Editing Finnegans Wake (section)

===Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker (HCE)===
[[Philip Kitcher]] argues for the father HCE as the book's protagonist, stating that he is "the dominant figure throughout{{nbsp}}... His guilt, his shortcomings, his failures pervade the entire book".<ref name="Kitcher 2007">Kitcher 2007, [https://books.google.com/books?id=gUdP2YrzUPIC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA13&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 13].</ref> Bishop states that while the constant flux of HCE's character and attributes may lead us to consider him as an "anyman," he argues that "the sheer density of certain repeated details and concerns allows us to know that he is a particular, real Dubliner." The common critical consensus of HCE's fixed character is summarised by Bishop as being "an older [[Protestantism|Protestant]] male, of [[Scandinavia]]n lineage, connected with the pubkeeping business somewhere in the neighbourhood of [[Chapelizod]], who has a wife, a daughter, and two sons."<ref>Bishop 1986, [https://books.google.com/books?id=QwTenyFeSeEC&pg=PT135&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 135].</ref>{{rp|135}}

HCE is referred to by literally thousands of names throughout the book; leading Terence Killeen to argue that in ''Finnegans Wake'' "naming is{{nbsp}}... a fluid and provisional process".<ref>{{cite web | url = http://hjs.ff.cuni.cz/archives/v9_1/main/essays.php?essay=killeen | title = Life, Death, and the Washerwomen | last = Killeen | first = terence | publisher = Hypermedia Joyce studies: VOLUME 9, NUMBER 1, 2008 ISSN 1801-1020 | access-date=4 January 2009}}</ref> HCE is at first referred to as "Harold or Humphrey Chimpden";<ref>Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-30.htm page 30, lines 2–3] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090121183155/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-30.htm |date=21 January 2009 }}</ref> a conflation of these names as "Haromphreyld",<ref>Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-31.htm page 31, lines 29–30] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081209060340/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-31.htm |date=9 December 2008 }}</ref> and as a consequence of his initials "Here Comes Everybody".<ref>Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-32.htm page 32, lines 18–19] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081209073435/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-32.htm |date=9 December 2008 }}</ref> These initials lend themselves to phrase after phrase throughout the book; for example, appearing in the book's opening sentence as "Howth Castle and Environs". As the work progresses the names by which he may be referred to become increasingly abstract (such as "[[Fionn mac Cumhaill|Finn MacCool]]",<ref>Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-139.htm page 139, line 14] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090909111157/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-139.htm |date=9 September 2009 }}</ref> "Mr. Makeall Gone",<ref>Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-220.htm page 220, line 24] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090214115700/http://trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-220.htm |date=14 February 2009 }}</ref> or "Mr. Porter"<ref>Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-560.htm page 560, line 24] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081211042141/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-560.htm |date=11 December 2008 }}</ref>).

Some ''Wake'' critics, such as Finn Fordham, argue that HCE's initials come from the initials of the portly politician [[Hugh Childers]] (1827–96), who had been nicknamed "Here Comes Everybody" for his size.<ref>See Fordham, Finn. "The Universalization of ''Finnegans Wake'' and the Real HCE." ''Joyce, Ireland, Britain''. Ed. [[Andrew William Gibson|Gibson, Andrew]]; Platt, Len. Florida James Joyce Series. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. 198-211. {{ISBN|0-8130-3015-3}}</ref>

Many critics see Finnegan, whose death, wake and resurrection are the subject of the opening chapter, as either a prototype of HCE, or as another of his manifestations. One of the reasons for this close identification is that Finnegan is called a "man of '''h'''od, '''c'''ement and '''e'''difices" and "like '''H'''aroun '''C'''hilderic '''E'''ggeberth",<ref>Joyce 1939, [https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-4.htm page 4, lines 26–27, 32] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090302162049/http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-4.htm |date=2 March 2009 }}</ref> identifying him with the initials HCE. [[Patrick Parrinder]] for example states that "Bygmester Finnegan{{nbsp}}... is HCE", and finds that his fall and resurrection foreshadows "the fall of HCE early in Book I [which is] paralleled by his resurrection towards the end of III.3, in the section originally called "Haveth Childers Everywhere", when [HCE's] ghost speaks forth in the middle of a [[seance]]."<ref>Parrinder 1984, [https://books.google.com/books?id=WcCWdSwa7bsC&pg=PA222&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 222].</ref>{{rp|222}}