The eighth episode of Book I of Finnegans Wake consists of a series of gossips
between two washerwomen, who gush out all the rumors about HCE(Humphrey
Chimpden Earwicker) and ALP(Anna Livia Plurabelle). Here, HCE’s fall caused by
gossips resembles Parnell’s downfall; HCE and ALP’s marriage allegorizes early
colonial history of Ireland. Much like Shem who writes with his own excrement
like ink, these washerwomen rewrite HCE and ALP’s stories and Irish history using
the dirty water from their laundry. Their uncouth gossips provide alternative,
unofficial history retold obliquely. In his earlier works, Joyce expresses his anxiety
over English, the colonizer’s language, as the tool of his art. What Joyce does in
Finnegans Wake is not imitation but echo. Echo does not seek for perfection. The
language of Finnegans Wake is not English but the echo of English, which is
amputated, fragmented, and hybridized. It does not permit any space for cultural
hegemony or power of the British Empire. Much like echo, gossips also disrupt the
authority and authenticity of official historiography. In case of Parnell, gossip
played a huge role in his downfall. Gossips can be an alternative vehicle to shape
and reshape history/historiography. In a word, this essay aims at rereading the
washerwomen’s gossips about HCE and ALP as an alternative historiography. To
conclude, gossips exercise a centrifugal force to spread out alternative,
heterogeneous, versions of official historiography, which wields a centripetal force
to assimilate various voices into a homogeneous version.