Every great epic - The Odyssey, The Aeneid, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost - must contain a journey to the Underworld, the world of the Dead, and Ulysses is no exception. In "Hades," Joyce uses the graveyard setting of Paddy Dignam's funeral to meditate on death. Note that at the same time, in "Proteus," Stephen Dedalus is also meditating on death as he walks along the beach. However, whereas the gloomy Stephen would likely subscribe the aphorism, "In the midst of life we are in death" (96), Bloom sees things differently, reemerging from the graveyard world of the dead with a newfound lust for life in all its glory: "Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life" (115). For Bloom (and, perhaps, Joyce himself) in the midst of death we are in life.
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