The position of a poet is something that would elevate Chandler socially, and the reader is brought into a private moment of Chandler's where the insight of his character shows him desiring affection and praise rather than genuine artistic vision, one that Chandler would believe himself to be glimpsing. .
While Chandler, with the presumption of a human being to know more about themselves than they do, gathers hope from this bout of plastic inspiration, there is a duality of sight here, one for chandler, and one for the reader. It is the reader that realizes Chandler's true reasons for the desires that he holds, while the character is stuck in a circle of intermittent hope and despair, coming or going depending on how socially elevated he feels. He thinks on the details of his name, the most consistent label a human can hold, and ponders on altering it, securing his image by ostensible means where his passive personality regretfully fails. He pulls more euphemisms out of his imaginary future commentators that would throw him titles naming him the melancholy Celtic spirit of the day. The fact that Joyce adds this idea of this being the epitome of the Celtic poetic culture, says something about Chandler being an Irish man, and what that means in the context of his passionless existence. The stigma of the Irish is that they are helpless to their problems, and unwilling to pull themselves from the tide that Ireland sinks deeper into with each passing day. Gallaher, still at this point only known by reputation, became a success after leaving Dublin. When the reader grasps onto Joyce's carefully placed sentences in the right light, they naturally ask the question of what being Irish has evolved into meaning. If Chandler is any representative of that culture living on its past glory, than it is a pitiful and pained sight to see. .
Chandler misses on all these insights into himself, and gathers a hope that comes from his connection to the success of a man that Gallaher now is.
