 'catholic') the verb /to trick/. That Minucius Mandrake (alias Shaun) is a trickster is repeated several times in the context; for example, we find /Mr. Trickpat/. |
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Here let us put aside the other fascinating clue, one that could lead us to the character of the 'practical joker' in many primitive sagas, the Schelm or Trickster God (and we don't know if Joyce knew about him) that could trace Shaun back to archetypes of the gnome-like joker, such as Till Eulenspiegel. Let us only consider for the moment, without dealing with other problems, that Shaun has been accused of being a trickster. When he is called /Minucius Mandrake/ (afterwards we will see why), heCatholic priest, expert in tricks and other persuasions more or less occult, crafty rhetorician, master of chicanerymust submit to a typical Dantean contrappasso. As an advocate he must undergo a trial; as a hypnotist he is asked to fix his eyes on the eyes of his interrogator. In this manner his art is neutralized and turned back against itself. The magical gesticulation (the gesture which presumably accompanies the words "Look at me with your eyes!"), too, is turned against itself, and the following gesticulation is ascribed to him: "Again I am deliciated by the picaresqueness of your irmages"where the root /arm/ (the arm that makes the gesture) is inserted in the key word /image/, which is found at the base of all illusion.
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It is therefore reasonable to consider him, whether Minucius or Mandrake, as a metaphoric substitution in the place of something else, that is, the series of attributes and faults proper to Shaun. |
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But at this stage it is necessary to verify the credibility of this interpretation and the mechanism of this substitution. |
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The first version of the passage under consideration dates from 1924. In this version the name Mandrake does not appear.7 The reason seems (to me) simple enough: the comic strip character appeared for the first time in 1934. And, in fact, the aforementioned passage was revised and expanded between 1936 and 1939. Thus the origin of the metaphoric 'vehicle' is plausible. But why couple Mandrake with Minucius? In other words, from the moment in which they first appear together in the text, |
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