Sigla
The casual reader of Finnegans Wake could be forgiven for believing that the novel has a cast of thousands, with at least as many characters as War and Peace or À la recherche du temps perdu – the definitive guide to the book’s dramatis personae, Adaline Glasheen’s exhaustive Third Census of Finnegans Wake, has indeed entries for thousands of characters. But the truth of the matter is that Joyce’s work is populated by just a handful of distinct characters, who, however, appear and reappear throughout the book in various guises. They are like the members of a small troupe of actors who are forced to “double up” their roles in order to stage a particularly complex play – though Finnegans Wake is so complex that most of our actors are compelled to play hundreds of different parts throughout the course of the work's 628 pages. The book’s protagonist HCE, for example, is in turn (and sometimes simultaneously) Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, Charles Stewart Parnell, the Duke of Wellington, Julius Caesar, Finn MacCool, King Mark of Cornwall, the Salmon of Knowledge, etc. And this list could be extended ad nauseam if minor characters were included to which only one or two allusions are made throughout the book (e.g. Old Parr, with whom HCE is briefly identified on page 3).
To help keep track of his characters and the various guises that they adopt, Joyce devised a system of sigla (Singular: siglum, a diminutive of the Latin word signum, which means “sign” or “mark”) whereby his main characters – and a few important “leitmotifs” – could be represented by small icons or symbols. Although originally introduced as an aide-mémoire to help Joyce make sense of his often chaotic notes and early drafts, several of these sigla were later incorporated in the book itself.
Some of these characters are also encoded in certain combinations of letters. The male protagonist, for example, is often alluded to by the letters HCE (in various permutations); the female protagonist by the letters ALP; their daughter, Issy, is sometimes represented by a pair of dotted i's (-ii-), no doubt a pun on her "eyes", the two dots being a visual representation.
The principal characters and leitmotifs, and their respective sigla, are as follows:
| Siglum | Name | Principal Roles | Guises | Initialisms | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| File:HCE.PNG | HCE | Male protagonist Father Husband |
Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker | H-C-E | Inn Landlord |
| File:ALP.png | ALP | Female protagonist,br>Mother Wife |
Anna Livia Plurabelle | A-L-P | Inn Landlady |
| File:Shem.png | Shem | Evil twin son | Shem | ||
| File:Shaun.png | Shaun | Good twin son | Shaun | ||
| File:Izzy.png | Issy | Daughter Temptress |
Issy | -ii- | |
| File:Shem-Shaun.PNG | Shem-Shaun | Oedipal figure HCE's rival |
Tristan | ||
| File:MMLJ.png | Four Old Men The Four |
Judges | Matthew Gregory Mark Lyons Luke Tarpey Johnny MacDougal |
Bedposts | |
| File:CIRCLE.PNG | Sullivans & Doyles | Jury | Sullivans | Watch dial | |
| File:Ellipse.PNG | The Twenty-Eight | Flower Maidens | St Bride's | ||
| File:Book.PNG | Square | Finnegans Wake | HCE's Coffin | Flagpatch quilt | |
| File:Mandala.PNG | Mandala | Viconian Cycle | Four Seasons |
In addition to these, Joyce devised a few other sigla, which, however, are redundant. When he first introduced the character of Tristan he gave him his own siglum, T. But the Tristan character is simply an “avatar” of Shem-Shaun, so he does not require his own separate siglum. Another defunct siglum, P, represents “a parish priest...”; but the priest is none other than Shaun, so once again no separate siglum is required.
