SEEING THE ELEPHANT
Remember: You just started... this whole job is recirculating spherically, i.e., back and forth, anywhere to everywhere... you have to figure this out or follow through in successive order from the cover before jumping around...
I am Brazilian, Portuguese is my language and in my culture "to see the elephant" refers only to Aesop's fable. Contrary to what many may think, Brazil is not like Africa and has no Elephants, nor Lyons, or Giraffes... our wilderness are us...
One of my preferred Brazilian authors Nelson Rodrigues, which I consider a tropicalized version of Shakespeare, has fantastic plays and a collection of some of his aphorisms would be enough to figure out Joyce and we would be not wasting our time here with all that !@#$%$... His aphorism which fits like a glove here is: the obvious is howling
I was surprised to realize that for English speaking persons, specially in the UK and in USA for the Elephant there are far more implications which can be understood at the article at Wikipedia
There are other important aspects of what the Elephant brings to mind of other cultures that can be seen at.
We should not forget also that In 2008, Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin used the phrase "pink elephants" to refer to Pro-life Republican women such as herself, Carly Fiorina, Sue Lowden and Jane Norton
On the light side, there is The Elelephant Hotel built in Somers NY by Hachaliah Bailey known as the creator of Barnum Bailey Circus. I haven't figure out yet, but one of the things that comes to my mind reading Joyce is the phrase attributed to his associate P.T Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute" most likely spoken by David Hannum, in criticism of both P. T. Barnum, an American showman of the mid 1800s, and his customers.The phrase is often credited to Barnum himself. It means "Many people are gullible, and we can expect this to continue."
Take a look at the paper Tim Conley, Department of English McGill University, Montréal, January 1997 did: The hoax that joke bilked
Also in the not too light side, there is the Metaphorical idiom Elephant in the room, which with The Emperor's New Clothes as I mentioned at Part II Literary sources, from Prof. J.S.Atherton, and I quote here:
I cannot refrain myself after spending such an amount of time Joyce demands, but not to think about Hans Christian Andersen's tale about the Emperor's New Clothes... I will elaborate more on Conclusion, but at least now it is necessary to bear in mind that the expression "If you copy from many you are creating", applies to Joyce. You just add Lewis Carroll Jabberwocky and sprinkle it with words from other languages, and there it is James Joyce Style...Obviously you shouldn't leave aside the occult, the weakness of those who would crown him as the king of the Ivory Tower, so perfectly said by Bertrand Russel:
"The first effect of emancipation from the Church was not to make men think rationally, but to open their minds to every sort of antique nonsense" (In A History of Western Philosophy,London, 1946, page 523
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If there is anybody yet reading, as you can see, I call attention to the fact that it is not difficult use a word with many meanings, including complex multi level puns, allusions and word plays.
But I must say that I considered strongly instead of Aesop's fable to use the Duck Test, which I decided to reserve for one and perhaps the most important conclusion.
I like things clear and straight and personally if it is not simple, must surely it is not the answer (remember E = mc2) and perhaps if I had to choose from this entire job the foremost important ideas to get acquainted on the subject Joyce, I would choose this file.
If you think it is not enough or I should get scorned, remember that the Duck Test has its bearings on Alan Turing, the first to demonstrate that machines can perform tasks previously considered privilege of humans and you should look how he devised his Turing Duck Test
Press it
It is not a duck... it is a mallard...
Which fits most perfectly to James Joyce because, If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.