Stephen's answer to Taylor's "vision" is his own "vision": his Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the Parable of the Plums. His lecture is delivered with only mild sarcasm, for Stephen is portrayed sympathetically in "Aeolus": He is among people who respect him (his father has left by the time Stephen arrives), and he is more at ease than in other episodes, more deferential, and even humble. The meaning of his parable is fairly evident. Two old women (one of whom is probably the same "Florence MacCabe" who appeared in "Proteus") become dizzy as they try to look up at Nelson after they have climbed to the base of his statue. Thus they are caught between two unpleasant alternatives: a stultified Dublin and its imperialistic conqueror. The plum seeds ("stones") that they spit onto the city below through the railings (actually "screenings") are symbols of sterility, in contrast to Boylan's soon-to-be potted meat (Plumtree's). And it is significant in "Aeolus" that a power failure stops the heart of Dublin's life: its trams. Dublin is indeed a paralyzed city.
Finally, "Aeolus," as do all the episodes in Ulysses, carries through motifs common to the entire novel. Keyes's demand for two crossed keys at the top of his ad suggests the keyless plight of Ulysses's two male protagonists, as does the allusion to "home rule." Bloom's sight of a typesetter reading print backwards reminds him of his father's method of reading his "hagadah book." Lenehan gives the (ultimately incorrect) tip on the Gold Cup: Sceptre. Crawford's act of locking his desk with jingling keys anticipates the jingling bed of Boylan and Molly later that afternoon. Crawford wonders if Deasy was "short taken," when Stephen presents him with the letter about the foot and mouth disease (Stephen tore off part of the letter to write poetry in "Proteus"), and again the theme of creativity and defecation is implied. And, finally, we discover why Deasy is so misogynistic; he has a shrewish wife.
