"“The élite. Crêpe de la crêpe”: Mourning Dress in Ulysses"

Abstract

This paper unfolds itself by re-evaluating Andrew Gibson’s statement in Joyce’s Revenge―“Bloom is robustly indifferent to matters that Irish funerary culture tends to clothe in solemn garb” (57)―and demonstrates that Bloom is in fact a keen observer of the English etiquette of mourning that his fellow Dubliners practice. The cultural archaeology of mourning dress paves the way for my examination of the intriguing fact that Stephen―who hates his “English and Italian masters” (U 1.638)―ironically insists on wearing mourning garment, a dominant English commodity at the turn of the 20th century. The irony that Stephen holds a hostile attitude towards the British Empire and the Roman Catholic church but at the same time embraces crepe anglaise―an English fabric originating in Italy―exposes the colonising power of commodities and global capitalism.