HCE, Job and the Guilt of Everyman, Part 3 (third of seven parts) , by Ann Cavanaugh

Job is adamant that he has expected justice from a God whom he believes is a just God and to whom he has been faithful. One can see in this dynamic the embedded idea of covenant, or a contract if you will. Job is outraged that he has kept his part of the bargain and now he is subjected to a life of suffering and loss with no justice in sight. HCE, in contrast, seems more resigned to his situation. There’s no imagined broken contract here, just the internal and external voices of shame and accusation to which Everyman, religious or otherwise, is subject. Yet at the same time, behind all that is played out on the Wake stage, there lives his Loudship who speaks in unintelligible thunder words, and with whom one could not imagine having any semblance of a relationship, contractual or otherwise. 

Unless, of course, one that is strictly fear based. While the Fall predates the contexts for both of these protagonists we are not led to see original sin as in any way playing a part in Job’s trial. Joyce, on the other hand, recognizes the importance of this imagined event and it is pointed to over and over again in the dreamscape of the Wake. After all Finnegan died from a Humpty Dumpty fall off a ladder. And thus the fun begins! Joyce seems to be after pointing out this message of innate impurity/guilt and how it seems to breathe its unholy breath into so much of life as we experience it. We are guilty from the get go and are not only ignorant but weak and ineffectual to boot. One wonders how anyone could go from this as a starting point to a place of being able to identify with a Christlike approach to life. Oh wait, that’s possible after one is redeemed, as it were. Well, that would be one way to retain the idea of innate impurity but without the end game of eternal damnation. It doesn’t, however, offer much hope for this present life; hope for a better life in heaven maybe, but then what does one do with the concept of the Kingdom being all around us? My take is that Joyce was all about the Kingdom that needs to be realized (a-wakened) here and now. And through his humor and commitment to his craft he seems to be saying, don’t lose out on the fun that lives and breathes despite all the rest.