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 146VI 
"Circe": The Rhetoric of Drama 
The rambunctious pantomimic skits of "Cyclops" and the role playing and scene
changes in "Oxen of the Sun" are the closest we have come in Ulysses to the
drama of "Circe." In these two earlier chapters, imitation, impersonation,
and rhetorical flamboyance are narrative principles; the role playing of
the characters is a function of the general pomp and ceremony of narrative
style. 
 Impersonation and rhetorical excess also characterize "Circe," but the convention
of the chapter is that it is a dramatic script rather than a narrative. The
staginess of the narrative in the preceding chapters yields to a stage, as
everything is acted out instead of mediated through narration. The oratory
of English prose styles gives way to a new kind of rhetorical extremism,
integrally related to the dreamlike quality of the chapter. This extremism
depends upon two dominant rhetorical modes: metaphoric substitution and hyperbole.
 The entire chapter is, in a radical sense, figurative: its fantastic scenes
and dialogues function as dramatized conceits or metaphors for the characters'
suppressed desires, fears, and guilt. In "Circe," as in a dream, metaphoric
substitution operates as a basic principle. But what is radical about the
treatment of dream symbolism in the chapter is its dramatic and literal presentation:
that which is private and internalized in a dream becomes public spectacle,
as metaphors for feelings become literal actors on the stage. And, as in
a dream, the figures are presented with extravagance and exaggeration. In
the dramatic context of the