LPPM MMV "Cleanth"

[Terrance]

It's another complex and ironic allusion to Joyce's PA, specifically,
Stephen Dedalus, protagonist of James Joyce's novel  _A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man_. Notice that the order is reversed. In other
words, Stephen (Catholic, Christian, Martyr) is the given name of
Joyce's protagonist and Dedalus (Daedalus, Greek, Inventor, builder of
the labyrinth) is the surname. Although it is important to note that
Stephen is also the son of Dedalus or Icarus. Siegel is the son of a Jew
and a Catholic. It seems his mother quit the Roman church after refuting
Aquinas (on some point about the Law of Nature and Justice) and named
him Cleanth after the Greek stoic. 

See Ben Hur (novel and film, 1959) Gaspar is the son of Cleanthes. 

We have to know that Dedalus is called Stephen by his Mother and that
his "friends" or school chums call him Dedalus, not for pity's sake, but
to tease the sensitive artistic boy. 

Cleanth is sent to the party by his Mother. Ha Ha! Tommy, very good. 

http://oddhatter.net/writing/papers/stephen.html

sending Stephen to the convent exposes him further to the hypocrisy that
he will see in the priests at the convent and in Catholicism as a whole.
Thus, they are saying good-bye to “Stephen”, the name rooted in
religious tradition as he will become “Dedalus”, the man who seeks his
own freedom. On the other hand, Stephen’s classmates call him “Dedalus”.
Stephen is not one of “them”. Stephen is set aside as intellectual and
moral – “Dedalus is a model youth. He doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t go to
bazaars
and he doesn’t flirt and he doesn’t damn anything or damn all (71).”
Indeed, “Dedalus” is not one of the hypocrites. He is labelled as a
“heretic” as he refuses to conform to ideals which are not his own (76).
At first, he merely defends poets (i.e. Byron), but soon he is defending
his entire way of life and his views thereof. “Dedalus” is the
individual. 

Tim Strzechowski wrote:
> 
> >
> > But why "out of pity"?  Let me know ...
> >
> >
> 
> "Pity" presupposes that the subject in question has a character flaw that
> s/he underestimates, or perhaps is unaware of.  The Aristotalean use of
> "pity and fear" in tragedy, of course, refers to the protagonist's inability
> to discern that which may/will cause a downfall (or be an undoing).
> Relevance??
> 
> >> "'Hi,' Siegel said. 'My name is Cleanth but my friends call me Siegel,
> out of
> >> pity.'" (MMV, p. 4)
> 
> The suggestion here is that "Cleanth" is a name (identity? text?) that
> expresses TRUTH regarding this character, yet others feel the need to impose
> "Siegel" because they perceive a truth beyond that which the speaker does.
> The brilliant irony here, quite honestly, is that "Siegel" is the character
> through whom this is quoted ... and, even better, an author is the voice
> through whom "Siegel" speaks!