Having committed the "violent" sin of lust, Stephen fears that he has initiated a chain reaction, what Thomas Aquinas called the Seven Deadly Sins. Stephen is aware of a "pride in himself," a pride in the "greatness" of his sin, a "covetousness in using money" to buy sexual favors from prostitutes, an "envy" of those whose vices are even more serious than his own, anger toward his innocent classmates, a "gluttonous enjoyment of his food," and a "spiritual and bodily sloth" which seems to have drained his whole being.
This obsession with sin causes Stephen to conjure up a series of "if's" and "why's" pertaining to religion. He tries to demystify his faith, challenge its validity, and perhaps find absolution through a religious technicality. Unhappily, the announcement of the retreat causes him to feel the full weight of his sin. He approaches the retreat experience with a "withered" heart and a feeling of dread.
The first and the briefest of the retreat sermons urges the boys to remember God's purpose for creating mankind; afterward, they should consider the present condition of their souls and then determine their fates if they were suddenly to die and have to face Divine Judgment. Would they go to Heaven? Or to Hell?
Clearly, this challenge of purity is difficult for a sixteen-year-old boy who enjoys sex and seeks out prostitutes as often as he can afford to do so; ironically, Stephen is viewed by the priests and the other boys as one of the "elder boys," a boy whose model behavior should be emulated by the younger boys. Throughout the first sermon, Stephen feels as though his spiritual life is passing before him, and, here, Joyce graphically records the details of Stephen's vivid imagination pertaining to his death and judgment. Stephen feels particularly agonized by Father Arnall's description of a lost soul because Stephen believes that he is already a lost soul. He believes that the sermon is delivered specifically to him—that he is being specifically warned about his sins: "Every word for him!"
At this point, Stephen begins to respond to life more intensely than ever in terms of his basic physical senses. Even after the sermon, Stephen continues to feel caged and tortured with guilt. He hears the "words of doom cried by the angel" and is mocked by the sound of a girl's laughter as he walks home from the retreat. In his mind, he sees the desecrated image of Emma, upon whose "innocence" he has "trampled"; the "sordid details of his orgies stank under his very nostrils." Next, he remembers touching the "sootcoated packet of pictures" and placing the "foul long letters" where a young girl can find them. Finally, he tastes tears on his lips as he imagines kissing the sleeve of the Blessed Virgin, imploring her to intervene and save his soul from eternal damnation.
Ellman’s biography of Joyce suggests that there are parallels in Joyce's life with certain key features of this chapter. For example, Joyce’s own sexual initiation occurred at a time when he himself was serving as prefect for the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin; later, Joyce possessed a perverse longing to "adore and desecrate" the one love of his life, Nora Barnacle. Joyce also wrote a series of "foul long letters" to Nora during their brief separation in 1909, but despite Nora's efforts to destroy these letters, Joyce hid some of them away, hoping that someday others might read them. Many people have read them; the letters offer keen insights and explanations for Joyce’s literary treatment of women.
The second sermon of the retreat begins with an examination of the origin of sin—specifically, Lucifer's prideful refusal to serve God and obey His will. A description of Adam and Eve's fall from grace follows, and Christ's sacrifice is also detailed. The purpose of this spiritual exercise is to create the most terrifying vision imaginable of the physical torments of Hell and infuse the boys with anguished feelings of guilt and fear.
The priest intends to "put the fear of God" into these potentially wayward young boys. The "nature of that abode of the damned," as Joyce portrays it, dramatically reveals the underpinnings of Dante's Inferno. This coincidence is not surprising because Joyce revered Dante’s masterpiece almost as much as he did the Bible; he considered Dante's works to be "spiritual food." Nonetheless, this particular Hell is very definitely a realm of Joyce's own design, wherein his fears of restriction and darkness are merged with residual anxieties from his early experiences with the Roman Catholic Church.
Joyce's personal hell is revealed through his emphasis on sensory details in this chapter. His poor vision required that he rely on his remaining senses; thus he emphasizes the stench and the taste of the air of Hell, filled with the toxins of "rotting human fungus," the interminable screams of the anguished sinners, and the "unspeakable fury" of the flames as they devour human flesh.
Joyce also understands the internal torment of the "company of the damned" and describes its lowly stature with vivid animal imagery: "a cock, a monkey and a serpent . . . hateful and hurtful beasts." This animal imagery, as well as the "goatish" beasts which haunt Stephen’s dreams, is derived from our enormous stock of Western mythical lore and symbols.
The final sermon of the retreat climaxes in a series of questions from the "voices of conscience": "Why did you sin? . . . Why did you not give up . . . that impure habit? . . . Why did you not . . . repent of your evils ways?" Here, Stephen suffers a "spasm of religious terror" and is obsessed with a burning need to confess and begin a dedicated reparation of his life.
During the third sermon, Stephen contemplates the torment of a life without God. As the retreat master focuses on the darkness of an eternity removed from God's divine presence, Stephen imagines himself bearing the full burden of his sins until the end of time. Finally as the retreat master examines the concept of eternity in a vast metaphor and concludes by discussing the grandeur of God, Stephen’s "brain reel[s] dizzily" as he tries to fathom the enormous everlastingness of eternity.
During the past three days, Stephen has suffered terribly as he emotionally conjured up the burning torments of Hell. He has undergone physical anguish, as well as spiritual and imaginative Hell; his has been a journey that parallels the period of testing common to most mythical heroes. The mythical hero’s descent into Hell is detailed in Dante's Inferno, and Daedalus, Stephen’s mythical namesake, disobeyed orders from the powerful King Minos and was cast into the labyrinth of his own design, imprisoned with the monstrous Minotaur. Similarly, Stephen, through his disobedience to God's will, has been cast into a loathsome hell of his own imagination, where he suffers restriction and is threatened by beasts within his soul.
Stephen’s repentance and humility are closely paralleled with the biblical story of the disobedient Jonah, who was confined in the belly of a whale. After three days and a humble repentance, Jonah was cast out of the whale. This duration of three days also carries the symbolic significance of the three days during which Christ descended into the depths of Hell and returned with the keys of Hell and Death; thus he atoned for man's sins and became his Redeemer. Stephen’s three-day retreat enables him to imaginatively experience Hell, repent his sins, and fly free (like Daedalus) from damnation, through sincere and contrite confession.
It is worth noting that although the chapter concludes with Stephen's confession and rededication to a life without sin, the Capuchin priest was chosen by Stephen because he believed that the Capuchin would be more merciful in his directives than Stephen’s own priest would have been at Belvedere College. Note, too, that Stephen shows his preference for the benignity of Mary, rather than confront the stern justice of an omnipotent male God. Even the act of confessing to a Capuchin priest ("capuchin" also means a hooded cloak worn by women), rather than a possibly "tough" priest at Belvedere College, indicates Stephen’s growing tendency toward creating a softer, more beautiful world to exist in, rather than enduring the harsh, more realistic one.
