Abstract
Over the past decade, the transvestism in the Circe section of Ulysses has come under increased critical scrutiny.' Given the current emphasis on gender studies this is not surprising, but the specific focus has led to a disregard for the larger phenomenon at work, which is the artifice of costume and fashion in general. In Circe, Joyce provides over ninety elaborately described costumes, mostly male attire on men and female attire on women, many in quick-change on the same characters. Given the assortment of side attractions in Circe, what is one to make-what should one make-of this fashion show that parades through the chapter? No one answer will suffice. If the writing of Ulysses corresponds to any psychoanalytic mode, it is the Freudian concept of overdetermination: for any given phenomenon, there are multiple causes. In ascending order of complexity, the discernible motives are dramatic, oneiric, epic, and sartorial. This last mode, that of fashion itself, encompasses an entire semiotic network; a psychosexual sensibility; and a model for the writer, the text, and the reader that mimics the whole of Ulysses.
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