The Cybernetic Plot Of Ulysses Essays - Ulysses, James Joyce

The Cybernetic Plot of Ulysses A paper delivered at the CALIFORNIA JOYCE conference (6/30/93) Good afternoon. To quote the opening of Norbert Wiener's address on Cybernetics to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in March of 1950, The word cybernetics has been taken from the Greek word kubernitiz (ky-ber-NEE-tis) meaning steersman. It has been invented because there is not in the literature any adequate term describing the general study of communication and the related study of control in both machines and in living beings. In this paper, I mean by cybernetics those activities and ideas that have to do with the sending, carrying, and receiving of information. My thesis is that there is a cybernetic plot to ULYSSES -- a constellation or meaningful pattern to the novel's many images of people sending, carrying, and receiving -- or distorting, or losing -- signals of varying import and value. This plot -- the plot of signals that are launched on perilous Odyssean journeys, and that reach home, if they do, only through devious paths -- parallels and augments the novel's more central journeys, its dangers encountered, and its successful returns. ULYSSES works rather neatly as a cybernetic allegory, in fact, not only in its represented action, but also in its history as a text. The book itself, that is, has reached us only by a devious path around Cyclopean censors and the Scylla and Charybdis of pirates and obtuse editors and publishers. ULYSSES both retells and re-enacts, that is, the Odyssean journey of information that, once sent, is threatened and nearly thwarted before it is finally received. We are talking, of course, of cybernetics avant la lettre -- before Norbert Wiener and others had coined the term. But like Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain discovering that all along he's been speaking prose, so Leopold Bloom might delight in learning that he is actually quite a proficient cyberneticist. Joyce made his protagonist an advertizing canvasser at the moment when advertizing had just entered the modern age. Bloom's job is to put his clients' messages into forms that are digestible by the mass medium of the press. If Bloom shows up in the National Library, for instance, it will be to find a logo (in what we would call clip art) for his client Alexander Keyes. The conduct of spirit through space and time is what communication's about. And James Joyce was interested, as we know, in the conduct of spirit: his own, that of his home town, and that of his species. * * * Once they're sent, what are some of the things that can happen to messages? They can be lost, like the words that Bloom starts to scratch in the sand: "I AM A..." Signals can be degraded by faulty transmission, like the telegram that Stephen received in Paris from his father back in Dublin: "NOTHER DYING. COME HOME. FATHER." A slip of the pen -- as in Martha Clifford's letter to Bloom -- destroys intended meanings, but it also, as Joyce loves to point out, creates new ones. "I called you naughty boy," Martha wrote to Henry Flower, "because I do not like that other world." Signals can be abused and discarded, like the fate of "Matcham's Masterstroke" in Bloom's outhouse. Signals can be censored, pirated, misprinted, and malpracticed upon by editors, as happened the text of this novel itself. Signals can fall into the wrong hands, like the executioners' letters in the pub, or they can land where they're sent but make little sense, like the postcard reading "U.P. up" that Dennis Breen gets in the mail. And signals can, finally, reach their intended recipient with the intended meaning, as in Bloom's pleasure in reading Milly's letter to him in the morning's mail. And what about that book that Stephen is going to write in ten years? There's a premonitory cybernetic allegory for you, and one with a happy ending to boot. * * * I would like to sketch for you, then, a brief and cursory chapter-by-chapter account of the cybernetic plot of Ulysses. But lest the listener persist in harboring doubts, as we say, concerning the cybernetic signature of the Joycean narrative, let me anticipate the first sentence

5 Cases of Awkward Appositives

5 Cases of Awkward Appositives 5 Cases of Awkward Appositives 5 Cases of Awkward Appositives By Mark Nichol In each of the sentences below, a writer has referenced a person, place, or thing with an appositive, a word or phrase equivalent to another word or phrase, but erroneous punctuation or syntax introduces a flaw in sentence construction. The discussion following each example explains the problem, and a revision illustrates its resolution. 1. A dome-shaped structure made of ice or snow, or igloo, is a form of temporary shelter. When a term is defined, the definition should follow the term- the focus of the sentence- rather than serve as an introduction to the concept followed by the term: â€Å"An igloo, or dome-shaped structure made of ice or snow, is a form of temporary shelter.† 2. The first of two main strategies when building application security is the top-down or proactive approach. The strategy is not called â€Å"the top-down or proactive approach†; it is called â€Å"the top-down approach† or â€Å"the proactive approach.† To clarify that these names are alternatives to each other, rather than elements of a compound name, the second adjective should be treated as a parenthetical: â€Å"The first of two main strategies when building application security is the proactive, or top-down, approach.† 3. FBI Criminal Investigation Division Deputy Assistant Director John Smith discussed the report.   Technically, this sentence begins with a job title- a cumbersome one, at that- rather than an appositive, which is similar in function but not in form. With some reconstruction of elements, the title is easily converted to an appositive, but note that when a title is treated this way, it is no longer capitalized (though the associated proper nouns are): â€Å"John Smith, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, discussed the report.†Ã‚   4. The group, OurMine, took responsibility for the hacks after the tweets were deleted. Assuming that no previous reference has been made to the organization in question (whether identified by the word group or a synonym), its name is an essential component of the sentence and should not be set off as a discretionary parenthetical: â€Å"The group OurMine took responsibility for the hacks after the tweets were deleted.† (If it had been previously mentioned, then group would be an appositive of â€Å"OurMine,† and the original sentence would be correct.) 5. The outcome depends on the quality of the plans developed during the previous, inspection phase. Here, two aspects are being ascribed to the phase- it is previous to another phase, and it involves inspection. However, the two aspects are not equivalent, so they should not be treated as coordinate adjectives: â€Å"The outcome depends on the quality of the plans developed during the previous phase, inspection.† (Or â€Å"The outcome depends on the quality of the plans developed during inspection, the previous phase.†) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:36 Adjectives Describing Light30 Baseball IdiomsRunning Errands and Doing Chores

The New Changes in the Structure and Administration of the Business Research Paper - 68

The New Changes in the Structure and Administration of the Business - Research Paper Example The merging of the three businesses in the UK has strained the managers’ efforts towards establishing an effective workforce body. With the new structure, some of the employees have to be retrenched since tasks have been redistributed. In addition, the number of departments has been reduced significantly. Before the merge, each business had an established structure of various departments and offices. In addition, the three businesses had varied categories of employees in the various established departments. However, after the merger, the operations of the three business were brought together under one management. Some departments were merged, and others eliminated in the new system. Due to the reduced number of departments, a huge number of employees have been retrenched, and others given lower positions than the ones they held in their previous respective business settings. In this regard, it can be observed that the new structure of the human resource has led to the loss of jobs and decline in earnings for some employees. The new structure of the UMGUK requires employees to work together with an aim to boost performance. Adjusting to the new system is a challenging HR issue that the company faces. The employees of UMGUK are not used to the new system and, therefore, the company cannot realize the benefits of the new structure fully in the first phase of implementation. In this regard, the HR department is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that the employees get acquainted with the new system with the shortest time possible.