Mr. Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, broken pillars family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, old Ireland's heart and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then lump them together to save time. All soul's day. Twentyseventh I'll be at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself. Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death's door. Who passed away. Who departed his life. As if they did it of their own accord.
At the end of his friend's funeral, Leopold Bloom walks in his grove and thinks the above thoughts. This section of the Ulysses corresponds to the Hades section in Homer's Odyssey. The imagery of the old man clipping weeds at the graveyard is strikingly vivid.
The world of the Ulysses is already very empty, but this scene is particularly so. Here, death is an inconvenience for the living. Death must be taken care of, and the living chooses the most economical way: cram all dead souls on one day, the "Twentyseventh," and gather on that day only, while paying an old gardener to take care of the rest. Taking care of a graveyard is just the same as baking bread, sewing clothes, building houses, paving roads, etc... Just another way of making a living. If people truly remembered the dead, then they would probably put the tombstone close to their houses and go everyday personally to take care. The Japanese do that. But in Joyce's empty Ireland, apparently that custom didn't exist.
Also, Bloom's thoughts on the attitude of the people towards the dead tells their attitude towards the living as well. "Plant him and have done with him" — like a seed, that is, like something that is totally boring in itself at present and that exists only for the purpose of some future plan. Once I get bored of the daily routine of cooking, eating, washing, running, writing, strumming, and sleeping, I see a mirror of my own boredom in other people's eyes as well, and this collective boredom eventually leads to a massive disillusionment which Joyce captures in Bloom's internal monologue. No value in the present. How sad, but that's the reality for Bloom, and Joyce is a realist without an ideal who just paints the most accurate picture possible of that emptiness.
Hopefully, after the Hades section is over, things would brighten up a little more in this long novel. Fingers crossed.
