The Ineluctable Modality of Historical Facts and Their Protean Transformations Ihnkey Lee This paper studies how the stability of historical facts can be ensured. In the chapter of “Nestor,” Stephen refers to history as unstable in its meaning, for history is written on the basis of remembrance and can be interpreted differently depending on the themes of historians. History is thought to be ‘never anything but an unformulated signified,’ which may represent the difficulty of grasping the ineluctable modality of historical facts. “Nestor” ends with such delineation of history, but the chapter of “Proteus” extends, this paper finds, to how to grasp their ineluctable modality. Through meditating on the paternal images, Stephen shows his continuous rejection of them one by one, which this paper suggests metaphorizes how we can get to the stability of historical facts. Throughout “Proteus” Stephen shows his continuous struggle with Protean transformations of the paternal images, just as Menelaus struggles with transformations of Proteus one by one. Such continuity implies the elusiveness of Proteus as the ineluctable modality, to which we are just trying to get by exploring continuously its potential possibility. It is “the experiential wandering” that Stephen poses to grasp the stability of historical facts.

The Ineluctable Modality of Historical Facts and Their Protean Transformations Ihnkey Lee This paper studies how the stability of historical facts can be ensured. In the chapter of “Nestor,” Stephen refers to history as unstable in its meaning, for history is written on the basis of remembrance and can be interpreted differently depending on the themes of historians. History is thought to be ‘never anything but an unformulated signified,’ which may represent the difficulty of grasping the ineluctable modality of historical facts. “Nestor” ends with such delineation of history, but the chapter of “Proteus” extends, this paper finds, to how to grasp their ineluctable modality. Through meditating on the paternal images, Stephen shows his continuous rejection of them one by one, which this paper suggests metaphorizes how we can get to the stability of historical facts. Throughout “Proteus” Stephen shows his continuous struggle with Protean transformations of the paternal images, just as Menelaus struggles with transformations of Proteus one by one. Such continuity implies the elusiveness of Proteus as the ineluctable modality, to which we are just trying to get by exploring continuously its potential possibility. It is “the experiential wandering” that Stephen poses to grasp the stability of historical facts.

the stability of historical facts, ineluctable modality, Protean transformations, paternal images, metaphor, nacheinander nebeneinander