"As we are there, where it is, we are" also turns into the question "where are we?" and thus for Joyce existence is also a primal anguish, and "where are we" turns into "are we? but at the same time being "where are we? - we are" - the questioning is what defines existence.
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The final chapter of Ulysses is a great example of Joyce's concern with cyclical existence/eternal recurrence.
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Molly's "Yes" is not only an affirmation of life itself ("Literature is the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man") but of eternity. This is embodied by the word Yes and the number 8
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8 is the number of infinity. Penelope has 8 sentences, the title itself has 8 letters. It's chapter 18. Molly's birthday is the 8th of September, aka 8/9. There are 89 Yes's in the chapter. 8/9, or eight divided by nine, is 0.88888888 ad infinitum. An infinity of infinity symbols
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Let's not forget that Ulysses was published on February the 2nd, 1922 (2/2/22, this adds up to 8)
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The letters of Yes, Y-E-S, are found not only in James Joyce's own name but also in the names of both Ulysses and the Odyssey. Knowing Joyce's everlasting pedantry, I doubt this to be coincidence
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Even the 8th chapter of this book, Lestrygonians, is the only chapter that contains the letters Y-E-S. Again, this cannot be no mere coincidence
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Feminist interpretations love to insist that Penelope is an addendum, that it is not a real chapter. I believe it is the realest chapter in the book that best embodies the most important themes of the book, an eternal and everlasting affirmation of the cycles of life
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Penelope, much like Joyce himself, was in exile from Dublin (in that she never leaves the house). It was very much indeed a domestication, but is Ulysses not already a domestication of the very Epic he sought to reimagine?
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