James Joyce - Ulysses - Study Guide - 60 Pages

James Joyce – Ulysses
Study Guide
1. James Joyce [ 1882 – 1941 ] : Biography

2. Ulysses – Short Summary
3. Ulysses [ about the novel ]
4. Ulysses – Characters’ List
5. Ulysses – Chapters’ Summaries and Analyses
A. Summary and Analysis of Chapters 1-3.
B. Summary and Analysis of Chapters 4-6.
C. Summary and Analysis of Chapters 7-9.
D. Summary and Analysis of Chapters 10-12.
E. Summary and Analysis of Chapters 13-15.
F. Summary and Analysis of Chapters 15-18.
6. Ulysses – Essays for Ulysses
7. Ulysses – Quiz
8. Ulysses – Quiz Answers
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I. James Joyce (1882-1941) - Biography
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, just south of Dublin in a wealthy suburb
called Rathgar. The Joyce family was initially well off as Dublin merchants with bloodlines that connected
them to old Irish nobility in the country. James' father, John Joyce, was a fierce Irish Catholic patriot and
his political and religious influences are most evident in Joyce's two key works A Portrait of the Artist as
a Young Man and Ulysses.
As a result of their steadily diminishing wealth and income, the Joyce family was
repeatedly forced to move to more modest residences and John Joyce's habitual unemployment as well
as his drinking and spending habits, made it difficult for the Joyces to retain their previous social
standing. A young James Joyce was sent away to the renowned Clongowes School in 1888?a Jesuit
institution that was regarded as the best preparatory school in Ireland. The Clongowes school figures
prominently in Joyce's work, specifically in the story of his recurring character Stephen Dedalus. Joyce
earned high marks both at the Clongowes School and at Belvedere College in Dublin where he
continued. At this point in his life, it seemed evident that Joyce was to enter the priesthood, a decision
that would have pleased his parents. As James Joyce made contact with various members of the "Irish
Literary Renaissance," his interest in the priesthood waned. Indeed, Joyce became increasingly critical of
Ireland and its conservative elements, especially the Church.
In opposition to his mother's wishes, Joyce left Ireland in 1902 to pursue a medical education in Paris,
and did not return to Ireland until the following year upon news of his mother's debilitation and
imminent death. After burying his mother, Joyce continued in Ireland, working as a schoolteacher at a
boys' school?another autobiographical detail that recurs in the story of Stephen Dedalus. After barely
spending a year in Dublin, Joyce returned to the Continent, drifting in and out of medical school in Paris
before taking up residence in Zurich. It was during this period that Joyce began writing professionally.
In 1905, Joyce completed a collection of eight stories, entitled Dubliners, though it was not until 1913
that the volume was actually printed. During these frustrating and impoverished years, Joyce heavily
relied upon the emotional support of Nora Barnacle, his unmarried Irish lover, as well as the financial
support of his younger brother, Stanislaus Joyce. Both Nora and Stanislaus remained as protective,
supporting figures for the duration of the writer's life. During the eight years between Dubliners'
completion and publication, Joyce and Barnacle had two children, a son named Giorgio and a daughter
named Lucia.
Joyce's next major work, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, appeared in serialized form in 1914
and 1915, before Joyce was "discovered" by Ezra Pound and the complete text was printed in New York
in 1916, and in London in 1917. It was with the assistance of Pound, a prominent literary figure of the
time, that Joyce came in contact with Harriet Shaw Weaver, who served as both editor and patron while
Joyce wrote Ulysses.
When Ulysses was published in Paris in 1922, many immediately hailed the work as genius. With his
inventive narrative style and engagement with multiple philosophical themes, Joyce had established
himself as a leading Modernist. The novel charts the passage of one day?June, 16 1904?as depicted in
the life of an Irish Jew named Leopold Bloom, who plays the role of a Ulysses by wandering through the
streets of Dublin. Despite the fact that Joyce was writing in self-imposed exile, living in Paris, Zurich and
Trieste while writing Ulysses, the novel is noted for the incredible amount of accuracy and detail
regarding the physical and geographical features of Dublin.
Thematically similar to Joyce's previous works, Ulysses examines the relationship between the modern
man and his myth and history, focusing on contemporary questions of Irish political and cultural
independence, the effects of organized religion on the soul, and the cultural and moral decay produced
economic development and heightened urbanization. While Joyce was writing the epic work, there was
serious doubt as to whether Ulysses would be completed. Midway through his writing, Joyce suffered the
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first of eleven eye operations to salvage his ever-worsening eyesight. At one point, a disappointed Joyce
cast the bulk of his manuscript into the fire, though Nora Barnacle immediately rescued it.
While Ulysses was hailed by some, the novel was banned from both the United Kingdom as well as the
United States on obscenity charges. It was not until 1934, that Random House won a court battle that
granted permission to print and distribute Joyce's Ulysses in the United States; two years later, the
novel was legalized in Britain.
By that time, Joyce was approaching the end of his public career having concluded his work on a final
novel entitled Finnegan's Wake. Considered to be far more baffling and convoluted than Ulysses,
Finnegan's Wake was a critical failure, ostracizing Joyce from many of his former admirers. At the
outbreak of World War II, Joyce remained in Paris until he was forced to move?first to Vichy and then to
Switzerland. On January 13, 1941, James Joyce died of a stomach ulcer at the age of 58, and was buried
in Zurich's Fluntern Cemetery. Though his prestige had faded towards the end of his life, Joyce regained
literary stature in the decades following his death and Ulysses now stands as the definitive text of the
Anglo-American modernist movement, marking Joyce's creative genius and premier abilities as a stylist
of the English language.
II. James Joyce – Ulysses : Short Summary

Joyce's novel is set in Dublin on the day of June 16, 1904 and the protagonist, Leopold Bloom, is a
middle-aged Jew whose job as an advertisement canvasser forces him to travel throughout the city on a
daily basis. While Bloom is Joyce's "Ulysses" character, the younger hero of the novel is Stephen
Dedalus, the autobiographical character from Joyce's first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
While Joyce develops the character of the young student, most of the novel is focused on Bloom.
Bloom's wife Molly is a singer and she is having an affair with her co-worker, Blazes
Boylan, and early in the morning of June 16, Bloom learns that Molly intends to bring Boylan into their
bed later that afternoon. The Blooms have a daughter named Milly (age 15) who is away, studying
photography. Ten years ago, Molly gave birth to a son, Rudy, but he died when he was eleven days old
and Bloom often thinks of the parallel between his dead son Rudy and his dead father Rudolph, who
killed himself several years before.
Stephen Dedalus is the central character of the novel's first three chapters, which constitute Part I of
Ulysses. Dedalus is an academic and a schoolteacher and he has left Ireland for Paris but he was forced
to return upon hearing news that his mother was gravely ill. The initial depictions of Stephen indicate
that he is guilty because he has separated from the Catholic Church and refused to pray at the side of
his mother's deathbed despite her pleading. Stephen has literary ambitions but his desire to write
Ireland's first true epic is tempered by his fear that the island is too stultifying for him to be a success.
Stephen lives in Martello Tower with Buck Mulligan and a British student, Haines, and Stephen's
introverted personality prevents him from asserting himself. Instead, his friends patronize him and take
advantage of him.
The opening three chapters, "Telemachus," "Nestor" and "Proteus," track the early morning hours of
Stephen Dedalus who eats breakfast, teaches at a school in Dalkey and wanders Sandymount Strand.
The opening chapters of Part II ("Calypso" and "Lotus-Eaters") begin the day anew, charting the early
morning rituals of Leopold Bloom, who must later attend the funeral of his friend, Paddy Dignam. In
"Calypso" and "Lotus-Eaters," the reader learns that Bloom is a servile husband who prepares breakfast
and runs errands on behalf of his wife Molly, who remains half-asleep. We also learn that Bloom is
preoccupied with food and sex. He relishes eating a slightly burned kidney and has a penchant for
voyeurism.
The "Hades" chapter of Ulysses recounts the burial of Paddy Dignam in Glasnevin Cemetery and it is at
this point that Joyce begins to develop his theme of Bloom as a Jewish outsider in an overwhelmingly
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Roman Catholic society. Bloom's insecurities are only heightened by his foreknowledge of Molly's
infidelity. Both Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus are set on a long winding tour of Dublin that
occupies most of the afternoon and they continually cross paths before eventually meeting later that
night. The afternoon chapters begin with "Aeolus" and conclude with Bloom's altercation with the Citizen
in "The Cyclops."
After Dignam's funeral, we get a more detailed view of Bloom's routine day. Bloom immediate heads for
the downtown newspaper office-a building that is shared by three companies. Considering the frenetic
pace of the news building, the employees' treatment of Bloom seems excessively rude and dismissive
and Bloom's attempt to secure an easy advertisement renewal requires a trip to the National Library.
Bloom's library visit in "Scylla and Charybdis" presents another occasion for him to talk to Stephen as
their paths cross again but they continue on their separate paths, neither cognizant of the other.
Bloom's suffers the afternoon, dreading his wife's adulterous act, scheduled for 4:30 pm. Joyce uses the
"Wandering Rocks" chapter to mirror Bloom's desperation with the squalor of the city's poorest families
before contrasting Bloom's unhappy solitude with the jovial and musical atmosphere of "The Sirens."
Bloom simply shrugs off the prejudice of his acquaintances, accepts his solitude as his fate and even at
this point, tries to ignore the serious problems in his marriage.
Upon entering Kiernan's pub, late in the afternoon, Bloom is confronted by the Citizen, a half-blind
patriot whose outspoken anti-Semitism forces Bloom to assert his identity, arguing that he can be a Jew
and an Irish citizen, simultaneously. Citizen is quiet before resuming his offense. Having burdened the
entire pub as a menacing drunk, Citizen focuses the brunt of his attack on Bloom, accusing him of
"robbing widows and orphans," even as Bloom readies to leave, in order to visit the widow of Paddy
Dignam. Bloom coolly replies to Citizen who becomes indignant when Bloom asserts that Christ, himself,
was a Jew. This altercation is the first of the novel's two dramatic climaxes. When Bloom exits the pub,
the raging drunk hurls a biscuit tin at his head, but Bloom escapes unharmed. Even as the Citizen's
depressed faculties hindered him, he was blinded by the sun, guaranteeing Bloom's victory. The
"Wandering Jew" "ascends" into the heavens and the concluding prose of "The Cyclops" strongly
suggests that Joyce modeled Bloom after Elijah who ascended immediately after completing his course.
While Bloom's problems with Molly remain, his victory in Kiernan's pub anticipates his final
transformation into Stephen's temporary paternal figure. As an Elijah, Bloom passes the "mantle" to
Stephen Dedalus.
The earliest chapter of night is "Nausicaa," which depicts Bloom as an incredibly solemn and tired man.
As he walks the beach of Sandymount Strand we understand that the eclipsing evening corresponds to
his aging and depressing loss of virility. Even though Bloom is only a middle-aged man with a fifteen-
year old daughter, he bears the image of an elderly wanderer. A young woman named Gerty MacDowell
is sitting within their range of mutual sight and as she is overcome with emotional longing and maternal
love, she notices that Bloom is staring at her while he is conspicuously masturbating himself in his
pocket. MacDowell seeks to offer Bloom a "refuge" and she abets his deed by displaying her
undergarments in a coquettish manner. After masturbating, Bloom is enervated, complaining that Gerty
has sapped the youth out of him.
Joyce's deliberate narrative structure produces the interaction between Bloom and Dedalus right as
Bloom contemplates the diminution of his own masculinity and youth. Bloom meets Dedalus in the
National Maternity Hospital, unexpectedly, having arrived to visit Mrs. Mina Purefoy, who had been in
labor for three days. Stephen had accompanied several friends to the Hospital, including Mulligan who
has corrupted his friends into a loud table of young drunks. Bloom worries for Stephen's safety and he
eventually accompanies the young man to "Nighttown," the red-light district where the "Circe" chapter is
set. Undoubtedly, "Circe" is the most memorable chapter of the book: Bloom suffers "hallucinations"
while walking on the street and they continue inside the brothel of Bella Cohen. Joyce's "Circe" employs
Freudian theories of the subconscious, of repression and sexual desire. Bloom's hallucinations conflate
feelings of religious guilt, acts of sado-masochism and the shame of being cuckolded by the popular
ladies' man, Blazes Boylan.
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When Bloom re-emerges from his hallucinations, he finds that Stephen is completely vulnerable, having
degenerated into a limp and intoxicated creature. It is unclear what is causing Stephen to jump around
the room and half-climb the furniture until we see him smash his walking stick into the chandelier,
resisting the ghost of his dead mother who has returned from the grave to use guilt in order to coerce
Stephen into Catholicism. The scene becomes chaotic as Bloom assists Stephen out of Cohen's brothel.
Stephen is alone after his friend Vincent Lynch forsakes him. It is Bloom who tends to Stephen when he
passes out after a pugnacious British soldier delivers a heavy blow, aware that Stephen is incapable of
defending himself. Bloom sees the development as an opportunity to forge a relationship with Stephen.
Bloom succeeds in transporting Dedalus to the Cabman's Shelter for some coffee and they continue their
conversations about love and music in Bloom's home at 7 Eccles Street. Despite Bloom's insistence,
Stephen declines the offer to spend the night in his home and as the novel concludes, it seems likely
that Stephen, like Bloom, must embark upon his own heroic quest. "Penelope," the final chapter of
Ulysses, presents Molly's assessment of Bloom. Just as we come to understand how Bloom's lack of
empathy largely motivated Molly's infidelity, we also come to understand that Molly truly loves her
husband, independent of the question of their marriage.
III. James Joyce – Ulysses [ about Ulysses ]

Ulysses, a Modernist reconstruction of Homer's epic The Odyssey, was James Joyce's first epic-length
novel. The Irish writer had already published a collection of short stories entitled Dubliners, as well as A
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the semi-autobiographical novella, whose protagonist, Stephen
Dedalus, reappears in Ulysses. Immediately hailed as a work of genius, Ulysses is still considered to be
the greatest of Joyce's literary accomplishments and his first two works anticipated what was to come in
Ulysses. The novel was written over the span of several years, during which Joyce continued to live in
self-imposed exile from his native Ireland. Ulysses was published in Paris in the year of 1922--the same
year in which T. S. Eliot published his widely regarded poem, "The Waste Land."
Within English literature, the "Modernist" tradition includes most of the British and
American literary figures writing between the two world wars, and James Joyce is considered among the
likes of T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf: standard-bearers who initiated the Modernist "revolution" against
the Victorian "excesses of civilization." Even today, Ulysses is widely regarded as the most
"revolutionary" literary efforts of the twentieth century if only for Joyce's "stream of consciousness"
technique. In his efforts to create a modern hero, Joyce returned to classical myth only to deconstruct a
Greek warrior into a parody of the "Wandering Jew." Joyce's hero, Leopold Bloom, must suffer the
emotional traumas of betrayal and loss, while combating the anti-Semitism of 1904 Dublin. In place of
Greek stoicism and power, Joyce set a flawed and endearing human being. And while Homer's The
Odyssey only touched upon "epic," dignified themes, Joyce devoted considerably detailed passages to
the most banal and taboo human activities: gluttony, defecation, urination, dementia, masturbation,
voyeurism, alcoholism, sado-masochism and coprophilia-and most of these depictions included the hero,
Bloom.
Joyce saw Ulysses as the confluence of his two previous works. From Dubliners, Joyce borrowed the
fatalistic and naturalistic depictions of a gritty, urban center. Ulysses is impressive for its geography
alone, charting almost twenty hours of Dublin's street wandering, "bar-hopping" and marine commerce.
Even though Joyce took alternate residences in Switzerland, Italy and France, he was able to paint
Dublin from his almost perfect memory. While Leopold Bloom is the major character of the work, Joyce
spends considerable time focusing on Stephen Dedalus, the protagonist of his first work. It is through
Stephen, that Joyce is able to debate the contentious religious and political issues that dominated the
novella. Unsurprisingly, Joyce's portrays Dublin as the semi-complicit victim of Britain's aggression and
the Roman Catholic Church's oppression. Joyce continues his argument as a non-conformist, that the
Roman Catholic Church's structure facilitated corruption and more generally contributed to the alienation
and rot of the human soul as opposed to its uplift.
At the same time, the Irish population was governed by the British and kept under close watch. The
British occupying force humiliated Irish patriots, and this permanent military presence was one of the
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principal obstacles on the path towards Irish "Home Rule." Despite Joyce's resentment towards Britain's
colonial outlook, his most dramatic political evolution since Portrait, is his rejection of Ireland's nascent
nationalist fervor. The patriots and zealots of Ulysses are invariably buffoons or villains. Frequently they
are drunk, and their national agendas usually feature misogynist and anti-Semitic corollaries. Most
notably, Joyce satirizes the campaigned "Renaissance" of the Irish language and we should remember
that Ulysses accomplished the double act of establishing Joyce as the premier stylist of the English
language while giving Ireland a national bard and epic.
But Ulysses' ascension into the literary canon was not a simple one even though the novel sold well in
Paris. Critics heralded Joyce's genius and wit, though the book's incredible opacity, numerous deceptions
and tedious allusions were a source of contention. In Ulysses, Joyce attempted to replicate the thoughts
and activities of genuine human beings, but Joyce's "outhouse humor" even drew criticism from literary
familiars like Virginia Woolf. The allegedly "pornographic" novel was immediately banned in the United
Kingdom as well as the United States. The frank sexuality of the "Penelope" episode and Bloom's sado-
masochistic "hallucinations" in the "Circe" chapter elicited the strongest reactions. Despite the moral
indignation, Ulysses was a smuggled commodity and Joyce's literary stature rose considerably among
literary communities on both sides of the Atlantic. Nonetheless, it was well over a decade before a
Random House court victory initiated the first American publications of the novel, which became
available in Britain two years later.
IV. James Joyce – Ulysses : Characters’ List

1. Bannon, Alec
A friend of "Buck" Mulligan who appears in the "Oxen of the Sun" chapter at the National Maternity
Hospital. He is also familiar with Leopold Bloom's daughter Milly and he discusses her without knowing
that her father is present.
2. Beaufoy, Philip
The writer of the prize-winning story "Matcham's Masterstroke" which Leopold Bloom reads in the
outhouse towards the end of "Calypso." Leopold Bloom, in "Nausicaa," contemplates becoming a writer
as successful as Beaufoy, whose stories have little literary merit.
3. Best, Richard
The librarian who appears in "Scylla and Charybdis" which takes place in Dublin's National Library.
4. Bloom, Leopold "Poldy"
The protagonist of Joyce's mock-epic. Bloom is a "modern" hero in contrast to the Homeric Ulysses.
Throughout the novel, Joyce exposes Bloom, an ad-canvasser, as an outsider and as a Christ-like figure.
Bloom's outsider status stems mainly from the fact that he is a Jew in an overwhelming Roman Catholic
(and frequently anti-Semitic) environment. Moreover, the fact that his wife Molly is having an affair with
the more popular and attractive Blazes Boylan, typifies the emasculating awkwardness that Bloom
suffers throughout the novel. Despite Bloom's substantial weaknesses and numerous foibles, he
emerges as a hero if only for the compassion that he shows towards his fellow man and his
demonstrated artistic sensitivity. Most notably, Bloom, who survives both his father and his son, serves
a father-like role for Stephen Dedalus. The child of foreigners, Leopold Bloom's original family name was
Virag which is Hungarian for flower. In his attempts at a covert affiar with Martha Affiar (via love
letters), Bloom uses the pseudonym Henry Flower; his wife Molly refers to him by the nickname "Poldy".
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5. Bloom, Marcus J
A Bloom who is not related to the Bloom family. The name of this dental surgeon provides confusion in
the "Wandering Rocks" chapter.
6. Bloom, Milly
The fifteen year old daughter of Leopold and Molly Bloom. She is dating Alec Bannon.
7. Bloom, Molly (Marion Tweed)
The wife of Leopold Bloom who has an affair with fellow singer, Blazes Boylan, on June 16, 1904. Molly
is a Spaniard, originally from Gibraltar. As she is aging and growing less attractive, Molly becomes
disgruntled with her married life and engages in an affair with Boylan, though this too seems to leave
her unsatisfied. On a thematic level, Molly plays the role of Penelope to Bloom's Ulysses, though she is
unfaithful, a contrast with the Greek original. Molly's thoughts in the final "Penelope" section are noted
for the frankness with which issues of marriage, sex and emotions are discussed. Molly's maiden name is
Marion Tweed, and this is the name that she often uses when professionally singing.
8. Bloom, Rudolph
the father of Leopold Bloom, who committed suicide in an Italianhotel in 1886. His original name was
Rudolph Virag and the discussion of suicide in the "Hades" brings his death to Leopold's mind. The
widower of Ellen Higgins, Rudolph's ghost appears in the "Circe" chapter which takes place in Nighttown.
9. Bloom, Rudy
the son of Leopold and Molly Bloom. Rudy died on January 9, 1894 when he was 11 days old. The dead
child represents the fact that there will be no future Bloom descendants, despite Leopold's longing for a
son who may become the Messiah. Leopold's vision of Rudy appears at the end of the "Circe" chapter at
the age he would have been had he lived. He is unobservant of Leopold and carries a lamb.
10. Boylan, Blazes
a Dublin singer who has sex with Molly Bloom on the afternoon of June 16, 1904. Boylan is a contrast to
Leopold Bloom in many respects and he appears in several chapters. In the "Wandering Rocks" chapter
we discover that Boylan is simply a flirt, a rather shallow individual. Evidently, Boylan is considered by
his colleagues to be the "best man in Dublin" as is noted in the "Hades" chapter. Again in "Sirens" and in
"Circe," Boylan is hailed as a sexual conqueror, and in "Penelope," Molly suggests that he had four
orgasms during their tryst. Despite his popularity, Molly also reveals that she found his boorish,
unromantic demeanor to be offensive. Further, Boylan loses money in a horserace, betting on a horse
named Sceptre that was heavily favored to win. In this regard, Joyce hints that Bloom, an outsider like
the horse named Throwaway, may be ultimately successful in spite of the odds stacked against him.
11. Breen, Denis
the husband of Josie Breen. He has received a postcard with "U.P.: up" written on it, and is now trying
to sue for libel. He worries his wife Josie, and is mocked by Dubliners in "the Cyclops"
12. Breen, Josie
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the wife of Denis Breen who is worried that her husband is becoming crazy. Molly mocks her in
"Penelope."
13. Byrne, Davy
Leopold Bloom patronizes his pub after leaving the beastly Burton Hotel in "The Lestrygonians." Byrne
discusses Bloom with his friend Nosey Flynn an while they agree that he is an upstanding person, they
also agree that he is noncommittal, standoffish and ambivalent.
14. Caffrey, Cissy
young woman who appears in "Nausicaa" on the beach with her friend Gertrude McDowell. She also
appears in Bloom's hallucination during "Circe"
15. Carr, Harry (Pvt)
a British private in "Circe." He strikes Stephen after accusing him of threatening the king. Private Carr is
seen with Private Compton as well as an Irish young lady who he intends to spend the rest of the night
with. Private Carr is a symbol of the British oppression of the comparatively weaker Ireland.
16. Citizen
the villain in the "Cyclops" episode that takes place in Kiernan's Pub. Citizen is Joyce's satire of anti-
Semitic, rabid patriotism. At the end of the chapter, Citizen throws a biscuit tin at Bloom's head but he
misses, blinded by the sun in his eye. As a parallel to the Cyclops Polyphemus, the Citizen is blind-both
intellectually and physically.
17. Clifford, Martha
the pen-pal of Bloom's alter-ego "Henry Flower." Bloom receives one of Clifford's letters in "Lotus
Eaters" and while Bloom considered the letter-writing to be an escape from his depressing marriage,
Clifford's desire to meet becomes equally concerning.
18. Cochrane
a student of Stephen Dedalus. His inattentiveness in class is depicted at the beginning of "Nestor."
19. Coffey, Father Francis
the priest who performs the burial of Paddy Dignam which takes place in Glasnevin Cemetery. This
occurs in the "Hades" chapter and Coffey is considered to be a parallel to the three-headed Cerberus of
Greek myth, who monitors the gates of Hades.
20. Cohen, Bella
the woman who runs the brothel where Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom spend much of their time in
Nighttown. Bella works in Nighttown to support her son who is studying in Oxford and when Stephen
breaks one of her chandeliers, Cohen tries to rob him of his money. In one of Bloom's emasculating
hallucinations, Bella (a parallel to Circe) assumes the name Bello and becomes Bloom's masculine and
sexually dominating master.
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21. Conmee, Father John
a character from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, who appears at the beginning of "The Wandering
Rocks," remembering his time at Clongowes Wood College. Stephen's days at Clongowes are the subject
matter of Portrait.
22. Corley, John
a young man in "Eumaeus," who borrows money from Stephen as he heads for the cabman's shelter.
Corley is living as a wastrel, having exhausted the benefits of his noble upbringing.
23. Cowley, "Father" Bob
a corrupt priest who appears in "The Wandering Rocks."
24. Crawford, Myles
appears in "Aeolus" as the Editor of the Evening Telegraph. He refuses the bargain that Bloom has made
with Alexander Keyes regarding the advertisement for the House of Keyes. He is unnecessarily terse
with Bloom, during their conversation.
25. Cunningham, Martin
one of the men with whom Bloom shares the carriage to Glasnevin Cemetary for the burial of Paddy
Dignam, in "Hades." Martin's wife has lost her mind and she is in the habit of selling the family furniture
to pawn shops. Cunningham is also present in "The Cyclops" chapter, leaving Kiernan's Pub and
accompanying Bloom to visit the Dignam widow.
26. Dawson, Dan
a satirized patriot whose speech is printed in the morning paper. He is mentioned in "Hades" and again
in "Aeolus."
27. Deasy, Garrett
the windy headmaster of the school where Stephen Dedalus teaches. Deasy is a parallel to "Nestor," and
Stephen Dedalus obliges Deasy by having his ridiculous letter (about Irish cattle) printed in the Evening
Telegraph.
28. Dedalus, Boody
a daughter of Simon Dedalus who derides him in absentia in "Wandering Rocks."
29. Dedalus, Dilly
a daughter of Stephen Dedalus who appears in "Wandering Rocks." After accosting her father outside of
a pub in the hopes of getting money for food, Dilly receives a coin and uses it to by a French primer.
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30. Dedalus, Maggy
a daughter of Stephen Dedalus who fails in her attempt to pawn the books of her brother Stephen.
31. Dedalus, May "Mary"
the mother of Stephen Dedalus who begs him to pray at her deathbed. Stephen is haunted by thoughts
of Mary Dedalus and her ghost appears to him, in "Circe."
32. Dedalus, Simon
Stephen's sociable and alcoholic father. The widower of Mary Dedalus, Simon allows the Dedalus girls to
go hungry as he squanders his time and money throughout Dublin. Simon Dedalus attends Dignam's
funeral in "Hades," and is present in "Aeolus" and "The Sirens."
33. Dedalus, Stephen "Kinch"
Joyce's autobiographical young hero who first appears in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Stephen is one of Joyce's two major characters in Ulysses, and her plays the role of "Telemachus" to
Leopold Bloom's "Ulysses." Stephen is a schoolteacher who has returned to Dublin after spending time in
Paris. Throughout the hours of June 16, Simon is obsessed alternately by the recent death of his
mother, his spiritual departure from Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church, Shakespeare and Hamlet,
as well as his own literary bard-like ambitions. Stephen's self-esteem suffers at the hands of his friends,
particularly his roommate Malachi "Buck" Mulligan. Mulligan has nicknamed Stephen, Kinch, which
means knife-presumably a patronizing reference to Stephen's wit.
34. Dignam, Patrick "Paddy"
the dead acquaintance of Leopold Bloom who is buried at Glasnevin Cemetary in "Hades." Dignam, who
died in a drunken stupor, is considered to be Joyce's parallel to Elpenor, who greets Ulysses in the
underworld, having suffered for his own drunken excesses.
35. Dignam, Patrick
the son of the dead Patrick Dignam who appears twice in "Wandering Rocks." The young man is unable
to concentrate on the magnitude of his father's death and is instead concerned about his shirt collar.
Dignam also considers how his friends and teachers may regard him as a celebrity once the news is
printed in the paper.
36. Dixon
a doctor who recently removed a bee sting from Bloom's side.
37. Dlugacz, Moses
the owner of the butcher shop where Bloom buys a liver in "Calypso." Dlugacz is a Hungarian Jew, like
Bloom, who sees an advertisement for fledgling Jewish settlements in the Promised Land. Presumably a
practicing Jew, Dlugacz is a contrast to Bloom who has become an apostate.
38. Dodd, Reuben J.
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a Dubliner whose stinginess in derided in "Hades." When Dodd's son attempted suicide by drowning, he
was rescued by a passerby to whom Dodd offered a mere florin of gratittude.
39. Dollard, Ben
a popular Dubliner who is known for his large size and singing talent. In "The Sirens," Dollard appears in
the bar of the Ormond, where he sings the patriotic ballad, "The Croppy Boy." Molly once described
Dollard's as a "barreltone" voice, referring to his barrel-size and the fact that he is a baritone.
40. Doran, Bob
a Dubliner who celebrates his annual drinking binge in Kiernan's pub. The drunk performs a somewhat
sinister role alongside Citizen in "Cyclops."
41. Douce, Lydia
a barmaid who works at the Ormond Hotel. The bronze-haired Dubliner first appears in "Wandering
Rocks" before playing the role of a Siren alongside Mina Kennedy in the next chapter, "The Sirens."
42. Driscoll, Mary
a maid who was fired by Molly, who grew jealous of Leopold Bloom's alleged interest in her. Driscoll
appears in one of Leopold's hallucinations in "Circe" and again in Molly's thoughts in "Penelope."
43. Egan, Kevin
an Irish expatriate who is living in Paris. In "Proteus," Stephen remembers him as he is wandering
Sandymount strand.
44. Eglinton, John
a patronizing essayist who appears in "Scylla and Charybdis." Eglinton rejects Stephen's philosophizing
during their discussion in the Dublin's National Library.
45. Farrell, Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall
a Dubliner whose habit of walking outside of lampposts is referred to and presented in several of the
novel's chapters.
46. Fitzharris, James "Skin-the-Goat"
a mysterious figure who allegedly drove the decoy car after the 1882 Phoenix Park Assassinations. In
"Eumaeus," there is discussion that Fizharris is the owner of the cabman's shelter where Bloom takes
Stephen.
47. Flynn, Nosey
a Dubliner who compliments Bloom when he frequents Davy Byrne's pub in "The Lestrygonians."
11
48. Garryowen
the menacing dog in "The Cyclops." Garryowen appears with the Citizen in Kiernan's pub, though he is
owned by a man named Giltrap, the grandfather of Gerty MacDowell who Leopold Bloom encounters in
"Nausicaa."
49. Goulding, Uncle Richie
the brother of Stephen Dedalus' mother, Mary Dedalus. In "Proteus," Stephen considers visiting the
Gouldings, though he decides against it. Richie Goulding is Leopold Bloom's dining partner in the solemn
dining room of the Ormond Hotel in "The Sirens." Gouding's daily doses of backache pills do little for the
decrepitude he now suffers because of the (alcoholic) excesses of his youth.
50. Grogan, Mother
a character of Irish folksong whose moniker identifies the old milkmaid of "Telemachus." As "Mother
Grogan," the old milkmaid is twice the victim of Mulligan's unfettered wit.
51. Haines
the British and anti-Semitic student from Oxford who lives in Martello Tower. In "Telemachus," we learn
that Oxonian is in Ireland to study Irish folklore and in "Scylla and Charybdis," we learn that he and
Mulligan have been invited to a literary event.
52. Hely, Charles Wisdom
a printer for whom Bloom once worked. Hely has hired five men who advertise his establishment
(Hely's) by wearing red letters on large white hats (to spell out H-E-L-Y-S). The men wander Dublin and
appear in "The Lestrygonians" and "Wandering Rocks."
53. Higgins, Ellen
the deceased mother of Leopold Bloom and wife of Rudolph Bloom. The ghosts of Ellen Higgins and her
husband appear to their son, Leopold, on the streets of Nighttown, early on in "Circe."
54. Higgins, Zoe
a prostitute in Bella Cohen's brothel. This namesake of Leopold Bloom's mother, also appears in "Circe"
where she takes Bloom's potato away from him and contributes to the mocking hostility of the brothel.
55. Horne, Andrew J.
a doctor in Dublin's National Maternity Hospital and celebrated in "The Oxen of the Sun" for his
assistance in the three-day labor of Mina Purefoy. His name, "Horne" (Horn), is a reference to the golden
Oxen of the corresponding Homeric episode.
56. Hynes, Joe
12
the reporter in "Hades" who submits an erroneous account of Dignam's funeral. Hynes owes Bloom
money and ignores Bloom's multiple attempts to collect what is owed. Hynes appears again in "The
Cyclops" where he can afford to purchase drinks for himself and his friends.
57. Johnson, Georgina
a prostitute who Stephen has visited. Stephen paid for Johnson's services with the last of the money
borrowed from George Russell.
58. Kelleher, Corny
an undertaker's employee. In "Eumaeus," Kelleher rejects Bloom's call for assistance on behalf of the
unconscious Stephen who has been assaulted by the British Private Carr on the streets of Nighttown.
Kelleher is also on display as part of the Dublin scenery in the second section of "Wandering Rocks,"
entering figures in his daybook while chewing and spitting "hayjuice."
59. Kennedy, Mina
a gold-haired barmaid at the Ormond Hotel who appears alongside fellow barmaid, Lydia Douce, in
"Wandering Rocks" and the subsequent chapter where she and Douce play the role of the Sirens.
60. Keyes, Alexander
the owner of the House of Keyes, a teashop. The advertisement for the House of Keyes begins as a
simple project for Bloom, but its convolutions become the source of Bloom's troubles in "Aeolus" and
necessitate his trip to the National Library in "Scylla and Charybdis."
61. Lenehan
a Dubliner whose disrespect for Bloom is depicted in "Aeolus" when he dances a mazurka as an attempt
to emulate Bloom's gait. Later, in "Wandering Rocks," Lenehan bores an uninterested M'Coy with his
story of an alleged sexual encounter with Bloom's wife, Molly.
62. Lynch, Vincent
a Judas-like friend of Stephen Dedalus. Lynch is present in the National Maternity Hospital in "Oxen of
the Sun," and in "Circe," Lynch is impatient in regards to Stephen's drunken stumbling. After helping to
spend the wages that Stephen received from Deasy that morning, Lynch deserts Dedalus upon exiting
Cohen's establishment.
63. Lyons, Bantam
a Dubliner who misunderstands Bloom's comment in "Lotus-Eaters" and presumes it to be a tip on the
racehorse Throwaway. In "The Lestrygonians," Lyons shares this presumed tip with his fellow gamblers,
Nosey Flynn and Davy Byrne.
64. Lyster, Thomas
the "Quaker Librarian," whose National Library is the setting of "Scylla and Charybdis."
13
65. MacCabe, Florence
an old woman who Stephen sees in "Proteus," imagining her as an ancient midwife. Later, in "Aeolus,"
Stephen tells the Parable of the Plums and names one of its characters Florence MacCabe.
66. MacDowell, Gertrude "Gerty"
a young woman whose beach-side flirtation with Bloom establishes her as a parallel to Homer's
Nausicaa, for whom the chapter is named. Even as she is baby-sitting, accompanied by her friend Cissy
Caffrey, Gerty flashes Bloom with a sight of her thighs and undergarments. MacDowell's name,
"Gertrude," suggests a parallel to the tragic and unfaithful mother of Prince Hamlet. Additionally,
Gertrude's grandfather, Giltrap, is the owner of Garryowen, a menacing dog appearing in "The Cyclops."
67. MacHugh, Hugh
a contributor to the newspaper office's discussions of politics, featured in "Aeolus."
68. Mc'Intosh
an unknown guest at Dignam's funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery whose only discernable characteristic is
the fact that he is wearing a Mc'Intosh (raincoat). While the character only appears once (in "Hades,")
he is recalled in "Eumaeus," when Bloom, reading Hynes' newspaper article, notes that Hynes has
named the man Mc'Intosh.
69. M'Coy, C. P.
a man who is known for borrowing luggage and pawning it. Bloom encounters him in "Lotus Eaters," and
obliges M'Coy by adding his name to the list of those present at Dignam's funeral. M'Coy is present in
"Wandering Rocks," and he coolly rebuffs Lenehan's tasteless boast of an alleged romantic encounter
with Molly Bloom.
70. Menton, John
a guest at Dignam's funeral in "Hades." Menton, a solicitor, dismisses Bloom well-intentioned remark
that his hat had a dent in it. We are to assume that Menton's mistreatment of Bloom dates to their
rivalry for Molly's hand.
71. Mulligan, Malachi "Buck"
the brave and sociable roommate of Stephen Dedalus. Mulligan's extroverted personality is a contrast to
Stephen and Mulligan's patronizing and cruel treatment of Stephen escalates to a physical altercation
before the two separate, perhaps permanently. Mulligan's most defining characteristic is his sacrilegious
and cynical sense of humor. Stephen considers Mulligan to be a "usurper," having ostracized Stephen
from his own home, Martello Tower.
72. Murphy, W. B. (Senor A. Boudin)
14
a sailor in "Eumaeus." He entertains the patrons of the cabman's shelter with his autobiographical
stories. Murphy bears a strong resemblance to Ulysses who also sailed the seas before returning home,
unsure of what has happened in his absence.
73. Nannetti, Joseph Patrick
a newspaper foreman who is the boss of Leopold Bloom. In "Aeolus," Nannetti ignores Bloom who
unsure how to proceed with the Keyes advertisement.
74. O'Molloy, J.J.
appears in the overcrowded newspaper offices in "Aeolus," accidentally hitting Bloom with a door.
75. Pat
a waiter in the restaurant of the Ormond Hotel. In "The Sirens," Pat waits on the table shared by
Leopold Bloom and Richie Goulding.
76. Power, Jack
an occupant of the carriage that Bloom takes to Dignam's funeral in Glasnevin Cemetery. Early in
"Hades," Jack discusses suicide, unaware that Bloom's father killed himself. Power is also present at
Barney Kiernan's pub when the Cyclops character, Citizen, terrorizes Bloom.
77. Purefoy, Mina
the wife of Theodore Purefoy who appears in "The Oxen of the Sun." In a street-side discussion with
Mrs. Breen, Leopold Bloom learns that Mrs. Purefoy (Pure-faith) has been in labor for three days. Bloom
visits Mina in the National Maternity Hospital soon before she gives birth to a healthy son.
78. Russell, George "A.E."
a literary figure who participates in the National Library conversation which occurs in "Scylla and
Charybdis." Russell has previously lent money to Stephen and in "The Lestrygonians," Bloom sees
Russell bicycling with Lizzie Twigg.
79. Sargent, Cyril
an incompetent student of Simon Dedalus. In "Nestor," Sargent's weakness reminds Stephen of his own
failures.
80. Sweny, F. W.
the apothecary in "Lotus-Eaters." Bloom buys a bar of lemon soap from Sweny. Bloom is supposed to
return for Molly's lotion later in the day but he forgets.
81. Talbot
a student of Stephen Dedalus. His transparent cheating techniques are displayed in "Nestor."
15
82. Twigg, Lizzie
a respondent to Bloom's advertisement for a typist. Bloom has rejected Lizzie Twigg in favor of Martha
Clifford and in "The Lestrygonians," Bloom sees Twigg bicycling with George Russell.
83. Ward, William Humble (Earl of Dudley)
the face of British occupation. The afternoon trek of his viceregal carriages provides the chronological
structure of "Wandering Rocks."
V. James Joyce – Ulysses : Chapters Summaries and Analyses
1. Summary and Analysis of Chapters 1-3

Chapter One: Telemachus
Summary:
When James Joyce began writing his novel Ulysses, he had in mind a creative project that brought
together aspects of his two major works Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, while at the
same time incorporating aspects of Homer's epic The Odyssey. The novel Ulysses encompasses a total of
eighteen chapters, tracing the actions of various Dubliners beginning at 8 am on the day of June 16,
1904.
Chapter One opens with the breakfast of three young men: Haines, a British student who
is in Dublin on temporary leave from Oxford; Malachi "Buck" Mulligan, a medical student; and Stephen
Dedalus, the protagonist from Portrait and the central character in the first three chapters of Ulysses.
The three young men are living in Martello Tower, for which only Stephen pays rent as he is the one who
has rented it from the Ministry of War. We immediately discover that there are tense relations between
Mulligan and Stephen; particularly, Stephen feels increasingly ostracized, as Mulligan and Haines
become closer. Further, Buck spares no sympathy in his constant tormenting of Stephen in regards to
the recent death of his mother, Mary Dedalus. Stephen is, in general, the butt of most of Mulligan¹s
jokes.
Particularly, Mulligan teases Stephen that he is responsible for his mother's death because upon seeing
her on her deathbed, he refused her pleas for him to pray, having distanced himself from organized
religion. In this, Mulligan jokes that his aunt has refused to allow him to keep company with Stephen, as
his apostasy is made worse by being the murderer of his mother. Further, Stephen feels distanced from
Haines; Stephen feels that Haines is somewhat patronizing in his attitude towards Stephen's desire to
become a poet. Haines is a British native and both Mulligan and Stephen despise him, though Mulligan
masks his true thoughts with hypocrisy and flattery. Haines appears as a spoiled student and a shallow
thinker. He argues that British oppression is not the cause of Ireland¹s problems; rather "history" is to
blame. Interrupting the young men's conversation about Ireland and its international politics, an old lady
arrives to deliver the morning milk and Stephen finds that he is forced to pay the bill. Soon after
breakfast, the three men leave the Tower to walk along the beach. After making plans to meet Stephen
at a bar called the Ship around noon, Mulligan asks him for his key to the tower. After, forfeiting his key
to Mulligan, Stephen departs from his two roommates, feeling that he has been usurped from his
position.
Analysis:
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Joyce's novel is named after the Greek hero Ulysses (Odysseus, is the original name) who is the central
figure in Homer's The Odyssey. The ancient Greek epic chronicles the many years that the royal warrior
Ulysses spends wandering in his attempts to return home to his throne Ithaca after victory in the Trojan
War. The eighteen chapters of Joyce's Ulysses, though not originally titled, correspond to specific
episodes in Homer's epic. Chapter One is named for Telemachus, the son of Ulysses and his wife
Penelope. Telemachus, a prince who is entering adulthood, sees his castle being overrun by young
suitors who are intent on wooing his mother, and gaining the crown. In this section of The Odyssey,
Telemachus, advised by the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena, decides to head out in search of his
father who is rumored to be dead. His decision to leave the castle is the result not only of his desire to
find his father, but of the usurped feeling that he feels in his own castle where he is the disrespected son
of a forgotten king.
In Joyce's novel, the parallel between the Telemachus passages is central to an understanding of the
work. Joyce's central character is Leopold Bloom, who plays the Ulysses figure (though we do not meet
him until Chapter Four. It is Stephen Dedalus who is the parallel to Homer's Telemachus. It is important
to note though, that it is not Stephen's biological father, Simon Dedalus, who he searches for, but a
paternal figure which Bloom will attempt to play towards the end of the novel when the two main
characters finally meet. Stephen, like Telemachus, is rather obsessed with ideas of paternity and this
establishes a further link to Homer's work and provides the basis for the eventual Bloom-Dedalus
relationship.
The extensive variety of the narrative structures that are employed in Ulysses distinguish Joyce from the
writers that preceded him, and upon reaching a new chapter we can always expect something new from
the author. In Chapter One, the action is narrated largely from the point of view of Stephen Dedalus,
whose interior monologue is presented to us. In fact, most of the information that we glean comes not
from the dialogue between the characters but from Stephen's revealed preoccupation. Stephen's guilt
concerning his mother's death as well as his desperation to become a respected artist are presented
through his thoughts. Further, much of the hostility between Dedalus and Mulligan is unspoken and
Stephen thinks back to several events that we would not be privy to if we could not read his memory.
Dedalus, an intelligent young graduate, is an artistic, philosophical mind on display and in presenting his
thinking patterns to us, Joyce decorates the tracks with what may seem like random references to
obscure trivia. Stephen's mind wanders through poetry, though Irish folk songs, Greek philosophy and
Roman Catholic liturgy as well as memories of his mother's death scene. All of these references are
linked thematically, though, and do bear a direct relationship to the subjects at hand. The consequence
of such a literary approach is scene in the multi-layered "collage" effect that is evident in the work. In
his effort to replicate the manner in which the mind actually processes information, Joyce connects a
series of thoughts or sounds or memories that often times appear as sentence fragments or unfamiliar
syntax that are uncomfortable for the reader. Further, because the mind is moving quickly, we are given
initial pieces of information, and the details are filled in later. This also becomes a powerful literary tool
because characters and ideas that do not bear direct relationship to each other can be brought together
by a character thoughts. For example, when the elderly milk lady arrives, Stephen thinks of an old
folksong that she reminds him of. Later, he imagines her as a witch on a milking stool, again as Mother
Ireland, and finally as the sister of his dead mother, Mary Dedalus. Through Stephen's imagination at
work, the themes of maternity and decay are co-developed. This process only becomes more complex as
the novel progresses, and at times it is difficult to separate Stephen's hyperactive mental activity from
the true narrative action of the novel.
Only a few characters are introduced to us in the first Chapter. Stephen Dedalus, we learn, is a
schoolteacher who has recently returned from Paris upon hearing news that his mother was dying. While
he lives in Martello, an old sea tower rented cheaply from the Department of War, his father Simon
Dedalus and his four younger sisters live in the city. Joyce's depiction of Dedalus, his protagonist from
Portrait, is somewhat critical, but tempered with enough compassion to identify Stephen as an awkward
young man, who will need to match his ambition with realism and maturity if he is to become a
successful poet.
17
The extroverted Buck Mulligan is a severe contrast to his more introverted roommate, Stephen. Buck
seems jovial and self-confident while Stephen is overly self-conscious. While Stephen is sincere in his
questioning of his Catholic upbringing, Buck is merely a sacrilegious jokester who regards nothing as
sacred. While shaving, Mulligan mocks the exaggerated movements of the priests offering sacrament
and upon distributing bread at the breakfast table, Mulligan makes references to the Gospels. His
sacrilegious humor continues throughout the novel. Finally, Stephen feels used by Mulligan who does not
make equal payments towards their living expenses and in fact, frequently borrows money from Stephen
despite the fact that he is significantly wealthier.
Haines, the British Oxonian, is in Dublin to study Ireland and he plans a visit to Dublin's National Library.
Through Haines, we receive much of the discourse of Ireland's political situation-a key theme in Joyce's
1922 novel. Haines argues from a conservative British standpoint, that history-not Britain-is to blame for
Ireland's problems. When the old milkmaid arrives, Haines speaks to her in Irish, hoping that she will
understand; ironically, she does not know Irish but mistakes it for French. Neither Stephen nor Mulligan
enjoys the company of Haines, the aristocratic intellectual, and his presence illustrates another
difference between Stephen and Mulligan. While Stephen tries to avoid Haines, Buck flatters him and
uses the British gentleman to ostracize Stephen and impose control over him.
Throughout the novel, names have important meaning and Chapter One is no different. Stephen
Dedalus, feels self-conscious because his Greek name, "Dedalus" is not Irish. Dedalus was the artisan
father of Icarus, who fashioned wings for the two of them to escape from a prison tower. This is
particularly resonant given Stephen's thoughts of exile and escape from Martello and Ireland. Buck has
several nicknames for Stephen, whose birth name means crown. Among Stephen's nickname is the
name "Kinch" which means knife; this is often interpreted as a reference to Stephen's quick, sharp mind.
The fact that Stephen means crown indicates that, like Telemachus, Stephen has a royal potential that is
presently unrealized.
Mulligan's name also bears insight into his character. The nickname "Buck" is accurate for the coarse,
brusque joker and Joyce is not sympathetic to Mulligan, despite the fact that Mulligan is a rather popular
figure. The fact that he is nicknamed after an animal-as opposed to "Kinch"-is to hint at the fact that
despite his comic wit, Mulligan is not as deep and sincere a thinker as Dedalus. Equally important, a
parallel is eventually developed between the treatment suffered by Dedalus on account of Mulligan and
the treatment that Leopold Bloom suffers on account of Hugh "Blazes" Boylan, the man who sleeps with
his wife. Not only do the names share the letter B (Buck, Blazes, Boylan) but there is an alliterative
resemblance between Malachi Mulligan and Blazes Boylan. Finally, Malachi is the name of the last book
of the Christian Bible's Old Testament, named for its author, a Jewish priest who prophecies Christ the
imminent Messiah. This is extremely ironic because in every conversation, Mulligan satirizes the church.
In the opening scene of the novel, Malachi Mulligan describes Stephen as a "fearful Jesuit" and imitates
the priests reforming holy rituals.
The opening chapter is heavy with foreshadowing and a series of themes are established foreshadowing
the appearance of Bloom in Chapter Four. Particularly, the anti-Semitic ideas expressed by Haines and
echoed by Mr. Deasy in Chapter Two, bear particular resonance when we discover that Bloom is a Jew.
The extensive references to Prince Hamlet and his ghosts begin an extensive discourse on Shakespeare
that culminates with the apparition of Mary Dedalus. Finally, the rift between Stephen Dedalus and his
friends only grows wider and eventually becomes his most primary concern.
Additionally, several of Joyce's opening themes are developed by the references that he makes to other
literary and philosophical works. Dedalus' thoughts consistently refer to the German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche who developed the idea of a Superman (Ubermensch) and this becomes important in
his thoughts later in the day concerning the United Kingdom and Ireland, the overwhelming role of the
Catholic Church and the desperation of Dublin's urban poor. At this moment though, Dedalus
humorously applies the theory of the Superman to the fact that Mulligan, who is wealthier than he is, is
taking his money. While Joyce also makes references to religious texts--both Biblical and liturgical--as
well as Greek and Irish literature, the most important literary allusions are the Shakespearean ones.
18
Joyce's Shakespearean references continue throughout every chapter of the novel and bear extreme
thematic importance.
One of the most important ideas in Chapter One, is that while Stephen is a modern "Telemachus" figure,
he is more accurately a modern "Prince Hamlet." The title prince of the Shakespearean tragedy, suffers
after the death of his father who appears as a ghost. The ghost of King Hamlet informs his son that King
Claudius (brother of dead King Hamlet) is guilty of fratricide; he has killed Hamlet both to wed his wife
Gertrude as well as claim the throne. Having burdened his son with his spectral presence, King Hamlet
urges the prince to seize revenge and Hamlet's mission produces the tragic conclusion of the drama.
There are of course, parallels between the princes Telemachus and Hamlet, and Joyce seeks to exploit
these overlaps. Like Hamlet, Joyce's Telemachus (Stephen) is brooding and overly contemplative.
Throughout the one day of the novel's narrative action (June 16, 1904), Stephen continually relives the
quandary of Hamlet's famous question "To be or not to be." In his struggle to become a poet, in his
lingering loyalties to kin, country and church, in his efforts to remove himself from burdensome
disingenuous friends, Stephen, a modern Hamlet, must arrive at some sort of self-definition. When this
occurs, towards the end of the novel, it is one of the novel's narrative climaxes.
Joyce's wit is at work in Chapter One and we immediately find marvelous intricate narrative details that
link Stephen to the play Hamlet. The early morning seascape of Stephen's tower resembles the early
morning action of the Shakespearean drama. While Hamlet paces upon the heights of the royal tower
Elsinore thinking upon the vision his father's ghost, Stephen ponders thoughts of his dead mother and
explicitly refers to his own tower, Martello, as his Elsinore. The motif of the key and the tower is
essential to the stories of Hamlet, The Odyssey and the passage of The Metamorphoses in which Ovid
narrates the escape of Icarus and Dedalus.
Another explicit reference is seen in the words of Mulligan who refers to Stephen as a "bard," mockingly
minimizing Dedalus' poetic ambitions by comparing him to the lyrical giant Shakespeare. While Stephen
suffers the paternity obsessions of Hamlet and Telemachus, much of the imagery surrounding the dead
father is applied to Mary Dedalus, despite the fact that Stephen engages upon a "search for paternity" of
his very own. Despite the entangling of motifs, it is important to keep these two ideas separate. Indeed,
Joyce (through Stephen) later contrasts the ideas of maternity and paternity.
Further parallels between Prince Hamlet and Stephen Dedalus as Telemachus can be seen in other
details of their young adulthood. While Hamlet has recently returned home to find his mother wed to the
uncle that killed his father, Stephen has also recently returned home to see his mother die. In Stephen
Dedalus, we find the confluence of Prince Hamlet and Telemachus. Hamlet embarks upon an academic
or psychological journey to find his father (he must determine the authenticity of the ghost and the
veracity of its claims) and Telemachus who begins a true journey to find his missing father, rumored to
be dead. Stephen's psychological journey touches upon his loyalties an increasing distance to his home
while his geographical journey brings him from Paris to Dublin, in contact with the paternal Bloom and
into serious considerations of self-exile. To the degree that Ulysses, like Portrait, is loosely
autobiographical, Joyce intends to elevate the importance of Stephen's literary ambitions. Far from being
just another budding poet, Stephen (as a 22-year old James Joyce) intends to give Ireland its national
epic and this is to be the equivalent of the political efforts of Prince Hamlet and Telemachus' efforts to
reclaim what has been lost.
The "crowned prince" motif links Stephen to the two princes that he is based on, to the degree that he is
willing to accept and successfully negotiate his relationship with Ireland. All three of these young men
(Stephen, Hamlet and Telemachus) are defenders of a tower. The most dramatic piece of evidence
confirming this is Stephen's final and unspoken word, which is, in fact, the last word of the first chapter:
Usurper. A usurper is an individual who successfully lays claim to what rightfully belongs to another. The
word "usurper" is a direct lift from Hamlet, where Prince Hamlet repeats the word throughout the play in
reference to his uncle Claudius, who unjustly reigns in Hamlet's stead. In The Odyssey, the young
suitors of Penelope are usurpers in a fashion similar to Shakespeare's Claudius, shutting out both the
dead king and his living son. Stephen regards Mulligan as a usurper for taking the key to Martello
19
Tower; again, Joyce uses a comparatively mundane concern (Stephen's loss of the key) to connect him
to literary themes that indicate that something larger is at stake.
As a result of the literary structure of the first chapter and its somber literary allusions, Ulysses opens
with a pensive, somewhat gloomy tone. Stephen is brooding and depressed and because his thoughts
are the only ones relayed to us, his personal mood wholly determines the mood of the chapter.
Stephen's thoughts of struggle, exile and death further shadow the chapter and because it is the
opening of the novel and his quest, we sense that there will be myriad difficulties to overcome. Despite
the melancholy of Stephen Dedalus, Joyce does manage to slip in a few humorous episodes. Most
notably, the old milk lady provides a comic semi-distraction from the chapter's weighty themes. As a
comic fool, the milk lady's physical appearance as "Old Mother Grogan" is satirical of typical old women.
Her error of mistaking Irish for French is especially laughable, not only because the two sound dissimilar
but because of her remark on the subject: "I'm told it's a grand language by them that knows." Even in
this detail, Joyce is not simply being comic. The fact that the old Irish woman does not even recognize
her language is to be factored into Haines' commentary on the renaissance of Irish nativist language and
literature. This is a theme that recurs in Ulysses.
Joyce's somewhat twisted sense of humor occurs again when he uses Stephen's imagination to mix
satire and symbolism. The milk lady, having become Old Mother Grogan, a character from an Irish folk
song, is envisioned as a Mother Ireland, because of her age and her connection to the folk-all this,
despite the fact that she does not recognize her native language. Further, Dedalus' word play hints of
Mother Grogan as one of the Gorgon sisters from Greek myth. She is then a witch on a milking stool (as
opposed to a toadstool) and then one of the Wyrd sisters from the epic Beowulf. Most important, Joyce
establishes the milk lady in a series of women who are to stand as symbols for various ideas.
Specifically, Stephen mentally links the old woman to his mother who has died and makes an argument
about maternity when he imagines the soured milk of Mother Grogan as the sour green bile that Mary
Dedalus coughed up on her deathbed. Having fused the images of the milk (representing birth) and the
bile (representing death), Stephen then projects them onto the sea, which he describes as a "bowl of
green water." In his association of Mary Dedalus with the old milk lady, Stephen draws the final
conclusion that his Mother Ireland is dying and her nourishment for the young is becoming sour.
Because of his extensive use of polarized symbols in marking almost all of his female characters, Joyce's
work has suffered some critical displeasure. In severe contrast to several of the characters in his
collection Dubliners, all of the women in Ulysses carry a symbolic importance that supercedes their
narrative importance, with the possible exception of Bloom's wife, Molly. By the time that the novel
concludes in Molly's "Penelope" chapter, old midwives, young virgins, prostitutes and mothers have been
lumped together into one female character. Despite the somewhat valid criticism, it is also worth noting
that Joyce's female characters in Ulysses greatly foreshadow his later and final work, Finnegan's Wake,
in which all of the characters are only symbols; their names and biographical information become
interchangeable and eventually unimportant.
Besides this recurring motif, there are a few others that are important because they appear in other
chapters. Joyce is notorious for his puns, and he frequently evaluates the contrast between cleanliness
and dirtiness. In this chapter there are references to the dirty sea washing clean and clean milk as well
as sour. The motif of the key and tower, links Stephen to Bloom, who will forfeit his key as well. The
motif of the key and tower also becomes a political argument in terms of the Irish desire for "Home
Rule" in place of British occupation. The fact that Ulysses is chiefly the story of two wanderers, Stephen
and Bloom, is a narrative parallel to the Homeric epic, but this is only enforceable because neither of the
two have their keys with them. They are, in a sense, exiled from home.
A final motif in Chapter One, is the motif of music. Throughout the chapter, Joyce uses fragments of
songs to forward the narrative plot and also provide philosophical depth and fuse different images
together. All the while, the music is part of the plot itself. In this chapter, we find Buck's mocking of the
Eucharistic ceremony, Irish drinking songs, a folk ballad entitled "Mary Ann" and the song that Stephen
20
sang to his dying mother: "Love's bitter mystery." In this chapter, as with several others, the motif of
liquid (water or milk) is connected with the music that is sung or referenced.
Finally, Joyce uses these motifs and a few others, to establish the major themes of his novel. He does
this early on and by the end of "Telemachus," the reader already has a sense of the four themes of
Ulysses, despite the fact that the hero, Leopold Bloom, has not yet appeared. The first theme of the
novel, stems from the political climate of Joyce's time. Written in 1922, Ulysses (like many of Joyce's
preceding works) evaluates the political struggle for Irish independence. Set in 1904, the Dublin of
Ulysses is a city in which the heated discussions of political independence, violence in response to British
military occupation and the veneration of fallen heroes, run parallel to the academic "parlor-talk" of the
Irish literary renaissance, the rebirth of the Irish language and the rejection of Anglophilic culture.
The concept of "Home Rule," for Joyce, encompasses both the political and cultural questions and while
he examines the British critically, the author is equally critical of the Irish patriots, many of whom opt
for isolation or nativism. Particularly, Joyce takes offense at the sentimentalists who continually assert
that Ireland needs her young people to save her; rather, Joyce argues that the conservative conventions
of Ireland are stifling Irish youth. In Stephen's memorable remark to Haines makes this evident: "I am a
servant of two masters, an English and an Italian...And a third there is who wants me for odd jobs."
Here, Stephen uses a Biblical allusion, arguing that Ireland suffers equally under British and Catholic
oppression, all the while trying to enlist young people for a few "odd jobs" of her own.
In his depiction of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, Joyce continues a theme that he embarked
upon in Portrait. Again, Joyce develops the theme of faith opposed to dissent, and again, Joyce is mostly
critical of the organized church. Stephen Dedalus seeks to sever the ties that bind him to his Roman
Catholic upbringing but Joyce develops the argument that Roman Catholicism is an integral part of
Ireland. The sea, for example, bears reference to the Eucharist. The sacrilegious Mulligan cannot eat
bread without making reference to Christian symbols. Stephen, who is a dissenter, suffers more religious
occupations than any other Joycean character. Even as Stephen is able to politically divorce himself from
Ireland, he is unable to completely divorce himself from the Church. A final treatment of the religious
theme is seen in the concept of the Virgin Mary whose Joycean depiction resembles both Mary Dedalus
and Mother Ireland. Joyce's argument is simply that in Ireland, Irish and Catholic are indistinguishable.
We will find that despite Bloom's desire to be included, his non-Catholic heritage prevents him from
being accepted. Ironically, Stephen cannot escape from Ireland because of Catholicism's fetters.
A third theme that Joyce begins in Chapter One is the idea of the solitary individual. Dedalus suffers the
typical artist's melancholy, but his solitude is also constructed to parallel Christ and Hamlet. Both
Stephen and especially Bloom feel estranged from their countrymen and the rebukes and discomforts
they suffer from their acquaintances testify to a larger alienation.
Finally, Joyce's most central theme is the concept of love. Specifically, Joyce embarks upon a search for
its definition and its potentially salvific role in modern life. The musical phrase, "Love's bitter mystery" is
repeated throughout the novel and pondered by all of the central characters. Joyce evaluates the love
between a mother and son, between a father and son, between a citizen and country, colony and Mother
country, between friends and brothers, between God and man, and most important in the novel,
between husband and wife. Joyce's discussions of love are always furthered by immediate questions of
fidelity. Stephen's love song is challenged by the fact that he denied his mother's dying request.
Stephen's Latin invocation of Buck as his friend, is immediately challenged by Mulligan's disloyalty in his
preference for Haines. This foreshadows the more serious question of Molly Bloom's infidelity, after
which both Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus find themselves heartily investigating the nature of love
as chief among human emotions.
Chapter Two: Nestor
Summary:
21
About an hour after "Telemachus" ends, we find Stephen teaching ancient history and the classics to a
disrespectful class of wealthy boys. Neither Stephen nor the students are particularly interested in the
lesson which concerns the martial exploits of the Greek hero, Pyrrhus. Armstrong, the class clown, is
disruptive and Talbot, a lazy cheater who is reading the answers out of his book, does not bother to hide
his act from Stephen, who tells him to 'turn the page" when he stammers at his final response. Stephen
struggles to keep the class in order and it is clear that they disrespect him. Eventually, even Stephen is
distant and half-hearted in his participation and he eventually gives up his attempt to quiz the students
on their classics lesson.
Later, the young boys ask Stephen to tell them ghost stories and riddles instead of their lesson. Upon
recess, one pathetic student named Cyril Sargent asks Stephen for assistance with his multiplication
tables and Stephen is reminded of his mother as he considers the fact that only a mother could love as
pitiful a creature as what he and Cyril must have been. Stephen considers his roommate Haines to be
much like the spoiled students to whom he must cater. Because he feels that his students are incapable
of learning, and because he feels that his intellectual talents are being wasted in his current position,
Stephen does not care about his job and is already considering leaving his position.
At the end of the chapter, the schoolmaster, Mr. Deasy, gives Stephen his meager pay for the month.
and annoys the young teacher with trite advice on lending money, pro-British and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Mr. Deasy continues with an unintelligent attempt at philosophy as well as Shakespearean criticism. At
the close of the chapter, Mr. Deasy asks Stephen to examine his letter on a cattle-disease that has
caused foreign economic powers to consider an embargo on Irish cattle. Deasy intends for Stephen to
use his contacts to get the letter, which is full of misstatements and incorrect assertions, printed in the
Evening Telegraph.
Analysis:
In The Odyssey, Nestor is he long-winded elderly man whom Telemachus visits before he sets sail. The
young prince is in search of advice and information about his father. Nestor is hospitable and good
intentioned but unfortunately he is of little aid, and his interminable commentary is worthless to
Telemachus. As Stephen continues his passage, his path crosses Mr. Deasy who, like Nestor, offers
worthless advice. Another parallel between Mr. Deasy and Nestor can be seen in the imagery of shells
and horses connected to both characters. Not only does Deasy's school offer instruction in Greek military
history, but he jokingly refers to intense debate as "breaking a lance," a somewhat ironic parallel to
Nestor, who is a veritable war hero despite his foibles. While Homer's Nestor was developed as a parody,
Joyce's Deasy goes further. In his commentary on borrowing and lending, Deasy resembles Hamlet's
Polonius who spits out empty platitudes. A parallel between Stephen and Nestor could be seen in
Stephen's failure in his role as a teacher.
The chapter opens in Stephen's classroom and again, the reader must rely upon Stephen's interior
monologue to discover what is happening. While he teaches his students, we get his opinion of them and
his half-hearted lecture his mind wanders over various topics. When depicting the conversation between
Stephen Dedalus and Mr. Deasy, Joyce writes in an impartial narrative voice to avoid a judgmental tone
while satirizing the anti-Semitic and insular schoolmaster. Joyce consciously avoids editorializing and
allows Mr. Deasy to condemn himself with his own words.
Despite the fact that Stephen has left Haines and Mulligan, there is no indication that most of his
relationships outside of Martello Tower are any more fulfilling. In his description of his students, Stephen
suggests that the schoolboys are similar to Haines and Stephen openly resents their wealth. The class
consciousness that Stephen feels in his interactions with Mulligan and Haines becomes more explicit in
this chapter. At the same though, Stephen is able to forge a bond with Cyril Sargent who figures as a
younger Stephen, the same way that Stephen will later figure as a younger Leopold Bloom. Just as this
relationship is foreshadowed, Deasy's anti-Semitic comments and Anglophilic sensibilities make him the
first in a series of ardent patriots who will cause trouble for our protagonists, Dedalus and Bloom.
22
In Chapter Two as in others, Joyce makes several Shakespearean references that will prove valuable to
the careful reader. Alluding to Hamlet, as well as Macbeth and Julius Caesar, Joyce's Dedalus thinks of
scenes of betrayal and guilt while struggling to pay attention to Deasy's lecture about saving and
lending. In place of the Irish love songs and Aristotelian theory presented in Chapter One, "Nestor"
contains lines from Irish political songs and references Greek military history. In this chapter, which
largely focuses on economic and political themes, Joyce's tone is largely satirical. In contrast to the
inflated rhetoric of Deasy, who emulates the British pride in saying "I paid my way," we learn that he is
the collector of "symbols soiled by greed and misery." As we will see with other citizens later in the
novel, Deasy's anti-Semitic humor falls flat, and rather ironically, the end of the chapter is a scene in
which sunlight rains down upon Mr. Deasy's "wise shoulders"
A collector of shells, Mr. Deasy himself becomes a similar symbol of the decay and emptiness that
Ireland suffers. Deasy regards his shell collection as dearly as his collection of coins and Joyce is clearly
making the argument that the economic greed that goads men like Mr. Deasy into "wanting to become
British" is destructive to the cause of Irish independence. Despite the fact that Mr. Deasy considers
himself to be a patriot, Joyce suggests that Ireland's salvation is not through economic growth.
Ironically, Deasy's money-obsessed rhetoric is interspersed with Stephen's thoughts of various Irish
patriotic songs whose images jar with Deasy's mania. In one of the more explicit passages of a usually
opaque novel, Joyce goes as far as to allude to various figures and parties involved in Irish politics,
including Parnell, Sinn Fein and the Fenians. The theme of the citizen's love of Ireland-loosely
established in Chapter One-gets more treatment here.
While there are no female characters in "Nestor," the theme of love between a man and a woman is also
developed further. In his hasty chronology of human history, Deasy confuses several concepts and
conflates several characters before arriving at the misogynistic conclusion that women-or the love of
women-inevitably brings the downfall of man. The schoolmaster makes reference to Eve, but
interestingly enough, he also refers to Helen of Troy. Mr. Deasy also mentions the woman whose affair
with Parnell ended the political leader's movement for Irish independence (while Parnell was disgraced
by an affair, Mr. Deasy names the wrong woman). In The Odyssey, Homer constructs a series of females
including the Sirens, Calypso and Circe, temptresses who will destroy the hero should his expression of
love make him vulnerable. Joyce's treatment of love between the sexes largely follows classical Greek
lines. In both the husband/wife and mother/son relationships, the lines between devotion and
temptation, protection and destruction are blurred.
Stephen's thoughts on his student Cyril Sargent and their relationships with their mothers form the
emotional peak of "Nestor." Of course, Stephen is more inclined to think of Cyril in relationship to his
mother, not because he knows Mrs. Sargent or particularly cares about Cyril, but because of the
lingering ghost of his dead mother. The theme of the mother/son relationship is developed in the image
of Stephen and Cyril as weak sons who are in desperate need of their mother's assistance. Dedalus
describes their consistency as that of "weak watery blood;" ironically, it is Dedalus' mother who has
suffered a "weak watery" death. The son and mother seem to function in tandem, a relationship in which
only one can be strong and the other weak. The devotion that Stephen failed to express at his mother's
deathbed is expressed in his riddle that he tells his students of the fox who is burying his grandmother.
This important motif recurs throughout Stephen's thoughts in later chapters.
Chapter Three: Proteus
Summary:
After 11 AM, Stephen Dedalus wanders along Sandymount strand (a beach) to waste time before he is
to go to the Ship at 12:30 to meet Mulligan and Haines. Though, in the end, Stephen decides not to go
to the Ship to see Mulligan. This occurs immediately after the "Nestor" episode at Mr. Deasy's school and
Stephen is still disgruntled by his unpleasant experience with Mr. Deasy and also feels burdened because
he has to carry Mr. Deasy¹s inane letter to the Evening Telegraph. Later in the chapter, Stephen sits on
23
a rock and pencils in a few corrections, in an effort to make his upcoming trip to the newspaper office
less embarrassing.
After walking for several miles, Stephen considers visiting his mother's family (the Gouldings) but after
imagining what his father's objections would be, he decides against it. Stephen imagines a vivid scene of
what would transpire if he did decide to visit the Gouldings. He imagines his Uncle Richie Goulding who
is laid up in bed as he suffers the consequences of decades of alcoholism. As usually, "nuncle Richie"
would be singing Italian opera while cousin Walter ran around the house in search of backache pills for
his father. In another room, Mrs. Goulding would no doubt be bathing one of the myriad young children
running around the house.
As he walks on the beach, Stephen considers different philosophical questions on what is real and what
is only perceived, on the relationship of the symbol versus the symbolized, as well as the human senses
and how they interact and overlap. Stephen expresses his feelings of solitude as his mind wanders on
the real and imagined figures that surround him on Sandymount and he imagines himself to be in Paris,
in the company of his friend, Kevin Egan. Dedalus¹ friend, Egan, was reputed to be a socialist and after
exiling himself to Paris, unlike Stephen, he never returned to Ireland.
Analysis:
In Homer's two epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, we learn of Menelaus, a king who was married to
Helen, the beautiful woman who was kidnapped by Paris, a prince in the city of Troy. It was this
abduction that caused Menelaus to unite the Greek kings and attack Troy. After the ten years of the
Trojan War, Menelaus returned home with his wife Helen and Telemachus visits the king on his passage
in search of Ulysses. Menelaus offers hope that Ulysses is still alive on the seas and he tells the prince of
Proteus, the sea god. Just as the derivative word "protean" indicates, Proteus was famous for being able
to alter his physical form. While there is no narrative parallel between the episode from The Odyssey
and the "Proteus" chapter, there is a philosophical one. Just as Proteus, like the sea, continually changed
his form, Stephen considers ideas of form in terms of metamorphosis, perception and deception.
Another parallel to the "Proteus" theme can be seen in the literary technique employed in the third
chapter's narrative structure. Joyce's technique is called "stream of consciousness," and it is presented
as a recording of Stephen's thoughts and ideas without many of the standard grammatical structures to
which readers are accustomed. Because of the "stream" of the Stephen's thoughts and how they are
presented, it is very difficult to differentiate between the beach scenes that are occurring around him
and his own thoughts on various subjects. Often times, one informs the other. One example is Stephen's
encounter with a dog named Tatters who is digging in the beach sand. Upon seeing Tatters, Stephen
remembers the riddle of the fox that is burying his grandmother and decides that the dog must be doing
the same thing. Later on in "Proteus," Stephen passes a man and a woman strolling in the opposite
direction and Stephen re-imagines them as a couple that might have passed him on the streets during
his time in Paris.
Even after Stephen decides not to visit the Gouldings, he mentally enacts the scene of his arrival and the
bedraggled appearance of his bedridden uncle, Richie Goulding. It is only because we hear the shells
under Stephen's feet that we know he is still walking on the beach and only imagining the visit. This sort
of technique not only considers the interaction of Stephen's different senses but also plays upon the
reader's senses. We receive the image of his imagined visit as if it were real. Joyce seeks to present,
distort and deceive the reader, just as the sea-god and Stephen's mind are in a constant state of flux.
Further more, the third chapter is notorious for Stephen's rather erudite philosophical considerations.
The opening phrase of the chapter ("ineluctable modality of the visible") is among the most notorious of
Joyce's excesses in obscurity. While subtle references to Aristotelian theory dominates the chapter, there
are also references to Dante's Divine Comedy, the writing of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats and John Milton's
Paradise Lost. There are also multiple musical references to Irish ballads, French chansons and Italian
opera. The simplicity and frankness of Bloom, who appears in the next chapter, will be a sharp contrast
24
to Stephen, who theorizes in several languages during his beach stroll. The fact that Stephen is so lost in
thought is an indication of how far removed he is from reality.
Only a few characters are presented in this chapter which is almost exclusively a transcript of Stephen's
mental activity. Joyce's ability to create portraits using very few words becomes evident. One minor
character who will appear again later in the novel is an elderly woman by the name of Mrs. Florence
MacCabe, who Stephen imagines as a midwife. She and her female companion are carrying dark black
bags and Stephen concludes that there is some "misbirth" (a miscarriage) cradled inside. The irony of an
elderly midwife carrying a dead child is reinforced by the fact that MacCabe is a widow who lives on
Bride Street. Later in the novel, Stephen's imagination will re-employ MacCabe to make the argument
that females, in opposition to males, are the endpoints on the continuum of life.
As is unsurprising, Stephen's imagined characters reveal more about his own thoughts than the actual
lives of the various Dubliners that he passes. The morbidity of Stephen's thoughts of Tatters burying his
fictitious grandmother is explained by Stephen's image of his devoted cousin Walter caring for "nuncle
Richie" on his deathbed. The tired refrain "Papa's little lump of love," reinforces Stephen's guilt
concerning his desertion of his mother when she was on her deathbed. Besides the parallel to his cousin,
Walter Goulding, he also gather more information about Stephen to compare him to two of his
acquaintances.
In Paris, Stephen met Kevin Egan, a young Irishman in France who lived in self-exile. Stephen's later
reflections on him reveal his own hesitation and concomitant urge to leave Ireland again. He notes that
while Kevin Egan easily forgot Ireland, Ireland had not forgotten him. While Stephen is eager to be
remembered, we find that he is reluctant to forget Ireland. Another parallel can be seen in Stephen's
initial fear of the dog Tatters, in contrast to his roommate, Mulligan, who once saved a dog from
drowning.
As may be expected, many of Joyce's "portraits" in "Proteus" are humorous despite the weighty subject
matter of Stephen's thoughts. Joyce paints a picture of Richie Goulding, whose veneer of middle-class
respectability is wearing thin. He is a suffering alcoholic who relies upon backache pills to eliminate the
sufferings of his youthful excesses. Goulding's sickbed is described as throne-like and his crown is one of
dirty grey hair.
The themes of death and decay that began the novel are continued in "Proteus." The shell motif that
was begun in Deasy's school, continues with the metaphors of Irish souls as emptied shells and empty
ships, collectibles that are the casualties of foreign conquest. The drowning motif that began with the
"drowning" of Mary Dedalus, who choked on her bile, and the drowning of Dedalus' son, is repeated in
the bloated carcass that surfaces. Further, Mary's brother Richie refers to his own "lowering" bedside
water, a direct parallel to her "bowl of green bile." The musical motif becomes somewhat hyperbolic in
the scene where Uncle Richie's recitation from Il Trovatore is juxtaposed with narrative exposition of
some of Dublin's poorest and most miserable souls.
The theme of solitude is echoed in the shell motif and is Stephen's most recurring thought. After
imagining the scenario of each of the creatures around him, Stephen always returns to the observation
that he is alone. This self-realization is most excruciating towards the end of "Proteus" when Stephen
leans against the hard rocks and sighs, wishing that there was some person who might give him a soft
touch. A ship called the Rosevean ends the chapter on a somber note. The triple mast of the boat is a
replication of the hillside crucifixion of Christ, foreshadowing Stephen's inevitable lonely suffering.

Chapter Four: Calypso
Summary:
25
Chapter Four marks the opening of Part Two, beginning at 8am with Leopold Bloom in his house on 7
Eccles Street. It is breakfast time at the Bloom residence as was the case in Martello, and the scene that
we encounter is one of fractured domesticity. Bloom's wife, Molly, is asleep in the bed and their
daughter Milly is away. Joyce's focus on Bloom's thoughts is a contrast to Stephen's intellectualism.
When he wakes up, Bloom¹s primary concern is to get breakfast made before his wife is stirring. He
likes to serve Molly breakfast in bed, and Molly is very specific about how she likes her toast corners cut
and her morning tea served. After beginning preparations for her breakfast and serving the cat her milk,
Bloom quickly departs for the butcher shop in search of a nice cut of pork kidney for his own breakfast.
He later burns the kidney when he spends too much time assisting Molly upstairs.
Indeed, Joyce's Ulysses is more of a comic hero than an epic figure, a resemblance to
Cervantes' Don Quijote. Bloom is doomed to wander for the day because he has left his key in the pair
of pants that he wore the previous day and he is afraid to go upstairs and disturb his wife Molly. Like
Stephen, Bloom is rather submissive in his relationships. Bloom, for example, is aware of the fact that
his wife is having an affair with Blazes Boylan, a younger man with whom she professionally sings. Molly
has received a letter from Boylan that morning and Bloom is aware that Molly and Boylan plan to
consummate their relationship that very afternoon. Additionally, Bloom is also concerned that his
daughter's innocence may be imperiled on account of her new suitor; Bloom simply shrugs this off and is
passive, if not fatalistic.
We learn a little about Bloom's sexual preferences in his rather obsessive voyeurism. When Bloom goes
to the Dlugacz butcher shop, he attempts to pursue a young girl at the hope of catching a glimpse of her
underwear. Towards the end of the chapter, Bloom is dressing in all black on account of the funeral of
his acquaintance, Paddy Dignam. And the chapter ends when Bloom takes a trip to the outhouse and
expresses his concern about again while reading a serialized story which leads him to consider taking up
a literary career to make more money.
Analysis:
This chapter is named for Calypso, a nymph who held Ulysses as a captive for seven years. The parallel
between Homer's story and Joyce's "Calypso" is rather ironic as it is Bloom's wife Molly who parallels
Calypso, when she ought to be a parallel to Ulysses' wife Penelope. Molly stays in bed, half asleep and
orders Bloom around the house. While Ulysses was a captive of Calypso who tried to prevent him from
reaching his home, Molly holds him captive in his own home. Like Ulysses, Bloom will have to leave
captivity, free himself, and then re-enter the home. The painting of The Bath of the Nymph reinforces
the Calypso imagery of Molly, and the Bloom's address, 7 Eccles Street, corresponds to Ulysses' seven
years of captivity.
Bloom's thoughts are recounted for the reader, much as Stephen's were. In contrast to Stephen's
Aristotelian logic, Bloom expresses his thoughts in terms of simple science. Unlike Stephen, Bloom's
thinks more on the mechanics of the physical world surrounding him. Nonetheless, both characters are
in denial and are unable to adequately address the concerns posed by their relationships. In his
depiction of Bloom, Joyce develops the imagery of Ulysses as a wanderer and fuses it with the motif of
the Wandering Jew of European legend. Because Bloom works as an ad canvasser for The Freedman
Journal, his job requires that he wander the city in search of new advertisements and account renewals.
Both Bloom and Stephen are outsiders who are keyless and dressed in all black.
Joyce's depiction of Bloom is very humorous. Upon the conclusion of the chapter we find our hero as a
voyeur who is obsessed with food and defecation. Despite the fact that he knows his wife is planning to
fornicate with a younger man, he is hapless in response. Instead of a key, he carries a potato in his
pocket. His subservience in service to his wife is rather extreme and Bloom has clearly facilitated her
affair by moving their daughter Milly out of the house so that she will not come into contact with Molly
and Boylan. Furthermore, Bloom intends to stay out of the house for the entire day, willingly exiling
himself from the house so that he will not come in contact with the two lovers.
26
The decay motif that was begun with Stephen's thoughts on Ireland and his dead mother are continued
with Bloom. We learn that Bloom's father has died and while he and Molly share a fifteen-year old
daughter, their son, Rudy, died when he was eleven days old. Bloom considers his stump lineage to be a
parallel to the lack of a Jewish homeland and he is sensitive to both the desires for a Jewish state as well
as the need for Irish "Home Rule." Just as Stephen considers thoughts of a potential Irish renaissance,
when Bloom arrives at the butcher shop of Dlugacz, also a Hungarian Jew, he looks at a pamphlet
advertising ventures for utopian settlements in the Levant. Ironically, for all of Bloom's concern about
the decay of Jewish customs and community, he violates Jewish dietary laws.
Chapter Five: The Lotus Eaters
Summary:
Chapter Five begins close to 10am as a keyless Bloom leaves his house and takes a circuitous route to
the post office in order to pick up any responses to an advertisement in which he inquired for a
secretary. As a result of his advertisement, Bloom has been in correspondence with a flirtatious woman
who uses the pseudonym "Martha Clifford" to his "Henry Flower, Esquire." Despite the fact that he has
already found an answer to his advertisement, Bloom continues to check the post office box and his
advertisement has netted over forty responses and in the end Martha Clifford was the final
consideration, narrowly defeating Lizzie Twigg for the "position." Regardless of Bloom¹s initial intent and
whether or not he was initially searching for a secretary, Martha Clifford has become a platonic pen-pal
and now it seems that the relationship is escalating. Upon reading Clifford's letter, Bloom regrets the
fact that he has goaded Clifford by responding to her letters and he is afraid that she may want to meet
him instead of continue a Clifford-Flower relationship with non-committed, teasing love letters. As if to
confirm her romantic intentions, Clifford, the coquette, has included a flower along with her letter.
After leaving the post office, Bloom travels to the Belfast and Oriental Tea Company, though he only
looks through the window and admires the various spiced teas from the outside. Looking through the
large window of the store, Bloom is lost in a daydream as he imagines the various advertisement
possibilities for the establishment. Bloom continues on his wandering course until he reaches F.W.
Sweny's chemist shop where he buys a bar of lemon soap and makes plans to return with a recipe for
Molly's lotion. He had forgotten to bring it with him. Bloom sees Bantam Lyons on the street and Lyons
misunderstands Bloom's offer of the newspaper that he has just finished reading.
Bloom's statement that he was just going to throw away the paper is misheard by Lyons who thinks that
Bloom is giving him a tip on the racehorse, Throwaway. This rather strained comic scene has
unfortunate consequences for Bloom, later in the novel. Towards the end of the chapter, Bloom
contemplates a Turkish bath, but his peaceful thoughts are interrupted by his memory of his father's
suicide. Bloom¹s father, Rudolph, took an overdose of monkshood poison and died in a resort in Italy.
Analysis:
The Lotus flower (also spelled Lotos) was known for its fragrant and narcotic characteristics, inspiring
sleep and forgetfulness. When Ulysses spends time in the land of the Lotus-Eaters, he finds that his crew
becomes forgetful and is unwilling to leave the new land; they have to be coerced onto the ship. The
yellow lotus flower presented an alluring escape from reality much like the appealing banquet of Circe,
an enchantress who Ulysses later meets. There are several parallels between the "Lotus-Eaters" chapter
and the Homeric episode. The most obvious parallel is in Bloom's purchase of a yellow bar of fragrant
lemon soap, and of course, his visit to a chemist specializing in soaps, flowers and perfumes. Bloom also
daydreams in front of a spice and tea shop. Additionally, Martha Clifford asks "Henry Flower," for the
name of his wife's perfume.
The flower that Martha encloses in her letter is another "lotus" and it is worth noting that Bloom's three
names are floral references. His legal name is "Bloom," his ancestral name is the Hungarian word for
27
flower which is "Virag," and his pseudonym is "Henry Flower." In his vision of the Turkish bath, Bloom
imagines his penis as the "limp father of thousands" and a "languid floating flower" again combining the
physical effects of the flower (sleep, limpness) with its physical characteristics "floating flower." The
suicide of Bloom's father, Rudolph Virag, as well as the furtive affair-by-mail are thematic parallels in
regards to escapism. The idea of escapism is also reflected in the fact that Bloom refused to see the
body of his dead father. Instead he intentionally avoided the sight. Indeed, Bloom's wandering route
indicates his fear of being apprehended and his languid, forgetful manner. After all, upon entering
Sweny's, Bloom forgets his recipe. The idea of escapism and hiding is important in regards to Bloom and
his activity in this chapter greatly foreshadows his street activity for the remainder of the novel. The
most revealing aspect of Bloom's personality is the fact that he has perhaps "escaped" from his house to
avoid seeing his wife's affair.
We find that for all of Bloom's efforts to escape from the emotional traumas of life, he (like Stephen) will
be forced to confront his fears. Bloom's emotionally distant commentary on his father's death and his
trips to the grave site will be expanded in a discussion of suicide in the next chapter, "Hades."
Furthermore, Bloom has sought to escape from his marriage with Molly by pursuing a false relationship
as "Henry Flower," the penpal of "Martha Clifford." Bloom even goes as far as to position himself as a
Christ-like figure who is caught between Martha (Clifford) and Mary (Molly's maiden name is Marion
Tweed). While Bloom alludes to this scene from the Gospels, made famous by several pieces of art, the
parallel with Christ does little to secure his precarious situation. Bloom's escape from Molly becomes just
as troubling once Bloom realizes that Martha Clifford wants a physical relationship with Henry Flower.
Joyce's depiction of the modern Ulysses differs from the traditional Homeric hero on a variety of levels.
One important difference that becomes even clearer in the "Circe" chapter is the fact that Homer's
Ulysses is spared most of the indignities that his crew suffers because of their own immaturity and lack
of self-control. In contrast to Homer's Ulysses, Leopold Bloom's character is defined by various, often
humiliating entanglements. Some critics go as far as to suggest that Joyce's hero is an anti-hero, citing
evidence that the "cuckold" (a man whose wife has been unfaithful) was often depicted as precisely
pitiful and emasculated, both in Chaucer and in other canonical works.
Joyce forces the reader to simultaneously identify the heroic and the pitiful within Bloom. His sincere
concern for those around him becomes immediately evident to us. Still, we receive confirmation that his
wife is going to have an affair and his various comments on manliness and male impersonators playing
Prince Hamlet on stage is extremely ironic, considering both Stephen's obsession with the drama and his
own imminent emasculation. Joyce re-employs the juxtaposition of emasculation and manliness in the
concluding lines of the chapter: "the limp father of thousands, a languid floating flower." "Father" and
"floating flower" are both alliterative and indicative of the potential for procreation. Unfortunately, the
words "limp" and "languid" sap the potential for procreation. The phrase "father of thousands" is also a
direct allusion to Abraham, considered to be the spiritual and Biblical patriarch of the Jews. For Bloom,
the emasculation of his cuckolding is echoed in the death of his father and his newborn son, both named
Rudolph. Rudolph Virag committed suicide in 1886 and Rudolph "Rudy" Bloom died at the age of eleven
days in 1894. Leopold Bloom, in 1904, nonetheless feels trapped in a vice of death.
Besides this continuance of the themes of escapism and paternity, there are three other major themes
that Joyce develops in the "Lotus-Eaters." The first is a political one which prepares the reader for the
foreshadowed discussions in the "Hades," "Aeolus," and "Cyclops" chapters (Chapters Six, Seven and
Twelve). The idea of Ireland's political freedom is expressed in terms of "Home Rule." But what is
interesting to note is how the Dublin scenery sparks analog references in Bloom's head, when compared
to Stephen. Stephen is contemplating a life of self-exile on the European continent and he imagines his
surroundings to be the city of Paris, at times various Greek locales or the coast of Denmark (Elsinore).
Conversely, Bloom thinks of the Levant, specifically the Promised Land and his spatial imaginations-
mosques, Turkish Baths, the Dead Sea and the island of Ceylon-have a decidedly oriental orientation in
contrast to Stephen's continental theme. Joyce hints that the hearts of these men do not lie wholly in
Ireland, despite the fact that they both consider themselves to be citizens.
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The theme of Bloom's solitude is extensively treated in this chapter, which foreshadows the hero's
unsuccessful attempts to belong and feel at ease among his fellow Dubliners. Despite his numerous
foibles, Bloom's Jewish heritage is the chief obstacle in his attempts to belong. Joyce humorously depicts
Bloom's marginal status in the scene where Bantam Lyons does not bother to listen to Bloom and as a
result misinterprets his sentence as gambling advice in support of the racehorse, Throwaway. Far from
inconsequential, Lyons' treatment of Bloom is merely the first in a long series of incidents, continuing in
the sixth chapter, "Hades," and violently climaxing in the twelfth chapter "Cyclops." Just as Joyce has
shown us (through Stephen) that Roman Catholicism is infused in everything Irish, Bloom's Jewishness
underscores the exclusion and indignities that he suffers constantly. From Joyce's un-subtle wordplay
with racehorse named "Throwaway" to Bloom's mottled thoughts as an outsider commenting on the
music of the Catholic church, we begin to gain a sense of the loneliness that wandering entails.
Finally, Joyce steers us through the potentially confusing emotional details of Bloom's dead father and
son by refocusing on the theme of the love song to indicate that Bloom's primary concern is not his
lineage but his marriage. All of Bloom's thoughts on Martha Clifford are rendered incomplete on account
of his mental rebounding to thoughts of Molly. Bloom expresses his confusion on the "mystery" of love
and then things of the song "Love's Old Sweet Song." The musical expression of love's mystery and
permanence should remind the reader of Stephen's song to his dying mother: "Love's Bitter Mystery."
Bloom initially considers that the idea that flowers (rather than music) constitute the "language" of life
and love. Here it is important to note that while Bloom is a musical aficionado, his musical knowledge is
limited and shallow. Furthermore, Bloom is excluded from the arena of love songs. Not only is his wife
Molly a singer, but she is planning to star in a concert with Blazes Boylan with whom she is having an
affair. Ironically, the two singers will perform "Love's Old Sweet Song" both on tour and on the
afternoon of June 16. The theme of the love song grows more important for both of our heroes as the
chapter progresses. For Stephen, love songs are burdensome and chained in memory. For Bloom, as an
explicit scene in the "Sirens" chapter will reveal, love songs are performed in an arena from which he is
excluded.
Chapter Six: Hades
Summary:
Soon before 11am, Bloom enters a funereal carriage with other friends of Paddy Dignam. Jack Power,
Martin Cunningham, Simon Dedalus (the father of Stephen) and Bloom, follow Dignam's hearse to
Glasnevin Cemetery where Father Coffey delivers the conclusion of the religious interment ceremony.
Along the way, the carriage passes throngs of urban poor, the small hearse of an orphan, a widow,
Blazes Boylan, as well as Stephen Dedalus. As the funeral procession passes through the city, all of
Dublin¹s bleakest characteristics are exposed and magnified. Bloom imagines it as a city of the dead and
when he passes an old lady, he thinks to himself that she is somewhat relieved to see the hearse pass
by her as she lives in the constant fear that the next death she sees will be her own. The carriage has a
few navigational problems as the course to Glasnevin Cemetery requires that they pass over four
different rivers including the Liffey, Dublin¹s largest river.
Bloom's outsider status is revealed even in the stilted congeniality of the cramped carriage. Power and
Dedalus are extremely terse in their comments to Bloom, though Cunningham does make an effort to
express his kindness. Still, the conversation is triangular and Bloom spends most of his time thinking of
ways to jump into the conversation. His attempt to be sociable is more of a faux pas than anything else
and his comments expose him as a non-Catholic. One of the carriage members comments on the
unfortunate nature of Paddy Dignam¹s death, given that he died in a drunken and unconscious stupor.
For the three Catholics, it need not be said that Dignam was unable to receive last rites, jeopardizing the
status of his soul in the afterlife. Bloom, an outsider, has missed the nuance of the conversation and he
argues that Paddy was lucky, for dying in ones sleep is the least painful exit. Later the conversation
turns to the subject of suicide and Jack Power makes an inconsiderate remark about the eternal
damnation suffered by suicides. Unlike Power, Cunningham is aware of the fact that Bloom¹s father
committed suicide and he steers the conversation to a lighthearted topic. Despite the stiff sobriety of the
29
occasion though, Bloom's opinions of the Roman Catholic ceremony provide comic relief from the
somber subject matter of the chapter.
Analysis:
Chapter Six, "Hades," is named after the Greek underworld where souls were ferried once earthly life
has ended. In Homer's epic, Ulysses travels to the underworld for advice and among other souls, he
encounters his lost crewman Elpenor. Elpenor fell off of a roof and his death was the result of his
excesses and lack of self-control. In Joyce's "Hades," the city of Dublin mirrors the underworld as the
funeral procession crosses four rivers just as there are four rivers that divide the territory of the
underworld. Elpenor's analog is Dignam whose death is the result of his drunken excesses and some
critics also see Martin Cunningham as a parallel to Sisyphus, another famous denizen of Hades. Sisyphus
was forced to roll a large stone up a hill, but as soon as he reached the peak of the hill, the stone would
roll back down and he was forced to start over again. Cunningham spends his entire life battling his mad
wife who pawns all of the family furniture as soon as Martin has scrounged up enough money to re-
purchase it. While the most important parallel is the thematic treatment of death, another parallel can
be seen in Father Coffey, whose satirized appearance is a striking resemblance to Cerberus, the three-
headed dog who guards the underworld. Joyce's word game between D-O-G and G-O-D (begun with
Tatters in "Proteus") continues in the contemplation of the Christian Trinity as a parallel to the three-
headed dog.
While Bloom's thoughts on Catholicism are not a reflection of his own Judaism, they are the thoughts of
an individual who is not a member of the Church and Joyce uses Bloom to critique the Church as an
institution. In the carriage discussion of Dignam's death, Bloom suggests that Dignam died a fortunate
death having passed in his sleep (a drunken stupor). Bloom receives a startled reaction from the
Catholic men in the carriage who understand the fact that Dignam's unexpected death prevented the
offering of last rites. When one of the other characters refers to suicide as an unforgivable offense,
Bloom's thoughts immediate refer to his father before contemplating the lack of mercy displayed in the
Catholic doctrine on suicide.
Simon Dedalus and Martin Cunningham stand out as interesting minor characters in this episode. Simon
appears as a rather gruff character, who expresses concern over his distant son's activity and later
expresses sadness in Glasnevin Cemetery when he remembers the death of his wife. Martin Cunningham
makes an effort to be civil to Bloom, though Cunningham does not regard Bloom as warmly as he
regards his friends. When the discussion turns to the topic of suicide, Cunningham changes the subject,
aware of Rudolph Virag's suicide. Bloom does suffer unspoken humiliation when the carriage passes
Blazes Boylan, who is considered to be "the best man in Dublin." The positive comments of Dedalus,
Power and Cunningham (in reference to Boylan) only deepens Bloom's feeling of dread. The image of
Bloom as a silent sufferer is reinforced by images of Crucifixion, specifically piercing nails, and again
when a newspaper man ignores Bloom in his listing of those present at the Dignam funeral. Like Bantam
Lyons, the reporter half-listens to Bloom and thinks (incorrectly) that McIntosh is the name of a man
who is wearing a McIntosh (raincoat). Later on, we will find that the reporter has also misspelled
Bloom's name.
Besides Bloom's outlandish thoughts, there are other instances of humor including Mrs. Cunningham's
habit of pawning the family furniture as well as the story of the capsized hearse. Still, the somber tone
of "Hades" is definitive of the chapter. Specifically, Joyce decides to portray Dublin as a city of the dead.
The houses are described as houses of death and the gloom of Dublin is evident in the numerous open
drains throughout the city's poorest sections. While these open drains are unsanitary and dangerous,
they are also portals to the underworld. One of the most memorable scenes of the novel is when Bloom
ponders the existence of Catholic Dubliners, who are trapped by the ghosts of the dead while preparing
for the own afterlife. Bloom describes the chains of memory as "the love that kills," again expanding the
thematic discussion of love as both Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, are both bound by "the love that kills."
30

Chapter Seven: Aeolus
Summary:
After the Dignam funeral, Bloom goes downtown to the newspaper office (an office for three different
publications) to work on his newest advertising assignment, a two-month renewal for Alexander Keyes.
Bloom appears close to accomplishing his goal because Keyes previous ad is easily recovered. Problems
arise when the business manager, Nannetti, decides that Keyes should take out a three-month
advertisement and he is largely unwilling to compromise. Nannetti¹s tone is sarcastic when he addresses
Bloom and so the ad canvasser is unclear as to whether or not he will have to re-negotiate his contract
with Keyes, though in the end it seems that this is the case.
To further complicate manners, Bloom learns that he will have to trek to the National
Library to retrieve a specific graphic image of two crossed keys. The Keyes house wanted to use this
image and though it was the same image that they used in their last advertisement, Bloom is unable to
find a copy of it in the office. Bloom's escapades in the office are interrupted by the entrance and exit of
both Simon and Stephen Dedalus at different times and within different groups. Simon Dedalus has
arrived with a few of his friends who were also in attendance at the funeral and they eventually leave for
drinks. While they are there, the men discuss and ridicule a recent patriotic speech that has printed in
the paper.
When Stephen arrives, he sends a telegraph to Mulligan, notifying him that he will not be going to the
Ship. Instead, Mulligan and Stephen will cross paths in the National Library, though Stephen is wholly
unaware of Leopold Bloom and his plans. Stephen is also engaged in a political discussion in which he
tells what he calls the Parable of the Plums, describing the Irish condition as that of two old women who
have begun to climb the tall statue of the British Lord Nelson. Having stopped midway, they take a
break to eat plums, spitting the pits down into the Irish soil. At this point, the two old women are
horrified and unable to move, frightened by the distance between their current position and ground
level. At the same time though, they find Lord Nelson¹s face to be unwelcoming and menacing and they
refuse to climb any further on the statue, resigned to live the rest of their lives clutching on Lord
Nelson¹s midsection. After telling the parable to his enthusiastic and older audience, Stephen delivers
Mr. Deasy's letter on Irish cattle, which the staff reluctantly agrees to print. Bloom re-appears towards
the end of the chapter as he attempts to call Keyes to confirm the three-month renewal before
beginning the work but all of his attempts at communication are unsuccessful as his co-workers are
disrespectful and only make Bloom's assignment more difficult than it needs to be.
Analysis:
Aeolus, the god of wind, decided to grant Ulysses a blessing. Specifically, Aeolus gave Ulysses a taut
leather bag containing all of the winds of the sea. With these winds bound, Ulysses was guaranteed a
safe and speedy passage home. As Ulysses fastened the bag to the mast of the ship, his crew suspected
that it was a treasure that he was selfishly hoarding for himself. Eventually, their greed and curiosity
overcame them and the bag was slit open, releasing pent-up winds that blew Ulysses off of his course
even as home was in sight. The first parallel to the Homeric episode is in Bloom's frustrated wandering
through the office, mirroring his wandering through the city. Just as Bloom was nearing the end of his
Keyes assignment, he was blown off course just as Ulysses was.
Literary critics also suggest that Joyce is also satirizing "windy" and "inflated" news reporting in the
"Aeolus" chapter, as another parallel to the Homeric episode. The chapter is divided into sixty-three
sections. Each section has a hyperbolic headline that greatly exaggerates the narrative action of the
section. Bloom's blunders are exaggerated into cataclysm and the banter of the news office takes on
crucial importance. As a result, "Aeolus" is a light relief from the heavy tone of "Hades."
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While Bloom's escapades are humorous, Joyce is careful to illustrate the myriad ways in which Bloom
functions as an outsider. Ironically, the business manager who causes most of Bloom's problems is not
an Irishman but an Italian named Nannetti, indicating that Bloom is among the most marginal of the
excluded. Bloom does not only suffer the insult of not having his questions answered; later in the
chapter, Lenehan accidentally bumps into him and exaggerates a false apology. Towards the end of
"Aeolus," the newsboys make fun of Bloom's gait and Lenehan dances a mazurka in his own attempt to
poke fun at Bloom. It is only at the very end of the novel that we read that Bloom is in fact aware of the
derision that occurs when he is not present. Bloom's travels throughout the office and the derision that
he suffers give us the first complete glimpse of Joyce's "Wandering Jew" motif. Bloom's departure for the
National Library foreshadows his appearance in "Scylla and Charybdis," where he crosses paths with
Stephen Dedalus, much as the two Dedaluses crossed paths in this chapter. The image of the crossed
keys for the Keyes ad, is the final component of the larger motif of the keyless Bloom, doomed to
wander.
The separate conversations of Simon and Stephen Dedalus are two opportunities for Joyce to develop
the political themes of the novel. Simon Dedalus is accompanied by MacHugh, Lambert, O'Molloy,
Crawford and Lenehan. The discussion of Dan Dawson's speech in the newspaper focuses on an empty
brand of patriotism and the comments made by the news reporters demonstrate the level of media
incompetence that Joyce is satirizing in "Aeolus." The conversation is colored by gossip, incorrect names
and places as well as transposed dates. Most ironically, the entire discussion-over the necessary
resurrection of the Irish language-takes place in English. Another chief irony can be seen in the
gentlemen's exclusion of Bloom from the conversation, all the while appropriating the images and
rhetoric of a "chosen people" suffering "captivity" while awaiting a "Messiah." Stephen's brief
contribution to newsroom conversation is a parable entitled "Pigsah Sight of Palestine or the Parable of
the Plums," in which he suggests that the young Irishman who has heard the call to stay home is both
trapped in domestic sterility and unable to go abroad. This parable is a prelude to Stephen's extensive,
though somewhat naïve philosophizing in "Scylla and Charybdis," which takes place in the National
Library.
Chapter Eight: The Lestrygonians
Summary:
Chapter Eight is a chronology of Bloom's early afternoon. Rather than directly venturing to the National
Library, Bloom wanders for a little over an hour and the narrative of the chapter follows his course as he
decides to get something to eat. A young proselytizer affiliated with the YMCA hands Bloom a
"throwaway" tract and when Bloom first reads the words: "blood of the lamb," he mistakes the letters B-
L-O-O for the beginning of his own name. Soon after, Bloom sees one of Simon Dedalus' daughters
waiting for him outside a bar. Bloom then feeds the gulls, watches the five men advertising H.E.L.Y.S.
establishment, listens to Mrs. Breen's story concerning her husband, Denis, who is losing his mind. Mr.
Denis Breen has received a postcard in the mail that reads "U. p: up" and enraged, by the unintelligible
prank, he has ventured to a lawyer in order to press charges. Denis Breen intends to sue for libel,
though he is unaware of the intent or sender of the postcard.
Mrs. Breen also shares the story of Mina Purefoy, who has been in labor for three days. Purefoy is losing
her strength and apparently, Mrs. Breen has recently visited her in the National Maternity Hospital.
Concerned for Mrs. Purefoy, Bloom decides that he will visit the pregnant woman and a little after this
decision, Bloom encounters an in/famous character by the name of Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice
Tisdall Farell. Farrell is another Dublin crazyman who spends him time walking in between the
lampposts. After avoiding Farrell's track, a hungry Bloom enters the Burton Restaurant but he leaves,
disgusted by the exceptionally poor habits of the savage customers. Bloom, in fact, does not even give
himself the chance to sit down in the Restaurant, whose somewhat opulent décor contrasts the loud
noise of the animated diners.
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After leaving the Burton Restaurant, Bloom continues his wandering through the city before he finally
opts for Davy Byrne's "moral pub," where he sees Nosey Flynn. Just as the "moral pub" is considerably
cleaner than the Burton Restaurant, Flynn presents himself as a decent man‹though he too, is not the
cleanest. Flynn is constantly picking and brushing lice off his shoulders. The conversation inside Byrne's
touches upon Blazes Boylan as well as the upcoming horserace in which Sceptre is heavily favored. After
Bloom's exit, Byrne and Flynn discuss the wanderer, concluding rather fairly that he is a decent man
despite his deliberate ambiguity and consistent refusal to sign his name to any agreement. The chapter
ends soon after Bloom is on the path to the National Library. He helps a "blind stripling" cross street and
soon after, Bloom enters a Museum, presumably to hide from Blazes Boylan whose path has again
crossed with Bloom's.
Analysis:
The Lestrygonians were a tribe of cannibalistic giants who terrorized Ulysses' crew much as the one-
eyed giant, Polyphemus, provided a formidable challenge when Ulysses entered the land of the Cyclops.
In Chapter Eight, the Lestrygonian theme is developed in Joyce's copious puns and allusions to
cannibalism. There is an interesting relationship to the "cannibalism" motif of this chapter and the
"slaughter" motif of "Oxen of the Sun" (Chapter Fourteen). Earlier in the novel, we learn that food and
eating are among Bloom's favorite diversions and Joyce expands the motif of "cannibalism" to eating or
rather, dirty eating. The diners in the Burton Restaurant are as "bestial" as the gulls at the quay.
In the depiction of the gulls and the Burton diners, Joyce foreshadows the victims of Circe, whose
enchanting banquet table inspires excessive greed in Ulysses' men. After gorging themselves they turn
into swine, literally becoming "bestial." Joyce also refers to the gulls as greedy "men" grabbing at the
"manna" which Bloom offers them. Through the motif of food then, Joyce has constructed Bloom as a
beneficent God or Messiah. Joyce's eaters also testify to his concern that the depths of human character
are too bestial. While these themes reach their climax in Chapter Fifteen, "Circe," it is in this chapter
that Joyce almost excessively notes the humanitarian excess of Bloom's heart. Bloom's confluence with
Christ is fully realized to the degree that he sacrifices himself for others gain, literally offering his flesh
as sustenance, a parallel to the Eucharist. Bloom actions point to a definition of love that necessitates a
painful sacrifice by one party involved though he may eventually reject this by the novel's end.
This chapter, like "Circe" and "Hades," focuses on the idea of human frailty in its most laughable and
hyperbolic forms. Our comic hero, has not fought Trojan battles or defied gods. Instead, he walks the
blind across busy streets and makes plans to visit pregnant women. In "The Lestrygonians," Joyce is
careful to balance the "greedy men" and "dirty eaters" with purely comic characters like the Farrell and
Denis Breen. Like Mrs. Cunningham's pawn shop visits, Denis Breen's antics are tormenting his spouse.
Denis has received an anonymous postcard in the mail that reads, unintelligibly "U. p: up" and as a
result, Denis is seeking legal advice with the intention of suing for libel. Mina Purefoy's sixty hours of
labor are just as hyperbolic and Joyce's "dirty eating" motif takes a morbid turn in his depiction of Nosey
Flynn who picks at and eats the lice which are feeding upon his body. And Bloom is not without his own
bizarre habits: he enters the Museum and tries to avoid being caught staring at the rear ends of the
ancient sculptures; Bloom is curious as to whether or not the statues have anuses.
One of Joyce's purposes in Ulysses was to depict both the sublime and bestial aspects of human nature
and the sordid and grim squalor of Dublin is juxtaposed with Bloom's memory of happiness in Ben
Howth. Ben Howth increasingly figures in Bloom's mind as he remembers kissing Molly and sharing a
seedcake but the escapist euphoria of Ben Howth is undercut by Molly and Blazes' affair and Bloom is
tortured as he counts down the minutes. The backward-looking gaze of the Bloom we saw in "Hades" is
largely replaced by a series of events which foreshadow Bloom's later actions. His thought, "Hamlet, I
am thy father's spirit doomed for a certain time to walk the earth" is a necessary preparation for the
themes developed in "Scylla and Charybdis." Bloom's planned visit to Mina Purefoy takes place at the
National Maternity Hospital in "Oxen of the Sun" and both Ben Howth and "Throwaway" recur in Bloom's
thoughts indicating that the reader should take note. Additionally, the results of the horserace, featuring
Sceptre and Throwaway, will contribute to the narrative climax of Ulysses.
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Chapter Nine: Scylla and Charybdis
Summary:
This afternoon chapter lasts for approximately an hour and a half and ends at 3pm. "Scylla and
Charybdis takes place in the National Library and the shift in focus from Bloom to Stephen Dedalus
marks Stephen's third appearance since "Proteus." Stephen has left the news office of "Aeolus" and after
sending a message to Mulligan, he departed for the National Library rather than The Ship. It is unclear
exactly what Stephen has been doing in the interim, though we do see that he is not alone in the library
and Stephen sees that this casual company provides him with another opportunity to present himself as
an intellectual thinker and budding literary genius.
Despite Stephen¹s continued efforts to impress the men in his company, he finds that his ploys are
mostly frustrated. In contrast to Stephen's more receptive audience in "Aeolus," two of his library
companions, Russell and Eglington, are men of literary stature who patronize Stephen's ideas about
Shakespeare, ideas that he wedges between commentary on Irish politics and the difficult predicament
of the young Irish literati. In his discussion of Shakespeare, Stephen aims to make use of his various
critical skills without actually believing the arguments that he makes. Bloom is the first interruption of
the narrative when we learn that he has arrived in search of the design the Keyes advertisement. Upon
Bloom¹s arrival, the head Librarian briefly departs presumably, to help Bloom locate the design of the
"Keys of Killarney."
Later, Mulligan arrives and continues his "tongue-in-cheek" mocking of Stephen and while Bloom and
Stephen do not meet in this chapter, Bloom does pass between the two young men as he exits,
separating them. By the end of "Scylla and Charybdis," Stephen is irked by the discussion of the Irish
literary renaissance and he wonders if he will ever achieve literary success in Ireland as Mulligan, a
sarcastic medical student, has been invited to attend a literary function with Haines, while he remains
uninvited.
Analysis:
Midway through The Odyssey, Ulysses approaches Athena, the grey-eyed goddess of wisdom. His ship is
headed for the wandering rocks whose erratic behavior is known to sink all ships crossing into that
territory. Athena warns Ulysses to head instead for Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla is a six-headed cave
creature known for devouring sailors and nearby Scylla is Charybdis, a formidable whirlpool that sinks
ships. Ulysses is further warned to steer his ship between the narrow strait of water between the two
titan menaces but if he is unable to steer a strait course, Ulysses is to veer towards Scylla, sacrificing six
men rather than the entire ship. Ulysses is unable to steer a straight course and as a result he loses six
men. It is worth noting that Joyce's tenth chapter parallels the Wandering Rocks even though Ulysses
circumvents this obstacle.
The difficult lose-lose situation of Scylla and Charybdis is expressed in Stephen's thoughts on exile as
opposed to remaining in Ireland. Stephen puns Ireland into "Sireland" and imagines it as a whirlpool that
could sink him if he stays. Simultaneously, his skepticism parallels Scylla, the six-headed devourer.
Stephen also admits to himself that Mulligan is a pernicious influence and this thoughts: "My will: his will
that fronts me. Seas between," reconstructs the spatial imagery of Scylla and Charybdis right as Bloom
passes between Dedalus and Mulligan.
"Scylla and Charybdis" presents Stephen at the height of erudition, his Shakespearean criticism colored
by references to Dante's Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, diverse Greek myths as well as Shakespeare's
biological details and a majority of his dramas. Like the seas between Scylla and Charybdis, this chapter
is difficult to navigate. We learn that Stephen does not truly believe his convoluted theories and it is
difficult to differentiate between his sincere emotional commentary and his thoughts on Shakespeare.
Often times, they are intertwined.
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The theme of exile and escape is prominent in Stephen's thoughts and comments and the response from
the audience, that Stephen is choosing to "fly in the face of tradition," is an allusion to Stephen's
namesakes, Dedalus and Icarus. Joyce also references Lucifer, the fallen angel and in some respects,
Dedalus, Icarus and Lucifer are, like Ulysses, incapable of steering straight. From another angel, the rifts
between Dedalus and Icarus, God and Lucifer and Ulysses and Athena are rifts between teacher and
pupil. This rift is mirrored not only in Stephen's somewhat ambiguous search for paternity but in his
philosophical dissent from Russell. Stephen also quotes a passage from Dante's Inferno. While Dante
praises his instructor, Ser Brunetto, he has nonetheless inserted him in the Dantean scheme of hell. In
contrast to the ambivalent paternal figures, "Allfather" and "Nobodaddy," Stephen hopes for a visit from
an older "grey-eyed" muse, Athena. The call for Stephen to rouse Irish youth to "free their sireland" is
rejected to the degree that Stephen distances himself from paternal love.
In "Scylla and Charybdis," Stephen presents a convoluted theory of "consubstantiality," condensed

within his phrase: "He is in my father. I am in his son." Stephen's theory of Shakespeare's
consubstantiality is essential for understanding the rest of the novel. Stephen makes the argument that
Shakespeare's wife, an older woman, served as a maternal-like muse before she became unfaithful. As a
result Shakespeare bequeathed her his second best bed. Stephen then argues that the Shakespearean
tragedies (especially Hamlet) focus on Shakespeare's relationship with his unfaithful wife, dead infant
son and dead father. Joyce has taken the theory of consubstantiality and presented it in a method that
suggests parallels to the narrative of the novel. In the character of Ann Hathaway, we find the grey-eyed
muse of Ulysses, sought by Stephen. But Hathaway is also the unfaithful Gertrude of Hamlet and the
bed references link Hathaway to Joyce's Molly Bloom and Homer's Penelope. While Stephen is unaware
of Bloom's private life, his scheme also establishes Bloom as the Shakespeare who wrote Hamlet, the
prince of a dead father as well as the lost king whose wife is unfaithful.
Among Stephen's comments on romantic love between the sexes is his understatement: "People do not
know how dangerous lovesongs can be." By the end of his analysis, Stephen's thoughts have returned to
his own mother as he concludes the strongest human bond is amor matris, and not the love between a
father and son, between a husband and wife or between brotherly friends.

Chapter Ten: Wandering Rocks
Summary:
The "Wandering Rocks" chapter of Ulysses is a narrative interlude midway through the novel. Joyce
depicts the adventures of a collection of Dubliners between 2:40 and 4pm, ending approximately half an
hour before Molly and Boylan meet. The diverse roll of characters includes some figures that do not
appear in other chapters and Joyce's primary concern in Chapter Ten is painting a vivid portrait of
Dublin. Among these, we meet several figures of the Roman Catholic Church included Father "Bob"
Cowley, who a habitual alcoholic who has lost is collar for previous indiscretions.
We also encounter Father Conmee, who has the noble though naïve dream of venturing
into Africa in the hopes of converting the millions of "dark souls" who are lost in paganism. Father
Conmee¹s nostalgic thoughts on his days at Clongowes College are interrupted when he notices two
young people who are kissing behind a half-hidden bush. Joyce also offers several glimpses of the
Dedalus daughters. One of the four daughters has made a failed effort to pawn their brother Stephen¹s
books in the hopes of getting some money for food. After she returns, another daughter departs for the
bars there father is none to frequent. While she accosts him in the hope of getting a few coins to
purchase some food, her sisters are at home boiling laundry before taking a break to drink some
discolored pea soup.
We receive separate views of Boylan and Molly before they meet. Molly appears on Eccles Street,
offering a coin to a beggar sailor before preparing her home for her upcoming tryst. Boylan exposes
35
himself as a hopeless flirt in his relationship with his secretary and in his treatment of the clerk of the
flower shop. Stephen Dedalus appears without mulligan; a few mourners meet again to discuss
Dignam's funeral and two viceregal carriages cast their shadows over beggars and barmaids, among
others. Bloom's path intersects with Boylan's yet again and Bloom busies himself with the purchase of a
book.
Analysis:
In Homer's epic, Ulysses heeded the advice of Athena who urged him to pass through Scylla and
Charybdis, entirely avoiding the Wandering Rocks. Joyce includes this episode nonetheless and this tenth
chapter poses an intentional barrier to the reader almost as formidable as "Scylla and Charybdis." While
the prose of "Wandering Rocks" is simpler, it is divided into nineteen sections-one for each of the
sections of the novel, with a final section linking the themes of the first eighteen. The Dubliners in this
chapter are "wandering rocks," wandering at home without a homeland and questions of homeland
politics unquestionably dominate this chapter. The rocks imagery of the chapter signals both infertility
and doom and the sections of the chapter each focus on specific Dubliner or group of Dubliners. As the
citizens wander through the city streets, their listlessness and misplaced energy suggest that they are
simultaneously wandering emotionally.
The eighteen sections are not chronological and while some span five minutes, others span a full hour.
Readers must construct a chronology by looking for specific phrases that appear in multiple sections. In
this regard, Joyce sought to reflect his ideas of "consubstantiality" and "collage" in the structure of the
chapter. One example can be seen in Section I where Father Conmee is sitting on a bench imagining his
schoolyard past where "his thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of Clongowes field." In Section
IV, a conversation between "Katey and Boody Dedalus is interrupted by the sentence: "Father Conmee
walked through Clongowes field, his thinsocked ankles tickled by stubble" indicating that these events
(the Dedalus' conversation and Father Conmee's daydream) occurred at the same time. With similar
links occurring between all of the 18 sections we can construct an accurate chronology for approximately
seventy-five to ninety minutes. Remarkably, Joyce was able to almost perfect recall Dublin's myraid
alleys, bridges and quays, despite the fact that he was living in self-imposed exile while writing Ulysses.
Several members of the Dedalus family are among the characters introduced in "Wandering Rocks."
Stephen's sisters are living a destitute existence as their father's alcoholism is exhausting their already
strained finances. Stephen's sisters Maggy, Katey and Boody discuss the unsuccessful attempt to sell
Stephen's old books to a pawnshop. As they drink a thinned yellow pea soup, Maggy addresses "Our
Father, who are not in heaven." Simon Dedalus later appears in the chapter, completely drunk and
unable to support his daughters. In a later street scene, Simon sees his sister Dilly who has procured a
little money from her father and used it to purchase a French primer from a used book cart, in hopes of
fleeing to France as Stephen did. Stephen feels incredible sympathy for Dilly, grimly concluding: "she is
drowning...she will drown me with her," linking his sister Dilly to the memory of his drowned mother.
Just as Stephen feels that Dilly is "drowning," Haines and Mulligan are discussing Stephen in his absence
concluding that "he can never be a poet," though he may write something in ten years. To the degree
that Stephen Dedalus is autobiographical, it is worth noting that ten years after 1904, Joyce had written
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
The "Wandering Rocks" episode also mines the histories and personalities of the other major characters.
Lenehan's recounts a lewd story to M'Coy, telling of his historic and incomplete sexual exploit with Molly
Bloom. While Lenehan's story confirms Molly's penchant and reputation for infidelity, M'Coy finds the
story unfavorable and instead compliments Bloom as a "cultured allroundman." Ironically, while Bloom is
hiding from Boylan's shadow, he decides to buy a gift for Molly: a romance novel entitled Sweets of Sin.
In contrast to Bloom, Boylan presents himself as a swaggering, cocksure flirt who teases a girl selling
flowers as well as his secretary. Boylan's planned Belfast/Liverpool concert is set for a date that
coincides with Bloom's annual visit to his father's grave. Joyce also introduces Misses Kennedy and
Douce, the bronze- and gold-haired barmaids of the Ormond Hotel, who become the sirens of Chapter
Eleven.
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The motif of the wandering sailor is presented in the one-legged beggar who receives a donation from
Molly. Ironically, the war hero sings a pro-British song echoed in the veritable Irish patriotic song that is
sung later in the chapter, "At the siege of Ross did my father fall." Bloom continues within the motif of
the Wandering Jew and Joyce constructs a series of corresponding images. As the "Wandering Jew,"
Bloom is considered a "throwaway," referring to his marginal status and his resemblance with the
unsung racehorse. Joyce again alludes to the Old Testament prophet Elijah. Considered a forerunner to
Christ, the wandering Jewish prophet was assumed into heaven, discarding his mantle as a throwaway,
worn by his appointed successor, Elisha. The Elijah references foreshadow the moment in the novel
where Bloom's tired heroic ambitions will be largely subsumed by his desire to help the younger
Stephen, for whom there is more hope. The passing ship in "Wandering Rocks" is the Rosevean, which
first introduced the crucifixion motif in "Proteus." Bloom's status as a bruised, "crumpled" throwaway
indicates that he may be ultimately valuable as a sacrificial figure.
The polar opposite to Bloom's "throwaway" motif is the viceregal carriage of William Humble who is the
Earl of Dudley and the face of British occupation in Dublin. The Earl, Lady Dudley and their
accompaniment take an hour-long course through Dublin; some Irishmen salute, while others spit.
Despite the occasional displays of resentment, the carriage is a symbol of British hegemony. Its course
is the itinerary presented in the final nineteenth section. The carriage casts its shadow over all of Dublin
and the reader is able to perfect ascertain the chronology of the chapter because nearly all of the
featured Dubliners fall subject to the shadow of the carriage. Ironically, the one wandering character
who does not fall under the shadow of the ostentatious carriage is Leopold Bloom. Joyce could be
suggested that Bloom is the one citizen whose soul retains its independence, or it could be that the
"Wandering Jew," Bloom, is so marginal a citizen that the failed Irish struggle for Home Rule does not
pertain him.
Irish political desperation is reinforced by the story of Parnell whose coffin may have contained stones,
preserving the possibility for a Messianic triumph. Joyce places Parnell's brother under the shadow of the
carriage as he sits in a bar before becoming a street wanderer himself. Ireland's lack of political viability
is underscored by the presence of the disabled sailor who once fought for a cause. The pro-British slant
of his begging song is justified by Bloom's later realization of Ireland as a country that cannot care for its
own. Joyce's most expert depiction of Ireland's weaknesses is in the character of Father Cowley, who
opens the chapter. While he is described as "the very reverend," Father Cowley's sincere sympathy for
others is stymied by his simple-mindedness and deception. Father Cowley is a pretender who has been
demoted in his ecclesiastical duties, on account of an unexplained scandal.
Chapter Eleven: The Sirens
Summary:
"The Sirens" takes place in the bar and restaurant of the Ormond Hotel, where Lydia Douce and Mina
Kennedy are barmaids. The chronology of the chapter overlaps with the previous one. Douce and
Kennedy have entered the Ormond bar before the "Wandering Rocks" episode has concluded and Bloom
only arrives at the Ormond after he has made his purchase of Sweets of Sin. Because Bloom is in the
restaurant area of the Ormond he can only hear the noise coming from the bar area. Boylan arrives at
the Ormond to meet Lenehan and the singer enters and exits without Bloom noticing; all the while,
Bloom sits in dread of his upcoming cuckolding. A despondent Leopold Bloom accompanies Richie
Goulding to a restaurant table. The physical consequences of Richie's drinking are visible to Bloom who
suspects that Goulding will soon die. Soon after sitting at the table, Bloom begins writing a letter to
Martha while talking to Goulding, disguising his efforts and insisting that he is only replying to a
newspaper advertisement and not writing a letter as Goulding had suspected.
The piano sets a lively tone for those who are in the bar, including Simon Dedalus, Douce, Kennedy,
Lenehan, Boylan, a singer named Ben Dollard, Father Cowley and Tom Kernan. This lively group
provides intermittent comic relief from Bloom¹s depressing meal. Dedalus is a strong singer and he
engages in several rounds of a few Irish folk songs including the patriotic ballad, "The Croppy Boy." Ben
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Dollard, a professional singer, is also rather obese and he is the butt of a few of the barmaids¹ jokes.
For their parts, Douce and Kennedy, fully thrust themselves into their "siren" roles, luring Boylan and
after he departs for 7 Eccles, focusing their attentions on Lenehan who squanders a significant amount
of money in their bar.
Analysis:
Homer's Sirens were hybrid bird-women who were perched on a perilous rocky shore. Despite their
hideous physical appearance, the Sirens were able to entice sailors with their alluring voices, fitting
within The Odyssey's series of female enchantresses. Ulysses was pre-warned that the sirens would lure
sailors by song and then viciously devour them. Indeed their rocky crag was largely composed of
bleached bones. Ulysses ordered his men to stop their ears with wax before they passed through the
Sirens' territory. He did not have his own ears sealed and instead ordered his crew to securely tie him to
mast of the ship so that he might be able to hear the song without being in danger. Upon hearing the
Sirens' song, Ulysses pleads with his men to release him, but they refuse and normalcy returns to the
deck once Ulysses is no longer able to hear the distant Sirens.
The intoxicating effects of the Sirens are duplicated in the Ormond barmaids, Lydia Douce and Mina
Kennedy who deliver songs, drink and flirtation in order to collect money from the Ormond's male
patrons. The men of Dublin stroll by the bar and stay, and Bloom is interesting foil to Ulysses. In "The
Sirens," Bloom can only hear the music of the bar but he cannot see it unlike Ulysses whose sight of the
hideous sirens does little to rein in his desire to flock to them. Unlike Ulysses, Bloom's thoughts of Molly
and his home are not eclipsed by his desire for the Sirens, Douce and Kennedy.
Joyce makes extensive use of direct Homeric parallels in his depiction of the Ormond barmaids,
describing their "wet lips" and the "long in dying call" of their victims. One of the barmaids later says:
"he's killed looking back." The phrases "Miss Douce retorted, leaving her spyingpoint," "reef of counter,"
"ruffling her nosewings," and "screaming...high piercing notes," all contribute to Joyce's efforts to
transform the Ormond Bar into the rocky crag held by the Sirens. The sentence "Miss Kennedy
unplugged her ears to hear" is typical of Joyce's thematic puns. While Miss Kennedy plays the Siren role,
she plugs and unplugs her ears in mockery of Ulysses' pre-warned sailors. Joyce does not portray
Kennedy and Douce with as wholly villainous and just as Miss Kennedy can plug and unplug her ears,
both Kennedy and Douce simultaneously play the roles of victor and victim. For all of their efforts to
attract and steal from men, both Kennedy and Douce are lonely, unhappy and jealous. Despite their
brash demeanor and coarseness, Joyce's portraits of the two aging barmaids evoke sympathy from the
reader.
While "The Sirens" is noted for its obvious parallels to the corresponding Homeric episode, it is one of
the most critically studied chapters because of Joyce's extensive musical references. Expanding the
theme of "The Sirens" to music as a whole, Joyce fuses Bloom's letter with lines from the opera Martha.
In the Ormond bar, Ben Dollard sings of the Croppy Boy, a young Irish boy soldier who is a revered hero
of folk song. After his regiment was entirely destroyed, the Croppy Boy sought to escape before
eventually finding himself trapped by a British soldier who had disguised himself as a priest.
Joyce's most complex musical reference is developed in the narrative structure of "The Siren." The
chapter opens with sixty-three lines that are fragments of sentences, short phrases and spelled-out
sounds. Joyce intended the chapter as a musical arrangement and these sixty-three, beginning with
"Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing" and ending with "Begin!" are musical "motifs" woven
throughout chapter, changing meaning as they are applied and reapplied. One example is "rose of
Castile" (line 8) which refers to a riddle that asks for the opera whose name is also the definition of a
train's tracks (rows of cast steel). Later, floral imagery attaches the word "rose" to Bloom writing a
Flower-Clifford letter. Amid Bloom's comparison of Martha Clifford and his wife Molly, the phrase "rose of
Castile" is decisively attached to Molly who happens to be of Spanish descent. "Jingle jingle jaunted
jingling" (line 15) occurs throughout the entire chapter to emulate the sound of the Bloom's loose bed-
an anticipation of Molly and Boylan's sexual act. The "jingle jingle" of the loose (and unfaithful) bed of
38
Penelope/Molly becomes the "jaunted jingling" of the wandering Ulysses/Bloom's absent "jingling" key.
"Jingle jingle" mirrors the alliteration of Blazes Boylan's name and parodies his cocky swagger into the
Ormond.
The progression of a musical motif is able to immediate alter the tone of the chapter. "Trilling, trilling:
Idolores" (line 9) first appears when Miss Douce is "gaily" singing ("trilling") the song "O, Idolores,
queen of the eastern seas." When the theme is rephrased, the queen of the eastern seas becomes Molly
and "Idolores" becomes "Dolores." Dolores is both a regal and religious female name, but when
translated from Spanish, dolores is defined as pain and emotional suffering, capturing the depression of
Bloom who is juxtaposed to the gaiety "trilling" several feet away from him.
Bloom's outsider status in "The Sirens" is not defined by his Jewishness but by his non-participation in
musical activity and his desire to reduce music to scientific principles. Bloom contends that-unlike words,
music is simply "musemathematics," a series of vibrations as magical as multiplication. Bloom's scientific
mind decomposes music to explain away so that it will not pose as great a threat to him. Despite
Bloom's attempts to plug his ears to music's emotional power, the phrase "love that is singing: love's old
sweet song" enters his thoughts and Bloom recognizes it as a song which Molly will sing with Boylan.
Molly's love songs exclude Bloom much as his seat in the Ormond's restaurant prevents him from
participating in the gaiety of the bar. Bloom feels alone, even while he is sitting at the table with Richie
Goulding, and he likens himself to the Croppy Boy, thinking "I too. Last of my race...Well, my fault
perhaps. No son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still?" While Bloom is able to leave "The
Sirens" in a tone of indecision, he is forced in next chapter to defend himself against the shame of a lone
outsider.
Chapter 12: The Cyclops
Summary:
During the time of Molly's affair, Leopold Bloom wanders into Barney Kiernan's pub. Bloom is not a
drinker and this is not a pub that he regularly frequents; indeed, Bloom seems to be lost in thought
when he literally wanders into Kiernan¹s where he is to meet Cunningham and Power for a trip to see
the Widow Dignam. The pub's fierce scene is a severe contrast to the mellow drunkenness of the
Ormond's bar and Bloom is immediately uncomfortable. A rabid Irish nationalist called Citizen, terrorizes
Kiernan's pub and focuses most of his verbal attack on Bloom. Citizen, like many of Joyce¹s patriots, is
both anti-Semitic and isolationist in his thinking.
Citizen initially begins his drunken discourse on the subject of the lost Celtic culture. Though he briefly
touches upon the death of the Irish language, Citizen¹s primary focus is on the renaissance of the
ancient Celtic games. Citizen¹s verbal spouting is not held in regard, though none of the pub¹s patrons
feel as uncomfortable as Bloom. A large dog named Garryowen is equally menacing for Bloom, and
despite Garryowen¹s allegiance with Citizen, who feeds the dog biscuits, Citizen is not the dog¹s owner.
Lenehan is present and his conversation reveals the results of the horserace where Throwaway has
upset the heavily favored Sceptre. When Citizen's anti-Semitism flares, Bloom is forced to assume a
heroic role in defending himself. Specifically, the Citizen accuses Bloom of stealing from widows and
orphans and he goes further, insinuating that Jews can never be true Irish citizens. Bloom defends
himself as an honest person before offering Citizen a brief catalogue of Jews who have made significant
contributions to European and Irish culture. When Bloom informs Citizen that his own God (Christ) also
happened to be a Jew, Citizen becomes enraged and as Bloom exits the pub victorious, Citizen chases
behind him, throwing an empty biscuit tin at Bloom's head. The sun temporarily blinds Citizen, whose
missile falls far short of the target. Upon exiting Kiernan¹s pub Bloom continues on his mission to visit
the Dignam widow, accompanied by Martin Cunningham and Jack Power. They intend to discuss the
specifics of Paddy Dignam¹s insurance policy and help the widow get her finances in order.
39
Analysis:
The Cyclops, a tribe of one-eyed giants, are among the most famous of The Odyssey's villains. A son of
Poseidon, one particular giant named Polyphemus kidnapped Ulysses and his crew and held them inside
of his cave, intending to eat them all. The clever Ulysses offered Polyphemus a drink of wine and when
the giant passed out, he and his men blinded Polyphemus with a fiery wooden stake. Trapped in the
Cyclops' cave, Ulysses' men hid in the fleece of Polyphemus' giant sheep and escaped when the blinded
giant permitted his sheep to exit the cave in order to graze. The victorious Ulysses taunted the blinded
giant, telling him that his name was "Noman" and Polyphemus takes blind aim at Ulysses' ship, hurling a
rock into the sea before praying to his father, Poseidon, who added enormous difficulties to Ulysses'
journey.
Clearly, Joyce's parallel to Polyphemus is Citizen, the semi-blind drunk who terrorizes Bloom in Kiernan's
dark and cave-like pub. Citizen's blindness is both intellectual and physical and images of blinding
shafts, light and blindness link "The Cyclops" to its correlating Homeric episode. Additionally, Citizen
drunkenness and attempt to "stone" an exiting Bloom are mirrored in Polyphemus' actions. Citizen's
patriot interests include reviving Gaelic sports and expelling the Jews and his surly attitude is reflected in
the sinister demeanor of the vicious dog, Garryowen.
Despite Bloom's heroism and self-defense, Joyce does not reveal the character's first-person
commentary as he usually does with Bloom and Dedalus. The narrative structure of the chapter is
seriously affected by the fact that Joyce uses an anonymous narrator. The distance between Bloom and
the narrator provides an honest examination: the protagonist is a decent man whose incessant
didacticism, intentional ambiguity and helpless hesitancy are grating and annoying. The narrator is a
frequenter of pubs and his "street language" is a contrast to the elevated diction of Stephen Dedalus.
The narrator is equally sarcastic and gross, and his commentary ranges from deriding the despicable
rhetoric of Citizen to complaining about his painful urination on account of having contracted syphilis.
The narrator unknowingly contributes to the irony of the chapter with his comic references to the
"heroics" of Bloom's altercation with the villain, Citizen. The narrator then undercuts his own story by
relaying his own exhaustion with Bloom's long-windedness and Citizen's rhetoric. Citizen's accusation
that Bloom, like all Jews, robs from widows and orphans, is as ironic as his drunken appeal to God for a
Messiah for the Irish chosen people. Consider the Citizen's appropriation (or theft) of Jewish imagery
and Bloom's continued and anticipated generosity in regards to the widow Dignam and numerous street
orphans.
The theme of Irish political independence is continued in the Citizen's rhetoric but Joyce's chief
arguments are not wholly expressed in his continued parody of the villain's ardent and blind patriotism.
The weighty phrase "Ireland sober is Ireland free" provides context for Citizen's drunken drivel while
damning Dublin's excess of pubs and bars. Joyce's other major addition to his political theme is the re-
employment of the Promised Land/Chosen People motif. While it is ironic to find these words expressed
by anti-Semitic characters, there is some validity in Citizen's lament for Ireland's "lost tribes." Ireland's
is a double loss of old martyrs and young people (like Stephen Dedalus) who are self-exiled from the
island.
The themes of masculinity and self-identity find an interesting parallel in the Homer "Cyclops" episode,
when Ulysses taunts Polyphemus, confiding that his true name is "Noman." In addition to subtle
references to "Noman" and "Nobody," Bloom is emasculated by references to "the adulteress and her
paramour." Furthermore, Bloom has spent the day hiding from Boylan and just as his legal name Bloom
differs from his ancestral name (Virag), Bloom is posing as Henry Flower as a method of escaping from
his household troubles. That Bloom, Flower and Virag are synonymous indicates that under any name,
Bloom cannot hide himself. The antics of the aptly named Citizen, force Bloom to gain some masculinity
at the same time that he must define himself as something other than a nameless nomad. By defending
his Jewish-ness and his simultaneous Irish citizenship, Bloom effectively sloughs off his "Noman" status.
40
The "throwaway" motif painted Bloom as "a rank outsider" and "a bloody dark horse" and the 20 to 1
odds against the unsung horse parallel Ulysses' twenty years away from Ithaca. Lenehan's disgruntled
announcement of Throwaway's unexpected victory also corresponds to Bloom's "victory" in spite of the
derision of others. Just as the Old Testament Elijah was connected to the "Throwaway" motif in
"Wandering Rocks," Bloom fulfills the prophecy in his "ascension" into heaven having bested Citizen. The
"throwaway" motif applies aptly to the mantle that Elijah handed to his successor, Elisha, as well as the
prophet's "throwaway" status as a forerunner of the Messiah. Bloom's victory against the Citizen is
tempered by the termination of his own messianic ambitions. As an ascended "Throwaway," Bloom's
perspective shifts to the younger generation and thoughts of his son Rudy, as well as Stephen, come to
the forefront of his mind.
The period of the day foreshadows the mood of Ulysses' later chapters. In several ways, "The Cyclops"
foreshadows the nighttime darkness that reaches its dramatic climax in the Nighttown episode of
"Circe." While Bloom has overcome his greatest challenge, the cooling of his anxieties as well as the
completion of the "throwaway" motif anticipate the nighttime shift to the dilemmas of Stephen Dedalus.
The extremely intimate portrait of Bloom in "Nausicaa" confirms another shift in the novel's thematic
structure: Characters are becoming increasingly polarized by age. Finally, the general political questions
of "Home Rule," anti-Semitism, cultural insularity and "Mother Ireland" and "Sireland," are becoming
increasingly personal and consequential for Bloom and Dedalus.

Chapter 13: Nausicaa
Summary:
Nausicaa takes place several hours after "The Cyclops," and ends with the clock striking nine. In the
interim between the chapters, Bloom has visited the Dignam widow to discuss Paddy's insurance policy
and in this chapter he is walking along Sandymount strand, the same beach where Stephen strolled
during "Proteus." There is a group of young people on the beach including a young woman named Cissy
Caffrey who is watching Tommy and Jacky Caffrey and a smaller baby. Alongside Cissy is her friend
Gertrude "Gerty" MacDowell. Gerty's mostly thinks about her previous boyfriend and later she considers
thoughts of marriage. In her conversation with Caffrey, MacDowell hides the emotional disappointment
that she has suffered. Even as she maintains a rigid and impassive exterior, MacDowell is deep in
thought, considering (apparently, for the first time) that she may not be able to find a boyfriend whom
she might convince or seduce into marriage.
Midway through her thoughts, Gerty notices the voyeur, Bloom. Leopold Bloom is still
dressed in all black on account of Dignam¹s funeral and he is a somber contrast to the white sand of the
beach. MacDowell can easily detect that Bloom is watching her though he continues his failed attempts
to conceal his furtive staring. Cissy Caffrey suspects that something is awry when MacDowell appears to
be distracted and focused in the direction of the dark stranger. MacDowell then decides to use Caffrey in
a ploy to get a better look at Bloom who is sitting in the distance. Knowing the Caffrey did not have a
timepiece with her, MacDowell asks her for the time and when Cissy replies that she does not know,
MacDowell ventures over to Bloom, an "uncle" of hers, so that she might find out.
Upon returning to her original seat with Caffrey, MacDowell feels sympathy for Bloom, who she decides
must be the saddest man alive. In place of her thoughts on her boyfriend, Reggie Wylie, MacDowell
suggests to herself that Bloom might be a character worth saving, as only she could truly understand
him. It is not long before MacDowell notices that Bloom is again engaged in furtive behavior,
masturbating himself with a hand cloaked in his pocket. After a brief consideration, Gerty decides to
"loves" him back, teasing Bloom by displaying her garters as he masturbates. Soon after this, MacDowell
and the Caffreys depart from the beach, having stayed for the display of the nearby Bazaar¹s fireworks.
After MacDowell¹s flirtatious departure, Bloom's considers his wife Molly and at the end of "Nausicaa,"
our hero confesses that his nauseous post-orgasmic lassitude is a sure sign that he is aging.
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Analysis:
Homer's Nausicaa is a maiden, who is playing on the beach with her friends. When their ball rolls away,
Nausicaa departs to retrieve it and she encounters the body of Ulysees who is unconscious and has been
swept to land after his shipwreck. After reviving Ulysses, Nausicaa sends him to her father's house
where Ulysses plays the role of a story-telling dinner guest. Nausicaa is an unmarried young maiden
whose love for the aging Ulysses continues long after he departs, having been granted a ship to continue
his homeward voyage. Joyce's Nausicaa is Gerty MacDowell and her perception of Leopold Bloom as
"soulwrecked" mirrors Nausicaa's discovery of the shipwrecked sailor. "Nausicaa" also shares its
beachside setting with the Homeric episode and when Jacky Caffrey deliberately kicks his ball away,
Bloom's blundering attempts to toss the ball to the group bring the mysterious dark-clad stranger into
focus.
MacDowell's Nausicaa-like qualities also include her clothes washing duties and the connection that
Bloom makes between MacDowell and "nausea" which sounds like "Nausicaa." Gerty's imaginations of
her "lover" as a tale-bearing stranger fit Bloom as squarely within the "ancient mariner" motif as her
beachside display reveals her own "sea-maiden" qualities. While Joyce constructs numerous minor
parallels between this chapter and the Homeric episode, the most recurring parallel is the thematic one.
When greeted by Nausicaa, both Ulysses are in need of relief and aid. While the image of the young
woman offers Bloom a vehicle for sexual relief, the copious references to the "stormtossed heart of man"
suggests that Bloom is need of both spiritual and physical comfort. This argument is reaffirmed in
Gerty's numerous overtures, expressing a merciful and sympathetic desire to love Bloom and offer a
salve for his visible pain.
"Nausicaa" opens with an exposition of Gerty MacDowell's thoughts and instead of writing the chapter as
MacDowell's interior monologue, Joyce opts for an omniscient third-person narrator whose voice is a
parody of the heavily sentimental "romantic" novels made popular by the likes of Jane Austen and
Charlotte Bronte. Much of Joyce's affected "female" hyperbole is lost in the shift from the "marmalady"
style that comes with a return to Bloom. The hyperbole of the narrative prose is echoed in the hyperbole
of the beach activity. MacDowell utters trite metaphors, the images of a church procession are
juxtaposed with the scene of Bloom's masturbation. The bright fireworks that are shot from nearby
Bazaar district explode across the dark sky at the same time that Bloom experiences the ejaculatory
climax of his furtive masturbation.
Despite the "marmalady" style of "Nausicaa," Joyce provides enough depth in MacDowell's character to
establish her as one of the more memorable Dubliners crossing Bloom's path. While MacDowell's
sentimentality is satirized, her hopes for an opportunity to "share love" are as desperate as the
pleadings of the Dedalus girls for grocery money. Additionally, MacDowell's sentimentality is not
completely blinding and she is able to accurately identify Bloom as a fumbling and unattractive older
man at the same time that she is able to present the romanticized notion of Bloom's face as the
"saddest she had ever seen." Fusing MacDowell's portrait of Bloom with the musings of the narrator of
the previous chapter produces an evening view of the tired Leopold Bloom.
The novel's return to Sandymount strand provides for a comparison and contrast between Stephen and
Bloom. Stephen's morning thoughts in "Proteus" concentrated on the concepts of "form" and "sight."
Bloom is similarly fascinated by Gerty's transparent stockings, which "had neither shape nor form."
Bloom's voyeuristic masturbation provides another corollary to Stephen's ideas as Bloom's vision of
MacDowell is distorted and his masturbatory act is only the hollow approximation of sex. Stephen's
physical release is not an ejaculation but urination and both men consider literary ventures in connection
with their "releases." Finally, the rocks of the beachside are unquestionably a testament to the loneliness
of both characters. Joyce will bring these characters together in the next chapter, having fully indicated
their spiritual congruities.
Just as Bloom's actions suggest that Stephen Dedalus is his younger counterpart, Gerty MacDowell's
sentimental thoughts foreshadow the exposition of Molly Bloom's thoughts, presented in the final
42
chapter of Ulysses, "Penelope." The focus on Gerty's undergarments and her domestic duties as a
washerwoman presents the image of MacDowell as a young woman whose cleanliness jars with our
memory of the dirty underwear strewn about sleeping Molly's bedroom. The Woods' washerwoman (the
Woods are Bloom's neighbors) and the image of Dedalus girls boiling their laundry, complete the motif.
But the simple dichotomy between "clean" youth and "dirty" age is complicated when Molly reveals her
earliest sexual memories, the first of which occurred when she masturbated a man into her
handkerchief, (dirtying it). And in "Nausicaa," Bloom must dirty himself while his Nausicaa waves her
own clean handkerchief at Bloom upon exiting Sandymount Strand.
Unquestionably, MacDowell's capacity and desire for love bring her closest connection to the revelations
of "Penelope." In her own considerations of romance, the young woman both foreshadows Molly's
response to Bloom and engages one of Joyce's major themes. In her reflection on Reggie Wylie, a recent
ex-boyfriend, MacDowell regrets that she may never marry and she confesses that "she had loved him
better than he knew." Gerty considers the personal relationships that are produced by the traditions of
the Roman Catholic Church and she concludes that "there ought to be women priests" so that Irish
women might have a soul in whom they may comfortably confide." While these two statements have
nearly identical counterparts in "Penelope," MacDowell's other crucial admission is a somewhat damning
commentary on the Blooms' marriage: "love laughs at locksmiths." While Gerty only means to express
her unflagging desire to eclipse the barriers that separate human souls, her laughing at locksmiths turns
Ulysses' key motif on its head, suggested that the preoccupying tedium of key and tower is evidence of
love's absence. The cuckoo clock is equally damning in regards to Bloom. The chapter ends as the clock
strikes nine and the bird sings three triplets of "Cuckoo." This seemingly unimportant occurrence is
colored by Joycean references to "cuckolding" and Peter's tripled denial of Christ.
Gerty's concept of love faults Bloom for his pretense and furtiveness and as a voyeur, Bloom is
unsuccessful. Earlier in the day, Mulligan caught Bloom furtively staring at the rear ends of ancient
statues and MacDowell can easily discern that Bloom is staring at her while masturbating. Gerty plays on
Bloom's ineffective pretenses by displaying her undergarments "accidentally on purpose," and in this
regard, "love" becomes a "game." The consequences of pretense are rather steep and Joyce recalls
Hamlet's thematic treatment of pretense. The King Claudius is a royal pretender; the Queen, Gertrude,
presents a false façade of devotion; Prince Hamlet presents a play in an attempt to replicate the true
murder of his father and coax a confession from the King, and Hamlet later feigns madness. Similarly,
Polonius eavesdrops behind a curtain and the unsuccessful snoop is murdered. Bloom's actions confess
the inevitable futility of these "games" and at the end of "Nausicaa," Bloom realizes that he and Gerty
must separate. In this relationship-just as with Martha Clifford-nothing real has been shared. At the
chapter's end, Bloom suggests that these games are part of a larger attempt to "see ourselves as others
see us" and Bloom evokes the "form" and "sight" theme of Stephen's Sandymount stroll. Bloom's exit
from Sandymount corresponds with the novels official entry into the "Night" episodes of the novel and a
final reference to "Proteus" occurs when Bloom notes that it is dark and difficult to see. Bloom plays with
the idea concluding that Irish Home Rule is similarly a "Mirage." In love and life, Bloom argues, what
appears on the horizon is not necessarily what is.
It is interesting that "Nausicaa" captures the transition from dusk to night even though it ends at 9 pm.
The darkening of the day foreshadows a shift in the mood of the novel, but the winding of the day refers
to Bloom's comparative age in relation to Stephen, who strolled the beaches of Sandymount earlier in
the day. Bloom's fascination with young girls is heightened by his flagging energy. After masturbating,
he considers the effects of MacDowell's "temptation" referring to himself in the third-person plural:
"drained all the manhood out of em...my youth." While Dedalus hopes for a grey-eyed muse, Bloom is
Gerty's grey-haired lover. Like Stephen, Gerty is considered as the "future" of Ireland and her "winsome
Irish girlhood" is a fusion of sexual allure, childlike purity and maternal instincts. She is a "sterling good
daughter... just like a second mother" and within her chest beats "the very heart of a girlwoman."
Just as Stephen is considered to be "consubstantial" of several men, Gerty MacDowell is alternately

temptress and patron. The overriding "relief" and "rescue" themes of "Nausicaa" limit the parallels to
MacDowell's namesake, Gertrude of Hamlet, but Joyce clearly suggests that MacDowell's affected
43
displays are attempts to "corrupt" Bloom, though the desire to tempt Bloom is only one of several minor
motives. Gerty's chief motive comes from her emulation of the Virgin Mary and Gerty's beachside "Virgin
Mary" bears a striking resemblance to the fourth chapter of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,
where a beachside "Virgin Mary" inspires Stephen Dedalus' crucial epiphany. The opening lines of
"Nausicaa" invoke the blessings of "Mary, star of the sea" and MacDowell's "eggblue" garments give her
a chromatic resemblance to the traditional depictions of the Virgin Mary. Additionally, Gerty wears a
badge identifying her as a "Child of Mary."
MacDowell considers Bloom as a dark and lonely stranger and the narrator suggest that "even if he
[Bloom] was a Protestant or Methodist she [MacDowell] could convert him easily if he truly loved her."
Ironically, Bloom is a Jew who is far beyond the pale of MacDowell's religious preferences. Even though
MacDowell is unaware of Bloom's Jewish heritage, her expression of benevolence as an avatar of the
Virgin is the closest that Christianity comes to including Bloom within its fold. The motif of the Virgin
Mary is complicated by the simultaneous references to Sandymount's church tower, the Martello tower
and Mary's beacon-like strength. These phallic symbols of strength are intermittent in Bloom's display of
his flagging potency and Mary becomes a tower that is also female, offering "pure radiance, a beacon
ever to the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea." As Mary, MacDowell offers the traditional
female succor to a hero in need while asserting towered strength and power over the emasculated and
elderly Bloom. MacDowell's invocation to the "holy virgin of virgins" is ironic given Gerty's sexually
corrupt behavior and preference for phallic imagery. As a beacon-like virgin who saps Bloom's
masculinity and youth, MacDowell foreshadows Bella/Bello who appears as "Circe" in a Nighttown
brothel, but the sincerity of MacDowell's love and concern for Bloom allows her to successful apply her
Christian idea of "Mary, the refuge of sinners," to the Jewish stranger.
The power of MacDowell's "love" for Bloom is supported by the refrain of his love song: "Tell me, Mary,
how to woo thee." Mary appears in Bloom's musical register despite his ignorance of Christian themes
and his immediate reference to "those lovely seaside girls" supports the idea that Bloom is not
consciously aware of Gerty's somewhat deliberate transition into an avatar of the Virgin Mary. While
Bloom's previous references to love songs inevitably focused on his wife's betraying act of adultery,
Bloom's wooed "Mary" and the "lovely seaside girls" smother Bloom's thoughts of adultery to a mere
flicker. While Bloom does briefly consider his relationship with Molly, his paced and ordered thoughts
have conspicuously lost the agitated preoccupation and distress that marked his earlier feelings of
exclusion. "Mary" and the "lovely seaside girls," even in Bloom's contrived musical form, express Joyce's
argument for love as the facilitator and preserver of human relationships.
A few direct allusions to Dante's Divine Comedy appear in "Nausicaa" and these may be Joyce's method
of confirming the chapter's unmistakable thematic reliance upon the final cantos of Paradiso, which are
commonly referred to as an Ode to Love. In Dante's "Ode," the Virgin's offering of love and mercy
matches an explosion of music starry lights. Joyce includes these elements in the fireworks, beacon-
lights, hymns and love songs of "Nausicaa," the last of Ulysses' numerous seaside chapters. As night
ends and Bloom prepares to return to Dublin's urban locales, the image of the merciful Virgin seems
especially apt. MacDowell offers Bloom the one interlude of respite between the terrors of Kiernan's pub
in "The Cyclops" and Bloom's taxing guardianship of Stephen during the chronology of the next three
chapters. As Joyce's prototypical young Irish woman, MacDowell's efforts as a "refuge of sinners" and
"comfortress of the afflicted" propels the theme of love while suggesting that maternity, "Irishness" and
"Catholicism" are indeed, "consubstantial." In "Nausicaa," Joyce's typically heated satire of the church
has cooled and MacDowell is permitted her Catholic symbols and religious piety. Gerty can perform
religious healing on a human level even as Joyce questions the Catholic Church's legitimacy. The
potency of "Mary" should remind the reader of Stephen's Sandymount memories of his mother, Mary
Dedalus as the sum of the thematic debate again corroborates the comparative strength of maternal
love as opposed to the paternal. Even as Bloom prepares for his paternal mission, he is only sustained
on account of MacDowell's maternal intervention and the sincerity of Bloom's desire for a son is undercut
by his unproductive spilling of his seed.
Chapter 14: The Oxen of the Sun

44
Summary:
"The Oxen of the Sun" begins no earlier than 10 pm and ends at approximately 11pm. After the
"Nausicaa" episode, Bloom finally arrives at The National Maternity Hospital to visit Mina Purefoy who
has been in labor for three days. Because Bloom is concerned that Purefoy has not been able to deliver
the child, he waits in the hospital before briefly seeing Mrs. Purefoy, whose husband, Theodore, is not
present. After a brief discussion with one of the midwives, Bloom decides to wait outside the maternity
room, until he has received word that, with the aid of Dr Horne and midwives, Mina Purefoy has given
birth to a healthy son.
While Bloom is waiting for information regarding Purefoy's labor, he meanders into a darkened waiting
room where he encounters Stephen Dedalus, who is sitting at a long table, drinking absinthe in the
company of several other young men who are also drinking. Apparently, Stephen¹s acquaintances,
including Buck Mulligan, are mostly medical students and interns at the hospital. When Bloom sits at the
drinking table of the younger men, he is initiating the first union between the novel's principal characters
(Bloom and Dedalus). Buck Mulligan is a menacing presence in the hospital and Bloom consciously
assumes a paternal role, fearing that Mulligan has laced Stephen's drink with a harmful substance.
Even after Bloom joins the conversation of the semi-inebriated men, Mulligan remains as bawdy and
irreverent as before, making crass references to contraception, sexual intercourse, masturbation and
procreation. And Bloom¹s paternal aura seems to only extend to Stephen, who he singles out as the one
decent character in the group. Repeatedly, the young men are cautioned to lower the volume of their
laughter and profanity. After Stephen separates from Mulligan at the chapter's end, Bloom worries for
Stephen's safety and he decides to follow Stephen who has departed for "Baudyville," alongside his
friend Vincent Lynch; presumably, the young men intend to visit a brothel.
Analysis:
The Oxen of the Sun were the golden cattle of the sun-god Helios, whose herd freely grazed the sea-side
pastures of one of the coasts where Ulysses' crew takes refuge from the stormy seas. In The Odyssey,
several members of Ulysses' crew decide to slaughter and roast a few of the oxen, despite Ulysses'
repeated warnings. The sun-god Helios is enraged and while he spares Ulysses and the temperate
members of his crew, those who have taken part in the slaughter of the sacred flock are destroyed.
Joyce's "Oxen of the Sun" chapter engages a thematic question of life versus death, with the sun as the
igniting force behind life and the destruction of the cattle as a testament to the destruction that death
brings. Dublin's National Maternity Hospital is the setting of the chapter and provides the appropriate
context for discussions of birth and dying. Joyce does makes a few references to cattle. The diseased
Irish cattle, which Deasy has crusaded for, may be slaughtered in the port of Liverpool. The name of
Mina Purefoy's doctor is Horne, a pun on the horns of a bull and the multiple births occurring in the
cramped hospital quarters resemble a barnyard scene, complete with a manger.
The principal mother of the chapter, Mina Purefoy, shares her first name with the barmaid Ms. Kennedy
whose gold-hair is a reference to the color of the sun as well as the sacred cattle. The birth of Purefoy's
"golden child" is also a pun on the words son and sun. The imagery of wool and cattle in regards to
Purefoy's newborn son identifies him with Helios' sacred herd while also suggesting that the Purefoy heir
may play a messianic role. Amid references to Bullock harbor and the "bullockbefriending bard," the
refrain "bullyboy" is repeated applied to the newborn Purefoy, indicating his vigor as well as his
congruity with the sacred cattle. "Bullyboy" is one of the few positive bestial references in a novel
replete with negative ones. In a day of death and dying, the birth of the healthy young Purefoy is a
contrast to the Bloom's dead newborn, presenting a long-awaited response to the novel's ubiquitous
expressions of decay and infertility.
Joyce develops the "bullyboy" as a messianic parallel to the Oxen of the Sun, by constructing Mrs.
Purefoy as a Virgin Mary-type character. The image of a manger is presented in the narrative even
45
though there are no mangers in the hospital and the absence of Purefoy's husband simulates the
exclusive link between the Virgin and the newborn Christ. While is unsurprising that Joyce's thematic
treatment of "life and death" relies upon a construction of maternity as the source of life, it is worth
noting that the birth of the "bullyboy," like the birth of Christ, reveals the conspicuous absence of a
human paternal unit. Instead, Bloom's thoughts of his dead son Rudy suggest paternity's comparative
irrelevance and even as Bloom is drawn to Mina as a source of life, the intoxicated young men at his
table are mocking and disrespectful in their humorous philosophizing on conception, pregnancy and
contraception. In particular, Mulligan's sordid humor is the epitome of "slaughter," for Joyce, as he
humorously ponders various violations of life's sacredness.
"Oxen of the Sun" is one of the more difficult chapters to read as Joyce employs another anonymous
narrator who is both omniscient and physically absent from the setting of the chapter. Concentrating on
the theme of birth, the prose of the chapter is artificially into nine different sections to emulate the nine
months of gestation. Early on in the chapter, it becomes clear that each of the nine sections corresponds
to a phase in the birth or evolution of the English language. "Oxen of the Sun" opens with a Celtic chant
of broken sentences before progressing into various forms of Old and Middle English. As the sentence
structure and syntax proceeds chronologically, the chapter assumes a more narrative tone relying upon
narrative structures that chronologically correspond to the various syntactical forms of the English
Language. During the Old English sections of the chapter, Joyce's narrator emulates the form of Beowulf
and other Anglo-Saxon epics. Later on, "Oxen of the Sun" becomes a morality tale of Everyman and
again, appears fashioned after Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. As the tension between Stephen and his
friends increases and Bloom becomes more alarmed at Mulligan's distasteful humor, the narrative shifts
to "modern" versions of the English language, bearing stylistic relationships with Dickens and various
Victorian writers. As a debilitated Stephen makes his exit, the language of empire degenerates into
dialect and urban slang, the arc from birth to death having come full circle.
The affected narrative style of "Oxen of the Sun" is the source of continuous humor. The opacity and
intended "distance" of the narrator's Old English does very little to obscure his insults. At times, the
narrator's joy in mocking the characters is just as unflinching as the commentary of the narrator in "The
Cyclops," though this narrator lacks the sinister traits of his counterpart. While engaged in a parody of
Beowulf, the narrator regards the "wound" of the hero, Bloom, and we later learn that this wound is a
mere bee-sting. To express his disapproval of the young men's conversation, the narrator names them
as Sirs, whose bawdy displays testify to the intended irony of the narrator's superficial compliment.
Later, the young men are regarded as knights sitting at King Arthur's round table if not a fraternity of
warriors, gathered in a mead hall. These hyperbolic descriptions have the dual purpose of indicating
chronological shifts in the narrative's structure and reminding us that Stephen and his friends are getting
drunk in a Maternity Hospital, one of the least likely venues for such activity. When Joyce parodies the
famous "morality plays" of Europe's Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the narrator renames many of
the characters, giving them names that offer some sort of biographical information, if not character
assessment. An intern named Dixon is renamed "learningknight," Lenehan is described as an
unimpressive "franklin," Sir Leopold comes to regard Stephen's friends as wastrels just as he is renamed
"Calmer" to Stephen's "Boasthard."
The narrator's hyperbolic excesses can be most easily detected in the depiction of Buck Mulligan whose
sordid comedy is cast as wholly evil. The Old English narrator parodies himself by referring to Mulligan
as Punch Costello, but the harmless (and rather accurate) moniker is replaced by the phrase "child of
Lilith," and the Satanic connotations of Lilith juxapose Mulligan with the messianic "bullyboy." Mulligan's
subsequent names, "patron of abortions" and "spawn of a rebel," prevent the reader from considering
Mulligan's humor as harmless impropriety. The morality tale, featuring "Calmer" and "Boasthard,"
presents Mulligan as "Killchild" because of his unnecessarily ardent adulation of birth control. Mulligan is
renamed "Carnal Concupiscence" after he argues that men should masturbate rather than marry, and he
later distributes business cards that read "Mr Malachi Mulligan. Fertiliser and Incubator," in order to
advertise his fictitious scheme to live on a compound of women with whom he will fornicate. Mulligan is
wholly uninterested in the potential for procreation through sex even as he argues that his role as
"Fertiliser and Incubator" will justify his sexual excesses.
46
At times, Mulligan's unnecessary and immature cruelty resembles Citizen. Mulligan refers to the morning
milkmaid whom he calls "Mother Grogan," exclaiming "there's a belly that never bore a bastard."
Mulligan's reduction of procreation to its status as an inconvenient side-product of shallow and lust-
driven sex, is not the full extent of his offense. Additionally, the young medical student revels in the
details of death, corruption, perversion and destruction. Buck spends several minutes discussing incest
and he affects the seriousness of a moral philosopher while telling a riddle after which the audience must
decide between balancing the life of a pregnant woman against the life of her unborn child. Our final
images of Mulligan make explicit references to Homer's "Oxen of the Sun" as Mulligan relishes a story of
once eating pre-born calves from living cows. Mulligan is indicted for his intentional and unprovoked
efforts to violate the sacredness of life and in satirical praise of Mulligan's numerous songs and alleged
visions, the narrator name him Malachi Roland St. John Mulligan.
Bloom's attempts to "rescue" Stephen reflect his concern for Dedalus' physical condition as well as his
realization that Stephen's acquaintances would eventually produce in him, their same sacrilegious and
crass manners. When Purefoy finally gives birth, Bloom struggles to pull Stephen away from the
drunkenness of the table so that he might consider the "miracle" which has just taken place. Suggesting
to Stephen that the sincere celebration of birth and life is a necessary characteristic of a true artist,
Bloom asserts that "one must have a cold constitution and a frigid genius" to resist rejoicing at the news
of Purefoy's birth, considering the fact Purefoy has innocently and patiently suffered three days of
intense pain. Bloom's invitation to Stephen is countered by Mulligan's refrain, "O lust our refuge and our
strength," a corrupted reference to the Virgin Mary.
The scene in the Maternity Hospital pits Bloom against Mulligan, both of whom intend to influence
Stephen, whose lack of maturity becomes glaringly apparent. Stephen appears as alternately fearful and
boastful, and the depiction of "young Stephen orgulous of Mother Church" confirms our suspicion that
Stephen is irritated by Mulligan's blasphemy because he has been unable to sever his own connections
with the Roman Catholic Church. Even as the narrator examines Stephen's emotional "youth" and lack of
rigor and independence, both the anonymous observer as well as Bloom agree that Stephen is decent
soul who lacks the depraved sensibilities of his acquaintances. Even though Stephen tries to emulate
them, his conscience prevents him from fully reveling in their humor.
Despite Bloom's exhausting display of paternal affection and his unspoken thoughts of his son of eleven
days, buried "on a fair corselet of lamb's wool," the chapter's tone hints that Bloom and Dedalus will be
unable to forge a permanent relationship. While Stephen remains obsessed with questions of paternity,
his Hamlet-ghosts and Telemachus-like voyages inevitably return to the image of his dead mother.
Stephen's most obvious departure from his two antecedents is his preference of the maternal to the
paternal. Despite the chapter's multi-tiered argument against paternity, Bloom continues on his mission.
Bloom's overtures to the intoxicated Dedalus are mostly ignored, though not because Stephen intends to
disrespect Bloom. The tragic sense of Bloom's condition is heightened by our realization of what Bloom
does not know: that he is thinking of his son, while Stephen is thinking of his mother. Bloom is explicitly
described as a desperate figure who, "[having] no manchild for an heir looked upon his friend's son and
was shut up in sorrow."
The chapter makes reference to "our mighty mother" in addressing the midwives of Mina Purefoy, and
we should recall the "birthcable" that Stephen considers as the unifying factor of humanity. Mina Purefoy
is similarly constructed as the symbol of a fruitful union between Ireland and the Roman Catholic
Church, in contrast to the "sireland." And Purefoy's Virgin Mary imagery is further developed in the
parallel between her three days of labor and the three days spanning Christ crucifixion, burial and
resurrection. The female is present at the "womb" and at the "tomb" and Molly's thoughts in "Penelope"
similarly identify "the aged sisters" who "draw us into life...over us dead they bend."
In contrast, "Nobodaddy," a God-like figure who lacks personal aspects of mercy, epitomizes Joyce's
ideas of fatherhood. While the Virgin Mary is elevated, God is punned as a mere "disseminator of
blessings" and Stephen recalls his earlier thoughts that fatherhood is fleeting and inconsequential.
Mulligan's joke, that he will become a hired fertilizer/incubator, underscores the inconsequentiality of
47
fatherhood. Even Bloom comes under attack as the narrator judges him: "thou has sinned against my
light lust." Bloom's sin against the "light" is his masturbation, spilling his seed rather than attempting to
create life. There is little hope for the Bloom-Virag line as the narrator notes Bloom's solemnity: "There
is none now to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph." This is a double-damnation as "Rudolph"
is the name of Leopold's father and the name of his son.
Bloom's paternal efforts are transfigured into more of a Christ-like, messianic outreach than fatherly
guidance, in part because Bloom is too "different" and too much of a misfit to breach the divide he
shares with Stephen. While he cannot claim Stephen as an heir, he is able to play the role of the "Kind
Kristyann" who helps Stephen, the "yung man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee." This voice comes from
the street, one of the "Nighttime" voices. Occurring at the end of the chapter's "evolution" of the English
language, this slang (which closely resembles T.S. Eliot's approximations of black American dialects)
expresses ambiguous emotions of Anglo-American Modernists who welcomed the end of Victorian
sensibilities, all the while dismayed by the inevitable "culture chaos" of language without structure.
The (European) Modernist response to the rise of "Black English" as being "outside" of the culture is
especially poignant in this Joycean context considering that Joyce is a self-exiled Irish writer "outside" of
the British culture. Joyce's protagonist, Bloom, is even more "excluded" than the young melancholy
Stephen, because Mr. Bloom is an apostate Jew living beyond the pale of orthodox Judaism at the same
time that his questionable "Jewishness" makes him a "dark horse" in Catholic Ireland. Finally, the
Messiah to which Bloom aspires, is similarly a rejected beneficent character, expelled to the wilderness
before an ultimate rejection by his kinsmen and execution by foreigners. Despite the intended opacity of
the conclusion's "Black English," this passage provides one of the clearest depictions of Bloom and
Stephen.
The narrator explains that Young Stephen needs a place to "lay crown of his hed 2 night," and the alert
reader should recall Joyce's earlier employments of the crown pun. Dedalus is Joyce's parallel to the
princes Telemachus and Hamlet, and his first name, Stephen, is as Greek as his last name, Dedalus,
deriving from the Greek word for crown, Stephanos. The "night" voice humorously refers to Martello as a
"bungalow," but in spite of his foreign anonymity and distance, the black street speaker easily identifies
the "key" as Stephen's primary concern (and recurring motif), even as the young Dedalus is drunk and
clueless. The allusion to Mulligan-the-usurper as Stephen's "frend" is as (intentionally) ironic as the plea
to the "Kind Kristyann," Bloom. At the conclusion of "The Cyclops," Bloom "ascended" into heaven,
having realized his Elijah/Throwaway potential. Beginning in "Nausicaa," the anonymous narrators
initiate Bloom's "Christianization," after a stressful day as an identifiable outsider. While the characters
of Ulysses retain their knowledge of Bloom's Jewishness, the narrators allow Bloom to develop messianic
imagery, all the while underscoring the fact that, unlike other literary heroes, he is a forgiven failure.
Even as his act of masturbation is chained to his immediate desires for an heir, his ambitions to be a
Messiah are limited by his depiction as being a "Kristyann" instead of Christ, a facilitator instead of a
savior.
Chapter 15: Circe
Summary:
Bloom follows Stephen and Lynch out of the maternity hospital as they head to Bawdyville, a brothel in
the red-light district of Dublin that Joyce refers to as Nighttown. The reader is presented with grisly
scenes of street urchin and deformed children, rowdy British soldiers and depraved prostitutes. Bloom
follows the young men by train but he gets off at wrong stop and has initial difficulty keeping track of
them. He is then accosted by a stranger who refuses to let him pass and a "sandstrewer" runs him off
the road.
As Bloom progresses deeper into Nighttown with the hopes of finding young Stephen, the frenetic pace
of the red-light district provokes several hallucinations in Bloom and his secret thoughts and hidden
48
fears are played out before us. A sober Bloom is greeted by the spirits of his dead parents as well as the
image of his wife Marion (Molly) who speaks to him in "Moorish." The farce continues when Bloom's bar
of lemon soap begins to speak and Mrs. Breen, the wife of the lunatic Denis, appears in the road and
flirts with Bloom before mocking him for getting caught in the red-light district. Bloom is suddenly in a
courtroom, charged with accusations of lechery. Several young girls recount sordid stories of his Bloom,
the conspicuous voyeur, and the courtroom's roll includes various characters from earlier in the day
including Paddy Dignam and Father Coffey, who presided over Dignam's funeral.
The narrative abruptly shifts when Bloom finally arrives at Bella Cohen's brothel. When Bloom finds
Stephen inside, he immediately seeks to protect the young man from being swindled. Stephen continues
his own descent into drunken madness and Bloom holds Dedalus' money to avoid any further losses.
Stephen's despairing hallucinations reach their climax when he encounters the vengeful ghost of his
mother who begs him to return to the Roman Catholic Church. Dedalus breaking his symbolic chains to
past by smashing Cohen's cheap chandelier with his walking stick. Chaos ensues when Bella Cohen tries
to overcharge Stephen for the damage and Bloom must defend Stephen's interests. Again, as they are
leaving the brothel, Bloom comes to the defensive when Private Carr assaults Stephen. Carr attacks the
intoxicated young man despite Bloom's insistence that Stephen is incapable of protecting himself.
Stephen has lost his glasses, his hand wounded and he immediately faints after Carr's blow. Vincent
Lynch deserts Dedalus in Nighttown and Bloom directs Stephen towards shelter. In the final scene of
"Circe," Bloom is distracted by the vision of his dead son, Rudy, not as a newborn infant but at the age
that he would have been had he lived.
Analysis:
Homer's Circe was an enchantress famed for her beauty as well as her powerful spells. Ulysses visited
Circe and after inviting his crew to dine at her table, she turned may of them into swine and led them to
her pen where they were joined by her other male victims. Ulysses and his more temperate sailors had
to struggle to overcome Circe's powerful charms. Joyce's Circe is Bella Cohen, who runs a brothel in
Nighttown in order to pay for her son's tuition at Oxford. The masochist tint of Cohen's brothel
emphasizes female domination, lust, gluttony and the bestial nature of man. Bella's enchantress-like
function is reaffirmed in the copious pig and bondage imagery of the "Circe" episode. While the ancient
Ulysses overpowered Circe, Bloom immediately succumbs to hallucinations. In his major sexual
hallucination, Bloom enjoys the transformation of "Bella" to "Bello" as he is "transformed" into a
feminized beast. The brothel functions as a sty and both the prostitutes and their patrons are chained to
sordidness of Nighttown at the same time that they each suffer under the burdens of memory. Stephen
breaks Cohen's chandelier in an effort to ward off his mother's ghost and Stephen's nostalgic and
religious obsessions are as "enchanting" and harmful as Bloom's sexual preoccupations with masculinity
and virility. Stephen and Bloom are completely vulnerable in Nighttown, as if they are hypnotized or
under a spell and both must re-assert themselves.
"Circe," which reads as a play, is easily the longest of Ulysses' chapters. The Joycean hallucinations are
as motivated by the logic of dreams as they are by his excessive puns and references to the Bible, to
Shakespeare, to music as well as to the previous fourteen chapters of the novel. In Bloom's "Nighttown"
hallucinations, earlier events are recounted with the details mixed up. In "Nausicaa," Bloom noted that
Gerty MacDowell's attempt at a flirtatious strut looked more like a limp; in "Circe," MacDowell is a
limping street urchin. Even though Bloom's mother, Ellen Higgins Bloom, is Jewish, she carries religious
symbols and calls upon the "sacred Heart of Mary" in a manner that resembles Stephen's dead mother,
Mary Dedalus. Both the Dedalus and Virag family ghosts chastise their living sons who have departed
from the religious orthodoxy of their youth.
The "Circe" chapter bears testament to the Modernist Joyce's reliance upon the writings of Sigmund
Freud. In particular, Joyce's argument that Bloom's dreams reveal his repressed sexual fears and desires
is very Freudian. In Bloom's sado-masochistic hallucination, the brothel becomes a startling place: Bella
Cohen becomes a large man named Bello and Bloom becomes a female pig who enjoys being debased
and fettered. The extremes of Bloom's hallucination provide insight into his servility in Molly's presence.
49
Towards the end of Bloom's hallucination we find the humorous cheering of bystanders who proclaim the
unparalleled sexual prowess of Blazes Boylan. Given the sexually explicit language of the scene, it is
little surprise that Ulysses was banned in the United Kingdom and United States when it was first
published in 1922.
Stephen's tormenting hallucinations are far less humorous than Bloom's and with his dead mother's
ghost in pursuit, Stephen's behavior resembles the madness of Prince Hamlet. All around him, Stephen
hears corrupted versions of the love songs that he sang to his mother and just as he has rejected
paternity, Stephen must now reject his mother and declare his independence. As soon as Stephen
smashes Bella Cohen's chandelier, his mother's ghost vanishes.

Chapter Sixteen: Eumaeus
Summary:
After Stephen is revived, Bloom directs him towards a "cabman's shelter," a coffeehouse owned by a
man named "Skin-the-Goat" Fitzharris. As Stephen begins to slowly sober up, Bloom begins a
conversation in earnest, discussing his ideas of love and politics. Bloom's desperation makes his desire
for a "son" transparent and even when Stephen is sober, he does not seem to be particularly interested
in Bloom's thoughts. The conversation between Bloom and Dedalus resembles the conversation in the
Dignam funeral carriage, where Bloom appears as a man who is desperate for acceptance.
In his efforts to win Stephen¹s favor, Bloom attempts to play the role of an intellectual.
Upon entering the cabman¹s shelter, Bloom hears a few Italians speaking their native language and he
turns to Stephen, to proclaim his love of the Italian language, specifically its phonetics. Stephen (who
knows Italian) calmly replies that the Italian melody that Bloom has heard, was a base squabble over
money. Though Bloom soon realizes that he does not know the brooding young Dedalus very well, he
believes that the student's company would be beneficial for the Blooms. He could perhaps be a singer
like his father and his economic potential is all the more pleasant to Bloom because he considers
Stephen to be an "edifying" partner in conversation. Later in the conversation, Bloom demonstrates his
intellectual deficiencies as he attempts to discuss politics with Dedalus arguing a shallow and superficial
Marxist Leninism. Bloom¹s reform calls first, for all citizens to "labor" and second, for all citizen¹s needs
to be secured regardless of their varying abilities, provided that this reform is carried out "in
installments." Perceiving Stephen¹s negative reaction to be a non-intellectual aversion, Bloom seeks to
immediately assuage Dedalus by explaining that poetry is "labor."
Bloom leaves the cabman's shelter and invites Stephen to his home at 7 Eccles Street and the young
man grudgingly accepts. While inside the coffeehouse, Stephen's paid less attention to Bloom and more
attention to a man named W. B. Murphy, a self-described world sailor who had just come home to see
his wife after many years. The comic sea bard adds a comic note to the tiring chapter, with his stories of
acrobats, conspiracies and tattoos. As he is leaving the cabman's shelter, Stephen sees his dissipated
friend, Corley. When Corley explains that he is in need of work, Stephen suggests that Corley visit Mr.
Deasy's school to apply for an opening, as Dedalus intends to vacate his post.
Analysis:
Homer's Eumaeus was a herder who sheltered Ulysses when he first arrived in Ithaca. The "Eumaeus"
parallel is the "cabman's shelter" which provides sustenance for Dedalus and Bloom, who are nearing
the end of their wanderings. Fitzharris' nickname, "Skin-the-goat," presents a superficial parallel to the
Ithaca herder and W. B. Murphy is close to the Ulysses prototype than Bloom is. It is Murphy who has
traveled the world and has now returned home, fearing what infidelity may have transpired in his
absence.
50
The long-winded prose of this chapter resembles the anonymous narrating of the fourteenth chapter,
"Nausicaa." Both chapters emulate medieval morality tales and Christian parables and this chapter also
develops the theme of the story-telling wanderer. Like the "Ancient Mariner," W. B. Murphy performs in
a role similar to Ulysses' role in Homer's "Nausicaa" episode. The dissipated, wandering style of the
narrative is meant to evoke the listlessness of the weary travelers. The sentences are long and winding;
often times, they are not completed and this narrator seems too weary to offer a penetrating gaze into
the minds of Bloom and Dedalus.
In his arrangement of motifs, Joyce makes specific reference to Christ's parables of the Good Samaritan
and the Prodigal Son as well as legendary wanderers like Jupiter Fluvius and the "Flying Dutchman." The
words of W. B. Murphy ("my wife believes me dead, rocked in the cradle of the deep") link all of these
figures together as they bedeviled by questions of recognition. Both Stephen and Bloom have been
irrevocably changed on June 16, and after their pained wandering, they may not resemble the people
they once were. Joyce realizes this and as Ithaca approaches, the men contemplate the fragility and
endurance of love. Bloom thinks to himself: "love me, love my dirty shirt," a maxim of forgiveness that
both he and Molly would need to learn. The narrator is more explicit in the questions posed to the
reader: "Can real love, supposing there happens to be another chap in the case, exist between married
folk?"
Chapter Seventeen: Ithaca
Summary:
The novel's penultimate chapter marks the pre-dawn hours of June 17, 1904. Stephen returns with
Bloom to his residence at 7 Eccles Street and after a strained conversation and a cup of cocoa, Dedalus
departs, turning down Bloom's invitation to stay for the night. When the two gentlemen reach 7 Eccles,
Bloom realizes that he does not have his key and he is forced to literally jump over a gate in order to
gain entry into the house. After navigating his way through the dark house, Bloom retrieves a candle
and returns to lead Stephen through the dark house. Their conversation is more spirited as Stephen is
considerably more conscious and lucid than he was in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters. And unlike
his demeanor in the cabman¹s shelter, Stephen is less sullen as he sits in the Bloom residence drinking
cocoa. Bloom¹s conversation eventually tires Dedalus though, and despite Bloom¹s efforts, he departs
without committing to Bloom¹s offer for a future engagement for "intellectual" conversation. Dedalus
does not know where he is going to go, as he declines returning to his father¹s house and is locked out
of Martello. Guiding Stephen outside of the house, Bloom lingers outside to stare at the multitude of
early morning stars. Upon re-entering the house, Bloom retires for the night, focusing his thoughts on
the untidy house.
There is visible evidence of Boylan's earlier visit and after briefly contemplating a divorce, Bloom silently
climbs into bed, offering Molly a kiss on the rear end. It seems that Bloom is eager to forget the matter,
and will sacrifice his self-respect for comforts of married stability. Bloom's submissiveness presents a
sharp contrast to the triumphal actions of Homer's Ulysses. In the original "Ithaca" episode, Ulysses and
his son Telemachus attack Penelope's suitors, executing them all before re-establishing Ulysses on his
throne.
Analysis:
"Ithaca" has long beguiled many literary critics; the chapter is structured as an interrogation or
catechism. Through the answers to 307 posed questions, the reader gleans an account of Bloom's early
morning activity. Again, an anonymous narrator accompanies Joyce's complicated narrative structure.
The tone and scope of the questions alternates from philosophical to personal, effecting a new
experience for the reader; all the while, "Ithaca" is bursting with the usual Joycean humor and wordplay.
The narrator asks why Bloom was "doubly irritated" discovering the absence of his key; the response:
"he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded himself twice not to forget." Later,
51
the narrator describes Bloom's "firm full masculine feminine passive active hand" and refers to Bloom's
"clandestine satisfaction of erotic irritation in masculine brothels." The narrator also mimics Bloom's
ambiguities and obsequious manners. Recounting Bloom's previous invitation to visit the Dedalus family,
the narrator explains: "Very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative gratitude, in
appreciatively grateful sincerity of regret, he declined." At some points, the obsessive narrator is self-
satirical: "they [Stephen and Bloom] drank in jocoserious silence Epp's massproduct, the creature
cocoa."
At the same time that the narrator humorously delves into Bloom's psyche, the questions present an
equally impersonal universality leading some critics to liken the chapter to a catechism, an Olympian
divinity/oracle or the Old Testament "voice of the whirlwind." Others suggest another Old Testament
parallel to God's interrogation of the Biblical character, Job. The language of the chapter is both scientific
and theoretical, reducing Bloom's spiritual conundrums to neat formulas and observations. Remarking
on the human-ness and universality of Bloom's solitude, the narrator describes Bloom as "assumed by
any or known to none. Everyman or Noman." "Everyman" and "Noman" link Bloom to a medieval
morality play and Homer's Ulysses, respectively. Bloom's fatalism is recast as his cognizance of "the
futility of triumph or protest or vindication," ultimately citing "the apathy of the stars" as the source of
his anti-heroic stance. Most critics agree that the questions and answers of "Ithaca," whatever their
thematic import, produce an "objectivity" that none of the other narrators have created. Bloom's
emotional discovery of "evidence" of Boylan's visit could have easily upset the tonal balance of the anti-
sentimental novel. Instead, Ulysses remains on track, for even as Bloom experiences his heartbreak, he
is reduced to size: Bloom is only one of billions of souls whose "allotted human life formed a parenthesis
of infinitesimal brevity."
Joyce's portrait of Bloom defies Homeric heroics to stress the mundane qualities that Bloom shares with
all of humanity. Similarly, with a more pacifist and mellow union between Joyce's Ulysses and
Telemachus figures replaces the martial vengeance of Homer's father and son pair. Again, Joyce gives
Bloom a tint of the religious imagery that was first employed in "Nausicaa." Bloom and Stephen
resemble a Catholic procession, as Bloom searches for a "lucifer match" before lighting a candle to guide
Stephen into the house. As "Stephen obeys his [Bloom's] sign" to enter, the young Dedalus links Bloom
with the Catholic "Fathers" he has obeyed since his schooldays. This Christian imagery is deepened when
we learn that Bloom has been baptized three times throughout his life, and his final site of baptism is
the same site where Stephen was baptized. The religious imagery ends with Stephen's departure from 7
Eccles and it is described as "the exodus from the house of bondage to the wilderness of inhabitation,"
ironically drawing attention to Bloom's Jewishness while alluding to a well-known Psalm shared by both
Judeo-Christian traditions.
Even as Stephen subconsciously admits him as a "Father," Bloom's messianic ambitions flare and he
imagines himself as the "light to the Gentiles." Though Joyce has continually satirized his heroes'
messianic complexes, in this chapter it seems that Bloom's imperfect desire to help Stephen is enough
to merit the ultimate respect and admiration of the narrator. Bloom has plenty of faults and his schemes
for the betterment of others often seem hypocritical. Joyce also paints Bloom as the shallow bourgeois
type-he dreams of a utopian settlement called "Flowerville" or "Bloom Cottage" all the while conceding
that Marx's "revolution" is both desirable and inevitable, only it must come in "installments." Bloom
befriends Stephen, in part, because he believes that his conversation is edifying and that he would be a
good tutor to teach Molly how to speak Italian.
Bloom has a sincere desire to "better" the world and the souls around him and this considerably affects
his interactions with others. When faced with Stephen's unexpected brusqueness, Bloom is hesitant to
judge him, instead suggesting that Stephen is simply in need of etiquette lessons. Bloom's own failings
are laughable-at the end of the chapter he considers leaving his wife but after contemplating the
Ulysses-like life of a wanderer, he concludes that it is too late in the night for a "departure." And to the
catalogue of Bloom's weaknesses and moments of indecision, Joyce adds the details of the unflattering
minutia of Bloom's life: his urination, his flatulence and his painful bee sting. For the narrator, and
perhaps for the reader, Bloom's heroism comes from his constant desire for a better world, his untiring
52
acts of benevolence and his eagerness to see the best in people while forgiving the most painful
offenses. By the conclusion of "Ithaca," Bloom has not mastered the kingliness of a veritable messiah,
nor has he amassed a congregation of devotees. Nonetheless, the God-like narrator acknowledges
Bloom's faults and forgives him with the same alacrity that Bloom has demonstrated earlier.
In "Ithaca," the relationship between Bloom and Stephen touches upon a few biographical details of
Joyce. One of the narrator's tangents discusses the age ratio between the two heroes. Ulysses is set in
1904, as Stephen is 22 years old and Bloom is 38. In "Wandering Rocks," Mulligan and Haines jokes that
Stephen Dedalus would perhaps be able to "write something ten years from now." In 1914, Joyce first
published selections of his novella, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the relationship between
Joyce and Dedalus is strengthened by the fact that in 1904, James Joyce and Stephen Dedalus were
both 22 years old. Dedalus, like Joyce, left for Paris in 1902 and the conclusion of "Ithaca" foresees that
in 1904, Dedalus, like Joyce, will leave Ireland to take up permanent residency elsewhere.
Bloom is sixteen years Stephen's senior, at the age of 38. Not coincidentally, Joyce completed Ulysses in
1920, at the age of 38, having effectively written two avatars of himself into the novel-a younger Joyce
and his older counterpart. In the novel's repeated references to Dante's Divine Comedy, Joyce has
suggested the Bloom/Dedalus relationship as a parallel to the Virgil/Dante relationship and now we find
that Joyce is effectively mentoring his younger self via Bloom. Not only does this account for Bloom's
(perhaps, Darwinian) desire to assist Stephen, but it also explains the excessive similarities between the
two characters who are described as the "keyless couple," a pair of Prince Hamlets who ponder whether
"to enter or not to enter. To knock or not to knock." For his part, Bloom is largely unaware of what
influence he may have had on Dedalus. While under Bloom's beneficent gaze, Dedalus has decided to
quit his job at Mr. Deasy's school. We can't know whether Bloom motivated this liberation, we do know
that Bloom at least provided a place of "refuge" for Stephen while he was drunk and abused in
Nighttown. Bloom's course as a Throwaway officially ends when Stephen leaves his house for the
"wilderness of inhabitation," doomed to wander for a time, as he is without key. No doubt Bloom is
somewhat relieved to see the burdensome hero's mantle set upon young Stephen's shoulders.
Chapter Eighteen: Penelope
Summary:
"Penelope" is Ulysses' eighteenth and final chapter. Molly Bloom thinks on her life before marriage and
she defends and regrets her affair with Boylan, while bemoaning the social restrictions on women. Mrs.
Bloom catalogues the detriments of her married life, describing her nagging loneliness, the deceptive
allures of adultery and the betrayals she has suffered on account of her emotionally absent "Poldy."
Molly¹s narrative quickly slides between the distant and recent past and we learn of her years as an
unmarried and attractive young lady in Gibraltar, a British colony on the southernmost tip of Spain. Her
years with her mother Lunita and her father, a military man named Tweedy, seem to offer her the most
pleasure as she is largely displeased with Boylan¹s rough manners and her husband¹s effeminate
deficiencies.
For all of the negative assessments of hearth and home, "Penelope" is emphatically braced with the
word "Yes" at the beginning and conclusion, and we have every reason to believe that-at least for June
17-the Bloom's intend to preserve their marriage. Perhaps in irritation and gratitude for Bloom's "kiss on
the rump," Molly intends to turn his servility on its head by waking up early to serve Bloom "his
breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs." After analyzing Bloom¹s faults, Molly suggests that she knows
Bloom better than anyone else and that their shared memories represent an emotional wealth that she
would be unable to duplicate in a relationship with Boylan.
Analysis:
53
The final chapter is named for "Penelope," the faithful wife of the Greek hero, Ulysses. When suitors
overran her husband's palace and forced her to concede Ulysses' death and remarry, Penelope remained
faithful, claiming that she had to knit a funereal shroud in memory of her husband before she could
choose a suitor. After spending each day earnestly knitting, Penelope would spend the night unraveling
the work that she had done. Eventually, her suitors tired of the ruse and Ulysses' triumphal return could
not have come a moment later as it had been twenty years (and two Homeric epics) since Ulysses first
left Ithaca to assist King Menelaus and the Greeks at Troy. As Ulysses and Telemachus reclaim the
palace, Penelope has locked herself in her bedroom chamber and when Ulysses enters the chamber to
greet his wife, she does not recognize him. Ulysses must prove himself by recounting the story of their
wedding bed's construction, a secret that Penelope knows that only Ulysses would know. The end of epic
is a portrait of marital bliss, even as the king and queen are physically altered, haggard and aged.
Furthermore, Ulysses has more difficulties to endure.
"Penelope" lacks the few narrative pretenses that are found in other chapters, expressing the simple and
unstructured "interior monologue" of Molly Bloom. Unlike the other interior monologues, Molly's is
uncorrupted by dialogue or outside distraction because it occurs when she is half-asleep. Because
"Penelope" is so heavily foreshadowed in the seventeen previous chapters, some readers erroneously
conclude that this final chapter functions like the Earl of Dudley's cavalcade in the final section of the
"Wandering Rocks" chapter: a chronology that retraces the narrative timeline from start to finish,
existing simultaneously in time. Even though Molly presents a fairly complete chronology of June 16 (as
well as a few other historical moments), "Penelope" is very clearly a catalogue of Molly's thoughts
beginning at the precise moment when she is stirred by Bloom's arrival into their bed. This is after 3 am
and is probably closer to four or five in the morning as the light of the summer dawn is fast approaching.
"Penelope" is the novel's final, most daring attempt to capture the essence of the human mind at work.
Joyce complicates this mission and the "Penelope" that we see is Molly whose subconscious is at work
while she is drifting into sleep. The non-narrative prose skips coherently from fragment to fragment and
the lack of punctuation suggests a hallucination that is distinct from the regimented hallucinations of
"Circe." That the chapter's mere eight sentences span over 1600 lines of text is evidence enough that
"Penelope" is Ulysses' closest approximation to the "stream of consciousness," functioning almost
exclusively as a series of linked ideas rather than words.
Just as "Penelope" carries the tropes of Modernism, it also represents a twentieth-century alternative to
Homer's scheme of marital bliss. Joyce's revision is "modernized" and made "real" by Molly's infidelity
and unabashed sexuality. The obsolescence of epic, battlefield heroism is chronicled in the story of
Bloom-as-Ulysses just as the decline of sexual purity and marital devotion is captured in Molly's role as
Penelope. The Blooms deviate from the classical ideal but they are able to attain a degree of marital
bliss and perhaps it is more meaningful because they have both strained and struggled. Joyce argues in
"Penelope" that even though his Ulysses and Penelope are imperfect, they are able to unite because
their love for each other is uncorrupted and solid.
The "wedding bed" motif was developed midway through Ulysses, foreshadowing the treatment of the
marriage bed in "Penelope." In "Scylla and Charybdis," Stephen's Shakespearean criticism expounded
upon Ann Hathaway's infidelity and the "secondbest bed" that her playwright husband bequeathed to
her. The "jingle jangle jingling" of the loose bed figured as a musical confession of Molly's rather athletic
sexual encounter with her energetic paramour, Blazes Boylan. Joyce's "Penelope" takes place in the
mind of the unfaithful wife who is sleeping in the "jingle jangle jingling" bed where she committed
adultery earlier in the afternoon. In this regard, Molly cannot be any more different from Penelope who
marital devotion is unmatched. This final chapter provides the resolution of the "jingling" while delivering
Molly's much anticipated presence. Mrs. Bloom briefly appeared in "Calypso,' in a similarly half-asleep
state and Molly is also a fleeting character in "Wandering Rocks," offering a coin of charity to a beggar.
The conspicuous narrative presence of Blazes Boylan, the recurring "jingle jangle" of the bed and
Bloom's own foreknowledge and reflection of Molly's affair force Joyce to present Molly's "side" of the
story.
54
Molly appears as the sum total of all of the novel's female characters. Fusing Mrs. Breen and Mrs.
Cunningham together, Molly presents herself as the beleaguered wife of a difficult man, all the while
admitting her own "kimono" antics. Molly's thoughts on maternity contrast with Mina Purefoy and the
midwives, because of her dismal attitude, no doubt influenced by her husband's refusal to inseminate
her during sex. Molly also evokes the images of sexual conquest and competition, having vanquished
Martha Clifford, Molly confirms the superiority of songs over flowers-as the medium of love. In this
regard, Molly Bloom resembles Douce and Kennedy of the Ormond Bar, but her closest link is to the
"Nausicaa" character, Gerty MacDowell. Molly's first sexual experience involves masturbating a man into
her handkerchief and like MacDowell, she found religious confession to be an inhumane institution:
"theres nothing like a kiss long and hot down your to soul almost paralyses you then I hate that
confession when I used to go to Father Corrigan." Molly's possessiveness and odd sense of piety produce
a Nausicaa-like commentary: "hed [Leopold Bloom] never find another woman like me to put up with
him."
"Penelope" is perhaps, most notorious for Molly's coarse language and sexual frankness. In considering
how she has aged and her beauty has faded, Molly thinks to herself, "would I be like that bath of the
nymph with my hair down yes only shes younger or Im a little like that dirty bitch in that Spanish
photo." And in regarding her own body and her retentive physical charms, Molly exclaims, "how soft like
a peach easy God I wouldnt mind being a man and get up on a lovely woman." Later, Molly explains her
sexual frankness saying "it didnt make me blush why should it either its only nature." And with a
commitment to honesty, Molly assesses her two paramours. She reveals Bloom's (unsurprising) sexual
proclivities, his penchant for voyeurism and pornography ("the smutty photo"), his anal fetishes, and his
coprophilia: "hed like me to walk in all the horse dung I could find but of course hes not natural like the
rest of the world." Rather casually, Molly admits: "its a wonder Im not an old shrivelled hag before my
time living with him so cold never embracing me." It is not difficult to detect the sadness that she has
thinly veiled behind her exacting honesty when she compresses her "infertility" and "loneliness" into one
charge, citing Bloom as the wrongdoer. When Molly confesses, "the last time he [Bloom] came on my
bottom when was it the night Boylan gave my hand a great squeeze," we finally understand that
Bloom's emotional distance corrupted their sexual union and forced Molly to seek companionship
elsewhere. Like Douce and Kennedy, Molly refers to Bloom's "boiled [greasy] eyes" and in her biting
commentary, Mrs. Bloom renames her husband "Poldy pigheaded" because "he thinks he knows a great
lot," ending the subject with the backhanded moniker "L Boom." Apparently, she has read the evening
press regarding Dignam's funeral.
"Penelope" offers an equally descriptive portrait of Blazes Boylan, confirming his legendary sexual
prowess: "he must have come 3 or 4 times with that tremendous big red brute of a thing he has." Molly
even considers eloping with Boylan but she quickly admits that Boylan has his own faults. In her
overtures, Molly resembles a hybrid of MacDowell's "Nausicaa" and Bloom's penpal, Martha Clifford: "I
wishsomebody would write me a loveletter his wasnt much and I told him he could write what he liked
yours ever Hugh Boylan." Boylan's rough and casual demeanor complements his athletic sexuality. Molly
describes him as "vulgar" and comments that she "didnt like his slapping me behind going away so
familiarly in the hall though I laughed Im not a horse." Molly's final judgment of Boylan, "no that's no
way for him has he no manners nor no refinement nor no nothing in his nature," is a lasting one and it is
not a mere coincident that the word "no" occurs five times in this fragment. Molly's final image, her
memory of Howth Head, where she " gave him [Bloom] the bit of seedcake out of my mouth" presents
the word "yes" thirteen times within the span of ten lines.
As "Penelope" concludes, Molly's acceptance of Bloom, stems from their shared memories and Mrs.
Bloom assumes a defiant tone in her defense of Leopold. To the women of Dublin, she remarks, "let
them get a husband first thats fit to be looked at and a daughter like mine." And she chides the men of
Dublin for their treatment of Bloom, "making fun of him then behind his back I know well when he goes
on with his idiotics because he has sense enough not to squander every penny piece he earns down their
gullets and looks after his wife and family goodfornothings poor Paddy Dignam..." Molly admits to the
reader that she "loves to hear him [Bloom] falling up the stairs of a morning," suggesting that his
awkward foibles ("falling up") have an endearing quality to them, and like Nausicaa, Molly prides herself
55
on her unique ability to perceive Bloom's brooding thoughts and melancholy. Bloom is "a madman
nobody understands his cracked ideas but me."
Molly's most revealing confession comes in her discussion of love songs. She remembers Ben Howth and
confides that she needed to hear Poldy admit his love of her: "I had the devils own job to get it out of
him though I liked him for that." When she explains the nature of Bloom's adoration, Molly takes on the
imagery of the Virgin Mary: "O Maria Santisima...he said hed kneel down in the wet" and several times,
Molly refers to "a Gorgeous wrap of some special kind of blue colour," a chromatic link between
"Penelope" and the avatar of Mary that appears in "Nausicaa." Molly's refrain, "yes Ill sing," is tempered
by her confession: "I could have been a prima donna only I married him comes looooves old deep
down." Her final conclusion is that the love song that she sings is the song of her marriage, with all of its
troubles and joys. Her thoughts on Rudy's death are reflected when she notes that her husband got her
on stage "to sing in the Stabat Mater." The Stabat Mater, concerns the sadness of the Virgin Mary, the
mother of Christ, standing at the cross of her dead son; the opening lines of the hymn, stabat mater,
dolorosa, confirm the messianic potential of the Bloom-Virag lineage and similarly recall "Dolorosa," the
Spanish "Queen of Heaven" whose song commingles beauty and pain. In this regard, the Stabat Mater of
"Penelope" is a fitting conclusion to Love's bitter mystery, sung by Stephen Dedalus at his mother's
deathbed. In typical Joycean style, a living son's song to his dead mother has been answered by a living
mother's song to her dead son.
56

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James Joyce – Ulysses

James Joyce – Ulysses

1. James Joyce [ 1882 – 1941 ] : Biography

I. James Joyce (1882-1941) - Biography

II. James Joyce – Ulysses : Short Summary

III. James Joyce – Ulysses [ about Ulysses ]

IV. James Joyce – Ulysses : Characters’ List

4. Bloom, Leopold "Poldy"

7. Bloom, Molly (Marion Tweed)

10. Boylan, Blazes

13. Byrne, Davy

14. Caffrey, Cissy

17. Clifford, Martha

19. Coffey, Father Francis

20. Cohen, Bella

21. Conmee, Father John

22. Corley, John

23. Cowley, "Father" Bob

a corrupt priest who appears in "The Wandering Rocks."

24. Crawford, Myles

25. Cunningham, Martin

26. Dawson, Dan

27. Deasy, Garrett

a daughter of Simon Dedalus who derides him in absentia in "Wandering Rocks."

29. Dedalus, Dilly

30. Dedalus, Maggy

31. Dedalus, May "Mary"

33. Dedalus, Stephen "Kinch"

34. Dignam, Patrick "Paddy"

35. Dignam, Patrick

a doctor who recently removed a bee sting from Bloom's side.

37. Dlugacz, Moses

38. Dodd, Reuben J.

39. Dollard, Ben

40. Doran, Bob

41. Douce, Lydia

42. Driscoll, Mary

43. Egan, Kevin

44. Eglinton, John

45. Farrell, Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall

46. Fitzharris, James "Skin-the-Goat"

47. Flynn, Nosey

49. Goulding, Uncle Richie

50. Grogan, Mother

52. Hely, Charles Wisdom

53. Higgins, Ellen

54. Higgins, Zoe

55. Horne, Andrew J.

56. Hynes, Joe

57. Johnson, Georgina

58. Kelleher, Corny

59. Kennedy, Mina

60. Keyes, Alexander

62. Lynch, Vincent

63. Lyons, Bantam

64. Lyster, Thomas

65. MacCabe, Florence

67. MacHugh, Hugh

a contributor to the newspaper office's discussions of politics, featured in "Aeolus."