Did Shakespeare love Ann Hathaway? Can a father love his daughter if he never loved her mother? Are sons continuations of fathers or are they a mark of the gradual decline of the father figure? Or are sons their fathers, fathers their sons (after the father's death) and so on?
Stephen doesn't seem to view himself as part of his father...he seems frustrated and talks himself in complicated circles, arguing for things he just might not believe in.
"What the hell are you driving at?"
I know. Shut up. Blast you. I have reasons.
Amplius. Adhuc. Iterum. Postea.
Are you condemned to do this?" -170
And Stephen argues with himself....don't worry, he wins the argument. Stephen argues with himself alot. His own intelligence, which is pretty damned impressive, seems to work against him and he goes on and on about things he knows, but doesn't really ascribe to. For example, when he starts to argue about the implication of experience in Shakespeare's plays, he brings into the argument Shakespeare's question "What's in a name?" He says, "As for his family, his mother's name lives in the forest of Arden. Her death brought from him the scene with Volumnia in Coriolanus. His boyson's death is the deathscene of young Arthur in King John. Hamlet, the black prince, is Hamnet Shakespeare." -171 Basically, he is saying that the significance of the characters lies in their names, but he doesn't seem to take his own name very seriously. "Stephanos, my crown. My sword. His boots are spoiling the shape of my feet." -173 Shakespeares characters are based on people from his life, but Stephen, as a constant character in his own twisted plot, sees no significance in his name and abhorrs the idea of a continuation of the surname Dedalus as a continuation of his father. This is a constant struggle for him and he comically undergoes internal spars, seeing himself as "condemned".
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