30 pages • 1 hour read
Finnegans Wake
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
Finnegans Wake begins mid-sentence. The opening sentence, beginning with “riverrun” (3), continues from the novel’s final sentence, creating a complete loop. The opening introduces Porter, an Irish pub landlord who lives in Chapelizod, Dublin, with his family. He sleeps with his family in the rooms above the pub.
A woman named Kate works at Porter’s pub. She scrubs dishes for a living but also hosts tours of “Willingdone Museyroom” (8), a local museum. Kate leads a tour through the park, describing the points of interest and the history of a great man. Outside, the world is changed to the past as an old crone picks through the remnants of a battle and the broken pieces of the nursery rhyme figure, Humpty Dumpty. Two young men (one a Jute, a member of a Germanic tribe, and one a native Irishman) named Jute and Mutt argue at some point in the “intellible” (16) distant past. Jute and Mutt are alternative identities for Porter’s two sons, Shaun and Shem.
Porter dreams. In his dreams, he hears the booming sound of thunder. A voice (belonging to God) describes the fall, in which the giants of the mythological age will disappear from the world. One of these mythological figures from “the age when hoops ran high” (20) is the prankquean, who kidnaps two children after being denied hospitality at a castle. Another is Adam, the first man to be created by God, the creator who “has created for his creatured ones a creation” (29). After eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, Adam falls from grace. Another mythological figure is the “man of hod” (4), Tim Finnegan or Mr. Finnimore, who appears in Irish folklore as the subject of a famous ballad. In Porter’s dream, Finnegan falls off a ladder. Porter continues to dream. He imagines that he has become the city of Dublin itself so that his toes are at one end of town and his head at another. Porter, as the city, sleeps.
As Kate continues with the tour, she mentions an incident in Phoenix Park near Chapelizod. The incident involved Porter, operating under the name Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker (abbreviated to HCE). According to the rumor, HCE exposed himself to a pair of young women. As he did so, three Welsh soldiers witnessed his crime. Now, HCE is in trouble with the police. The mythological figures of Dublin stir. Tim Finnegan (or possibly also another mythological figure named Finn MacCool) rumble in their sleep, but they are told to remain resting. They are told that now is not a good time for them to stir from their slumber, so they should continue to sleep “like a god” (24). In this respect, the gods have already fallen. HCE appears on the scene, the man “who will be ultimendly respunchable for the hubbub” (29).
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
The chapter begins with the story of a “grand old gardener” (30), an alternative identity of HCE, which explains how he got the name Earwicker. At the same time, the initials HCE become “the nickname Here Comes Everybody” (32). The gardener traps earwigs in flowerpots. This is just one of the many different identities, versions, or guises that HCE has assumed throughout time, as he is the living embodiment of the idea of an Everyman. HCE talks to a man without a home on the streets of Dublin. He attempts to explain the accusations against him regarding the “pair of dainty maidservants” (34). However, the rumors are passed around “common lodginghouses” (39) by down-and-out people such as Treacle Tom and Mildew Lisa.
The story of what happened in Phoenix Park is shared so often by “slips of young dublinos” (42) that the original version is corrupted beyond recognition. Eventually, the story reaches the ears of Hosty, an Irish folk musician, who turns the story into a song. HCE’s story becomes The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly, in which HCE is compared to characters from nursery rhymes such as Humpty Dumpty. Like Humpty Dumpty, HCE has fallen, broken, and must be put back together again.
In the ballad, “heavyweight hearhen Humpharey” (46) falls off a wall in Phoenix Park. His trousers fall down, and three watching soldiers view his bare buttocks. The song suggests HCE will be jailed, which will be “sore pity for his innocent poor children” (47). Hosty’s song predicts that HCE will not be put back together again. Instead, HCE will be buried without the hope of redemption or resurrection, as there is no magic spell “able to raise a Cain” (47).
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
The popularity of the ballad causes the rumors to continue to spread until HCE is arrested and tried for the crime of exposing himself to young women. He is not the first person to be tried for this crime, and many earlier incidents are also recalled until the different versions almost blend into one. HCE is tried in front of a panel of four elderly judges. However, the trial devolves into absurdity. HCE is never told the exact nature of the charges. Despite the vagueness of the accusations, in which the articles of evidence are “too imprecisely few” (57), everyone in the courtroom is certain that HCE is guilty. Witnesses are called to testify. The soldiers explain how they witnessed HCE expose himself to the two young women. However, they cannot verify their testimony. The long line of witnesses includes garbage collectors, a “more nor usually sober” (59) horse-and-carriage driver, and the “cad” without a home who spread the rumors about HCE’s story in the previous chapter. Despite the multitude of witnesses, no one can succinctly describe the exact nature of the incident. Questions about undelivered letters and stolen coffins remain unanswered. HCE is forced to listen to the trial and the accusations against him, enraged by the absurd vagueness of the process, which includes false accounts of his arrest and a digression about a woman and her lover. Eventually, HCE is not found guilty. However, he is sent to prison for his protection, where an American man mocks him.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
The chapter opens with an image of a lion in a zoo and a short history of the stolen “teak coffin” (76). Elsewhere in Dublin, Kate, “glowing and very vidual” (79), continues to work in HCE’s pub. During the period after the trial, she talks to people about a letter supposedly written by HCE’s wife, Anna Livia Plurabelle (also known as ALP). In the letter, ALP supposedly provides a resounding defense of her husband. During this time, HCE is put on trial once again. This time, he stands trial under the name the Festy King. Once again, the trial descends into absurd chaos. The judges, the witnesses, and everything else merge into a complicated blur of accusations and gossip.
Shem and Shaun continue their argument. Shaun seems set to inherit his father’s role as the Festy King now that HCE is gone. However, Shaun is also placed on trial, and his brother Shem is asked to testify against him. Unlike his father, Shaun convinces the court of his innocence. When he is declared innocent, a group of 28 girls (including Isabelle) heralds him as a hero. For the moment, Shem is defeated.
Elsewhere, the four judges—“the four jusricers” (92)—reach a verdict in the trial of the Festy King. HCE is found guilty. His punishment is to be sealed in a watertight coffin and buried beneath a lake in Northern Ireland (Lough Neagh). Somehow, he wriggles free from the coffin and is at large somewhere in Ireland. The chapter closes with the “little lady” (102) ALP attempting to speak up on her husband’s behalf, but the noise drowns out her voice.
Part 1, Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The opening of Finnegans Wake introduces the audience to the fickle nature of reality. In the novel, truth and falsehoods blend together in a dreamlike fashion until nothing can be authenticated or known for sure. As well as the characters’ shifting identities and the experimental use of the English language, the rumors about HCE illustrate how stories, lies, and misunderstandings bend reality. HCE may or may not have exposed himself to two women in the park, but the objective truth of his actions becomes irrelevant. Instead, reality becomes an amalgamation of the lies and gossip surrounding HCE. He is forced to go to court and defend his actions; HCE himself is a victim of his lack of objective reality as he cannot be sure whether or not he committed the crime. Likewise, he cannot be sure of his identity and happily inhabits other roles and characters as part of a slow unspooling of life, legend, myth, and lies. The Fall described in the opening chapters is not only the fall from the grace of God but the collapse of objective reality into a vague, dreamlike world where nothing is known for sure.
The structure of Finnegans Wake is based on the work of Giambattista Vico, an 18th-century Italian philosopher who divided history into four stages. Each part of the novel corresponds to one of these stages. The first part of the novel is the Fall, described by Vico as the time when the heroes of history fell from God’s grace. By opening the novel in the middle of a sentence (which is completed with the novel’s final line), Joyce indicates that these stages of history are cyclical. HCE’s experiences and dreams are part of an ongoing, unbreakable routine of the fall and rise of civilizations, cities, mythology, and people. As per Vico’s work, HCE embodies this cyclical history. The repetition of the cycles of existence is not only contained within his characters but also within the prose and structure of the novel itself.
Part of the expression of the cyclical and dreamlike nature of the world is the appearance of the four elderly judges. These judges are recurring characters in the novel who play important symbolic roles. They sit in judgment of HCE at the trial and play the role of the four gospel writers (Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John). They appear as the drunken men in HCE’s pub, who judge him after hearing his sons’ stories. They even appear as the four posts of the bed of Mr. and Mrs. Porter (who, themselves, are different versions of HCE and ALP). Their appearances become a symbol of judgment and observation. They witness HCE during his most difficult moments, just as they witnessed the life of Jesus Christ and used their observations to write the gospels. In a voyeuristic fashion, they witness the unsatisfactory lovemaking of the Porters and judge what they see before them. As such, these judges play the role of observer and judiciary, reminding the audience of the consequences of HCE’s actions and how he will always be judged, even when that judgment is based on unverifiable or downright false information.
Unlock all 30 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By James Joyce
