Green

Webs of words are woven into veils between the real and the fantastical. Words bridge this gap between these two states by warping themselves into the minds of the readers, allowing them to briefly gleam into remnants of what once was into what is. They are able to do this on account of their nature, for while words are mere constructs standing in for what they represent, they still possess a history, an etymology, and an encoding of meaning to those that use them, thus making them a kernel of reality fabricated in fantasy, never able to become the thing they are emulating, but reaching towards it, nevertheless.

For a more concrete example of this concept imagine the color green. Now, without being able to show someone the actual color, convey what it is like to experience that color. One might describe the feeling, the nature, the purpose, the history, or even the sensations of things that are green, but all of that is built on the foundation of something that requires the color to have already been known to some extent by the ones having the color described to them. Michel Pastoureau incorporates this concept in his book about the subject Green: The History of a Color, stating that, “It is the society that ‘makes’ the color, that gives it its definitions and meaning, that constructs its codes and values, that organizes its uses and determines its stakes. That is why any history of color must first be a social history” (Pastoureau 9).

In that way, words, in this case specifically words denoting color, are merely a reordered retrospective glimpse into what has already been, and the purpose of the reordering is to attempt to explain things that they are not equipped to fully encapsulate. As a result, words fray and split meaning several, potentially paradoxical, things at the same time or at different times given their context and the meaning readers project onto them.

This is especially apparent in James Joyce’s Ulysses, where within the seven hundred- and eighty-three-pages green is written one hundred- and thirty-seven times, when including compound words like “snotgreen,” or ninety-nine times, when solely considering the word as a whole. On account of this proliferation, green is able to unfurl many of its meanings in the text, allowing it to encapsulate concepts such as youth, national pride, poison, sickness, greed, betrayal, wealth, religion, dissonance, and more.

The first time green is written is when Buck Mulligan suggests, “A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen,” which, mocking or not, is referring to, “Ireland’s . . . nationalistic cultural movement . . . the so-called Irish Literary Revival . . . a phenomenon of the last two decades of the 19th century and the first two of the 20th,” which focuses on the decolonization of Ireland from the hands of England (Joyce 5; Hunt). 

This dissonance from the citizenry which Mulligan is referring to is contrasted by the Irish flag for, “On the Irish flag the meaning of green is different; it represents the Catholic community while orange stands for the Protestant community, and the white that separates them signifies the peace that must reign between them” (Pastoureau 177). While still a rebellion in the sense that Catholicism is different from the Protestant nature of England, denoting it as a religion encapsulated in the flag, a pride of a nation, the color shifts from a tone from rebellion to one of reconciliation, which is an inversion of the intent to decolonialize.

This reconciliation can be seen further within the first chapter as Haines, an Englishman that is staying with both Buck and Stephen, “. . . take[s] out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a green stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it,” to Stephen, which is “. . . a symbol for British imperial domination of Ireland,” as Haines is sharing his, “. . . wealth with the impoverished Irishman next to him” (Joyce 20; Hunt). While Stephen accepts the gift of a cigarette, the discord between the two parties remains. Green denotes this by its presence in absinthe alcohol that is ingested throughout the novel.

For example, in the third chapter green is mentioned as, “. . . the green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips . . . Green eyes, I see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people,” showing that Ireland is, and will remain, rebellious, denoted through the repeated ingesting of poisonous alcohol and the lasciviousness of their population (Joyce 43). David Earl in his piece, “‘Green Eyes, I See You. Fang, I Feel’: The Symbol of Absinthe in ‘Ulysses,’” corroborates this interpretation asserting that, “. . . his words are the absinthe-tainted green fangs of Ireland. Absinthe's color has clear political overtones in the text . . .” (Earle 22).

As previously mentioned, though, the color’s significance shifts rapidly, and this can be as frequent as the same page. Shortly after the color is first introduced, it shifts from what was previously mentioned to that of sickness on account of Stephen Dedalus’s focalization on his mother’s death. Stephen examines, “The ring of bay and skyline . . . [that] . . . held a dull green mass of liquid . . . [associating it with] . . . the green sluggish bile which she . . . [his mother] . . . had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting,” on her deathbed (Joyce 5). The primacy of this image in his mind is due to the guilt Stephen feels over betraying his mother by not praying for her when she asked. Within that act is his youthful rebellion coupled with his wealth of knowledge from his education, which clashes with his mother’s religious beliefs and leaves a lasting remnant of betrayal laden guilt which Stephen confronts throughout the novel.

A good illustration of this is when, in the same chapter, “A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, shadowing the bay in deeper green,” causing Stephen to have vivid hallucinations of his mother’s corpse coming to haunt him (9).

William Evans’s Studies in the Literary Imagination, states that this connection, and the prevalence of green within it, is, “Because he constantly associates the green baywaters and death with his mother . . . [consequently making Stephen’s] . . . meditations often produce sea and death images,” since he repeatedly thinks of his mother and her fate (Evans 29).

This negative connotation of green is not solely restricted to Stephen, nor is it limited to Ireland. Carl Wilhelm Scheele’s invention of vibrant and bright green dyes in the late 18th century stained the reputation of the color as, “Unfortunately, certain fungi can metabolize Scheele’s green to highly toxic gaseous trimethylarsine (As(CH3)2) which caused several cases of arsenic poisoning and death” (Lennartson 55; Patrick). With that history the color which once primarily carried a positive and natural connotation became known as:

. . . a chemically unstable color, in both painting and dyeing, it was henceforth associated symbolically with all that was changeable or capricious: youth, love, fortune, fate. By the same token it tended to have a split personality. On the one had there was good green, associated with gaiety, beauty, and hope, which had not disappeared but had become more subdued; on the other hand, there was bad green, associated with the Devil and his creatures, witches, and poison, which had expanded its territory and henceforth brought misfortune into many domains. (Pastoureau 89)

This negative connotation continued its descent into the nomenclature via the reinterpretation of previous works of literature making the antagonists or unsightly characters wear or possess the color in some regard. A common method this was done was through the eyes, which are considered the windows to the soul, showing that a person’s soul was corrupted with the adverse aspects of green. In other words:

Green eyes revealed bad character, a false and deceitful spirit, a life of pleasure and debauchery. Especially if they were small and deep-set, green eyes belonged to traitors, false knights, Judas, prostitutes, and witches. They also belonged to the basilisk, a monstrous reptilian serpentine monster whose body was entirely filled with venom and whose gaze was fatal . . . [and even] . . . The Devil himself was sometimes represented with green eyes. (99-100)

Ulysses plays upon this connotation by connecting green with the aforementioned “bad” characters. The first occurrence of this is with Leopold Bloom’s cat, whose, “. . . dark eyeslits narrow[ed] with greed till her eyes were green stones,” as the cat waited for Bloom to give her food (Joyce 55). This “narrowing” is a direct illusion to the “small and deep-set” aspect of the classification and is further highlighted by one of the deadly sins, greed, being the primary purpose behind what the cat is expressing at Bloom.

Other prominent exemplars of this implication are within the fifteenth chapter Circe, which also happens to have the most mentions of green at twenty-nine. Taking place inside the red-light district of Dublin the chapter begins stating, “The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an uncobbled tramsiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green will-o'-the-wisps and danger signals,” the setting is set for debaucherous characters to make their appearance (429).

Bloom, who is chasing after Stephen, attempts to go into a brothel and is met by a prostitute named Zoe. She tries to coerce Bloom into intercourse but Bloom, who is married to someone named Molly, rebuffs her stating that, “Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed monster,” which causes Zoe to laugh and Bloom to respond playfully with, “Laughing witch” (500). This alludes to both prostitution and witchery under the undertones of green, which is further compounded upon when in the brothel, as Zoe’s “. . . flesh appears under the sapphire a nixie's green” (511).

Another instance of the color being used in a different way can be seen in the usage of it as a surname in the tenth chapter “M. C. Green,” showing that it can also be used as a form of assimilation, like how Leopold’s family name was changed from Virág to Bloom (254).

The last mention of the color, however, is fittingly about the usage of the color to denote the appearance of youth on someone who is no longer young, just like how the book is in the waning hours of its timespan. In Molly’s monologue in Penelope, the final chapter, she states that the aforesaid woman is, “. . . trying to sing my songs shed want to be born all over again and her old green dress with the lowneck as she cant attract them any other way . . .” (773).

The nature of her derision juxtaposes with the common complaints of greens negative implications as in Ayami Oki-Siekierczak’s piece, “‘How Green!’: The Meanings of Green in Early Modern England,” notes that, “. . . green sometimes carries a positive association of freshness and fertility derived from images of vegetation, and yet, it can also convey quite opposite meanings derived from the poisonous bitterness of unripe fruits,” something that is more in line with the bitter disposition of Stephen than with someone who is older trying to regain some of their youth (Oki-Siekierczak 16).

Such is the fate of life though, something which Ulysses exemplifies. Characters run in parallel to each other, almost meeting and forming lasting bonds, but regardless of the circumstances they are always just out of reach of the goal, their ideal world. Something is always missing, a vestige of what once was longing for something that is not in the present and will likely never be found in the future. The color green, and every other word besides, never truly encompass what they represent. The full essence of them is always bifurcated into countless fractalized meanings, interpretations, and perspectives. To sift through them in hopes of achieving the impossible, though, is what makes journeys like the Odyssey and Ulysses worth the endeavor, as amidst strife purpose is found.