The Cyclopes offer themselves as a symbol for isolationism, xenophobia, savage cruelty, and ignorance. James Joyce understood this when in the "Cyclops" episode (= episode 12) of his novel Ulysses, the hero confronts a drunken racist in a Dublin pub. Henri Matisse was commissioned to illustrate an edition of Joyce's Ulysses in 1935. In fact, he seems rather to be illustrating the Odyssey, as is obvious in the illustration above for the "Cyclops" episode.

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