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=== Book III ===
Book III concerns itself almost exclusively with Shaun, in his role as postman, having to deliver ALP's letter, which was referred to in Book 1, but never seen by the second Master.<ref>Joyce referred to Book III's four chapters as "The Four Watches of Shaun", and characterised them as "a description of a postman travelling backwards in the night through the events already narrated from the perspective of nightwatcher. It is narrated in the form of a ''via crucis'' of 1614 stations but in reality is only a barrel rolling down the river [[Liffey]]." Joyce, ''Letters, 1'', p.214</ref>
III.1 opens with the Four Masters' ass narrating how he saw itthought, as he was "dropping asleep",<ref>[[#refJoyce1939|Joyce 1939]], [http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-203.htm p. 403, line 17]</ref> he had heard and seen an apparition of Shaun the Post.<ref>"who was after having a great time [...] in a porterhouse." [[#refJoyce1939|Joyce 1939]], [http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-407.htm p.407, lines 27-28]</ref> As a result Shaun re-awakens, and, floating down the Liffey in a barrel, is posed 14 questions concerning the significance and content of the letter he is carrying. However, Shaun, "apprehensive about being slighted, is on his rockerguard, and the placating narrators never get a straight answer out of him."<ref>Wim Van Mierlo, in [[#refCrispiSlote2007|Crispi, Slote 2007]], p. 347</ref> Shaun's answers focus on his own boastful personality and his admonishment of the letter's author - his artist brother Shem. After the inquisition Shaun loses his balance and the barrel in which he has been floating careens over and he rolls backwards out of the narrator's earshot, before disappearing completely from view.<ref>cf "and, lusosing his harmonical balance [...] over he careened [...] by the mightyfine weight of his barrel [...and] rolled buoyantly backwards [...] out of farther earshot [...] down in the valley before [...] he spoorlessly disappealed and vanesshed [...] from circular circulatio." [[#refJoyce1939|Joyce 1939]], [http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-426.htm p.426, line 28 - p. 427, line 8]</ref>
In III.2 Shaun re-appears as "Jaunty Jaun" and delivers a lengthy sermon to his sister Issy, and her 28 schoolmates from St. Brigid's School. Throughout this book Shaun is continually regressing, changing from an old man to an overgrown baby lying on his back, and eventually, in III.3, into a vessel through which the voice of HCE speaks again by means of a spiritual [[Mediumship|medium]]. This leads to HCE's defence of his life in the passage "Haveth Childers Everywhere". Book III ends in the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Porter as they attempt to copulate while their children, Jerry, Kevin and Isobel Porter, are sleeping down the hall and the dawn is rising outside (III.4). Jerry awakes from a nightmare of a scary father figure, and Mrs. Porter interrupts the coitus to go comfort him with the words "You were dreamend, dear. The pawdrag? The fawthrig? Shoe! Hear are no phanthares in the room at all, avikkeen. No bad bold faathern, dear one."<ref>[[#refJoyce1939|Joyce 1939]], [http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-565.htm p.565]</ref> She returns to bed, and the rooster crows at the conclusion of their coitus at the Book's culmination.<ref>[[#refCrispiSlote2007|Crispi, Slote 2007]], p.413</ref>
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