Analysis[]
Mr. Eugenides is a Smyrna merchant. He is probably the one-eye merchant in Madame Sosostris’s Tarot cards reading (chapter 1). In the reading, this card represents obstacles that going against the viewer. His pocket is full of currants. Currants are small, seedless and dried grape. They are the deadened version of fertile fruits. These are the product of the Wasteland – from the infertile land of the Fisher King. The fact that the merchant’s pocket full of this product foreshadowing a dark future. The merchant invites the narrator to go with him to the Cannon Street Hotel and the Metropole, a place for homosexual tryst.