ULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Author Information

James Joyce was born in Raltgar, Dublin on 2nd February, 1882. He was educated at the Jesuit schools Clongowes
Wood College and Belvedere College and at the University College, Dublin. A good linguist, from an early age he read and
wrote widely. In 1901, he wrote a letter of profound admiration in Dano-Norwegian to Ibsen. Other early influences
included Hauptmann, Dante, G. Moore and Yeats. Dissatisfied with the narrowness and bigotry of Irish Catholicism, Joyce
went to Paris for a year in 1902. There he lived in poverty, wrote poetry
and discovered Dujardin’s novel Les Lauriers Sont Coupes. This was to be the source of his own use of interior monologue.
He returned to Dublin when his mother was at her deathbed. He stayed briefly in the Martello tower of Ulysses with
Gogarty. Then he left Ireland for good with Nora Barnacle, the woman with whom he spent the rest of his life. She bore him
a son and a daughter. They lived at Trieste for some years. There Joyce taught English at the Berlitz School. They moved in
1915 to Zurich.
Joyce’s first published work was a volume of verse, Chamber Music (1907). This was followed by Dubliners
(1914), a volume of short stories published after long delays and difficulties. Difficulties also attended the performance and
publication of Joyce’s play Exile (1918). A Portrait of the Artist as a young man was published serially in The Egoist in
1914-15.
His famous novel Ulysses was published on 2 February 1922, his 40 th birthday. Another small volume of verse,
Pomes Penyeach appeared in 1927. His second great work Finnegans Wake was published in 1939. This work
revolutionized the form and structure of the novel. It decisively influenced the development of the "stream of
consciousness" or "interior monologue." Joyce died in 1941.

Literary/Historical Information

To enjoy Joyce’s Ulysses, the reader does not need a profound scholarly knowledge of Homer’s epic The Odyssey.
However, an acquaintance with Homer’s epic will certainly sharpen one’s appreciation of Joyce’s modern version. It is
essential to be at least familiar with an outline of Homer’s original. It is not difficult to summarize briefly the story as told
by Homer. Odysseus was one of the Greek heroes who besieged and finally captured the city of Troy. This was a revenge
for the adulterous elopement of Helen, wife of King Menelaus, with Paris the Prince of Troy. Odysseus suffered 10 years’
delay in returning home to Ithaca. This was a punishment for him for having offended the sea god Poseidon. Thanks to his
renowned cunning, Odysseus survived all the detours and perilous adventures that Poseidon inflicted on him. Odysseus
encountered a number of people in a series of encounters. Lotus-eaters allured him. He was confronted by Laestrygonians.
He suffered from the varying favour of Aeolus. He escaped by ruse from the ferocity of Cyclops. He disengaged himself
from the maiden charms of Nausicaa. He emerged finally a man after the temptations of Circe. The final shipwreck of
Ulysses and his subsequent misfortunes were the result of the impiety of his companions who had killed and eaten the Oxen
of the Sun. The Calypso who detained him since his shipwreck was a nymph. Finally, he enacted his home coming slew
Penelope’s suitors before claiming her. Another strand of Odyssey was the search of Telemachus, Ulysses’ son, for his
father. In the final section Ulysses and his son Telemachus returned together to Ithaca.
The structure of James Joyce’s Ulysses follows that of its model, the Odyssey, in the general structure of the
wanderings and in the division into three parts. The opening section deals with the son, Telemachus/Stephen. The middle
part deals with the wandering of Ulysses/Bloom around the richly varied Mediterranean/Dublin. There is a final section in
which Bloom and Stephen, like Ulysses and Telemachus, come together to Bloom’s house/Ithaca. There is a reunion at the
end between Ulysses/Bloom and Penelope/Molly.

KEY LITERARY ELEMENTS

SETTING

Chapter I ("Telemachus") is set in a tower on Dublin Bay at Sandycove where Stephen Dedalus lives. In Chapter
IV ("Calypso") the scene shifts to Leopold Bloom’s house at 7 Eccles Street. He goes on a brief errand to the butcher.
Chapter XV ("Circe") is set in the area of brothels and slums in Dublin. and XVIII ("Penelope") take place in Bloom’s
house at 7, Eccles Street.
LIST OF CHARACTERS

Major

Bloom, Leopold

A 38 years old Jewish advertisement canvasser, Joyce’s modern equivalent of Homer’s Ulysses. He is alienated
from home and religious community. He is a man of disorganized notions, discarded religious beliefs and bygone political
allegiances. He suffers from sexual perversities. He has a humorous awareness of the follies flourishing around him. He is
as much a critic of his society’s values as their unwitting representative. Despite his faults, he is a man endowed with
humanism. He is capable of acts of kindness and charity to others. In being a combination of a sinner and a saint, he is
Everyman. He is the protagonist of the novel, who is engaged in a quest for a son who will replace his dead son Rudy.

Dedalus, Stephen

An aspiring young artist (he bears the nickname "Kinch") who feels estranged from the world around him. He
suffers from a feeling of guilt for many of his omissions and commissions in the past. He dwells considerably on the
implications of his past actions. He refuses to be drawn into the Irish national movement. He is endowed, however, with an
aesthetic sensibility, excellent creative aspirations and capacity for independent thinking. He would like to break free from
all the conventions and taboos of society in an attempt to blossom into a fine artist. He is engaged in a quest for a father
figure, who will replace his far from desirable father Simon.

Bloom, Marion (Molly)

An archetypal earth goddess who is caught in the vortex of a loveless marriage to an uxorious and masochistic
husband. She has had her lovers in the past. Despite her marital infidelity, she looks forward to a life free from adultery. She
has excellent musical tastes. She is a fine singer who is capable of giving musical programs. As a woman, Molly is admired
by the men of Dublin. She is the one possession for which they envy Bloom.

Boylan, Hugh Blazes

A singer, the owner of a prizefighter and a billsticker. He is Molly’s manager who arranges her musical programs
and tours. He is a coarse and shallow seducer of women. He is Molly’s secret lover. A conscienceless man, he is seen
flirting with the bar girls in Ormond Hotel just before he goes to see Molly.

Minor

TONS OF THEM

CONFLICT

Protagonist

Leopold Bloom, a Jewish advertisement canvasser, alienated from his society and religious community, but
capable of charitable deeds and acts of kindness, is the protagonist of the novel.

Antagonist

Bloom’s sexual perversities, unfulfilled desires, vague wishes, enfeebling anxieties, morbid compulsions and
propensity to censure the behaviour of others are antagonistic tendencies he must overcome.

Climax

The climax of the novel is reached in the maternity hospital. The outcome is seen in the actual meeting between
Bloom, the spiritual father and Stephen, his spiritual son. They immediately find in common an aversion to the ribald
disrespect shown by their companions.
Outcome
 The novel presents indeed serious scenes like Paddy Dignam’s funeral, the poverty of the Dedalus family and the
trauma of childbirth in a maternity hospital. This is the tragic vision projected in the novel. It is, however, balanced by
Bloom’s comic vision of things flourishing around him. The final outcome of the plot is comic, since the last scene presents
a scene of reconciliation between husband and wife and a reunion between a father figure (Bloom) and a son figure
(Stephen) who complement one another.

PLOT (Synopsis)

At the beginning of Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus has been back in Dublin a year. He had been summoned home from
Paris by a telegram that his mother was dying. And now, a year after her death, the Dedalus family, already reduced to
poverty, has become completely demoralized and disintegrated. Stephen’s young sisters and brothers have hardly enough to
eat. Simon Dedalus himself makes the rounds of the pubs. Stephen, who has always resented his father, feels now that in
effect he has none. He is more isolated in Dublin than ever. He lives with Haines, an English man from Oxford and his
friend, the medical student, Buck Mulligan, in an old tower on the coast. Mulligan believes himself to share Stephen’s
artistic tastes and intellectual interests. He really humiliates him by patronizing him and turns to ridicule his abilities and
ambitions. Now that Stephen has returned to Dublin baffled and disinherited-his life with Mulligan is dissolute and
unproductive. So Stephen is reminded by the old woman who brings the milk for breakfast in the tower of that Ireland
whose uncreated conscience it is still his destiny to forge. Stephen is next seen teaching a class. When the class breaks up,
Stephen stays behind to explain some extra mathematical lessons for the boy Sargent. Mr. Deasy, the headmaster, seeks
Stephen’s help in publishing a letter in a newspaper. He prophesies that Stephen will not long remain a teacher. As Stephen
walks down to the sea, he recollects the various forms of his own past and present existence. The scene now shifts to the
house of a Dublin Jew, an advertisement canvasser named Bloom. Like Stephen he dwells among aliens. He is the son of a
Hungarian father. He is still more or less a foreigner among the Irish. He is a man of something less than mediocre abilities,
but of real sensibility and intelligence. He has little in common with the other inhabitants of the lower-middle-class world in
which he lives. He has been married for sixteen years to the buxom daughter of an Irish army officer, Molly. She is a
professional singer, of prodigious sexual appetite. She has been continually and indiscriminately unfaithful to him. They
have had one daughter, who is already growing up. She is apparently going the way of her mother. They had a son, but he
died eleven days after he was born. Things have never been the same between the Blooms since the death of this son. It is
now more than ten years since Bloom has attempted complete intercourse with his wife. He is aware that his wife has
lovers. But he does not complain or try to interfere. He is even resigned to her accepting money from them.
We now follow Bloom’s adventures on the day of June 16, 1904. The whole of Ulysses takes place within less than
twenty- four hours. Bloom leaves the house on a brief errand to the butcher. After breakfast he decides to attend Dignam’s
funeral. At 10 a.m. on the way to the funeral he greets several acquaintances and performs several errands. Bloom and his
fellow mourners travel by coach behind Paddy Dignam’s coffin to Prospects Cemetery. On the way he sees Stephen and
talks to his father who manages to get a glimpse of his son. Noting Dedalus’ concern for his son, he remembers his dead son
Rudy. He has melancholy recollections of the early years of his marriage. As the carriage moves along, he thinks of Milly
too. Various scenes on the way remind him of various things in his life.
During the noon Stephen and Bloom come together in the newspaper office. Stephen has come there to present Mr.
Deasy’s letter to the editor. At 1 p.m. Bloom continues his wanderings through the streets of Dublin. He meets Stephen’s
sister Dilly in the street. He is filled with compassion and sympathy for the motherless and poor Dedalus family. Then he
meets Mrs. Denis Breen, one of his old lady friends. At Burton’s restaurant he enjoys a light vegetarian snack. He sees
Blazes Boylan, Molly’s lover, although Boylan does not see him. At 2 p.m. he enters the office of the director of the
national library. There he meets Stephen, Lyster, the librarian, and A.E.
(George Russell) the poet and John Eglinton. Stephen emphasizes the importance of Shakespeare’s love for Anne
Hathaway. Mulligan joins the group at one stage. He has been working on a play of his own. He speaks throughout in a
jumble of parodied styles. Between 2.55 p.m. and 4 p.m. the major characters in the novel
and a host of minor characters cross Dublin. Their paths meet in an intricate and complicated pattern. Nineteen Episodes are
described. They include, among other things, Boylan’s buying of some gift items for Molly, Bloom’s visit to bookstalls,
Stephen’s survey of the window of a jeweller’s shop, Simon Dedalus’ meeting with Father Crowley, the meeting between
Martin Cunningham and Mr. Power, Mulligan and Haines eating together in a restaurant and the Earl of Dudley’s
procession.

In the afternoon, while Bloom is eating at the Ormond Hotel, Boylan comes into the bar. He gets a drink and sets
off to call on Mrs. Bloom. When he has gone, Bloom hears the men in the bar talking and laughing about Molly’s easy
favours. And the conversation, later on in the pub, about Boylan’s having won money in a boxing match-in spite of Bloom’s
gently insistent efforts to induce the company to talk about tennis--is one of the incidents which give rise to an antagonism
between Bloom and the rest of the company. Eventually there is a quarrel between the Citizen and Bloom.
In the evening Bloom and Martin Cunningham meet at Barney Kiernan’s tavern to discuss the affairs of the
Dignam family. They get involved in a heated and drunken argument with the rowdies hanging about the bar. From the
tavern Bloom retreats to the beach where he has an encounter with the romantic lady Gertie MacDowell and Cissy Caffrey
and Edy Boardman. Cissy and Edy are fond of the children. They look after them
efficiently, mediating their quarrels and entertaining them. As Gertie walks, her lameness is revealed. Bloom feels sympathy
for her.
In the evening, Bloom goes to a maternity hospital to inquire after the wife of a friend, who has been having a hard
delivery: there he meets and recognizes Stephen, who is drinking with the medical students. So Bloom is pained by the
impiety of the medical students as they joke obscenely about childbirth and maternity. On the part of Stephen whose mother
died only a year ago, this levity seems especially shocking. But Stephen’s very feeling of guilt about her makes him
particularly blasphemous and brutal. Yet Bloom has himself in his own way offended against the principle of fertility by his
recent prolonged neglect of Molly. It is this sin against fertility which- at the hour when Mrs. Bloom is entertaining Boylan-
has landed Bloom in erotic daydreams about Gertie.
When Mrs. Purefoy’s child has finally been born, the party rushes out to a public house. Later on after a drunken
altercation between Dedalus and Buck Mulligan at the tram station, Stephen, with one of his companions and with Bloom
following some distance behind, proceed to a brothel. Both, this time, are pretty drunk. Bloom, with his invincible prudence,
is not so drunk as Stephen. In their drunkenness, in the sordid gaslight and to the tune of the mechanical piano of the
brothel, their respective preoccupations emerge fully for the first time since the morning into their conscious minds. Bloom
beholds himself, in a hideous vision, looking on at Blazes Boylan and Molly. There rises suddenly in Stephen’s imagination
the figure of his dead mother comeback from the grave to remind him of her bleak disheartened love and to implore him to
pray for her soul. But again he will not and cannot consent. In a desperate drunken gesture, he is torn by his conflict of
impulses, by his emotions, which deadlock each other. He lifts his stick and smashes the chandelier. Then he rushes out into
the street. There
he gets embroiled with two English Tommies and knocked down. Bloom has followed and, as he bends over
Stephen, beholds an apparition of his own dead son, little Rudy. Bloom picks Stephen up and takes him first to a coffee-
stand, then home to his own house. He tries to talk to him of the arts and sciences, of the general ideas which interest him
but Stephen is morose and exhausted and makes little response. Bloom begs him to spend the night with them, but Stephen
declines. He presently takes his leave. Bloom goes up, goes to bed with Molly. He describes to her his adventures of the day
and soon drops off to sleep. But Bloom’s encounter with Stephen has affected both Stephen’s life and the relations between
the Blooms. To have rescued and talked with Stephen has somehow restored Bloom’s self-confidence. He has gotten into
the habit in the past of cooking breakfast for Molly in the morning and bringing it to her in bed. It is the first thing we have
seen him doing at the beginning of the day. But tonight, before he goes to sleep, he gives her to understand that he expects
her to get breakfast next morning herself and to bring it up to him. This amazes and disconcerts Mrs. Bloom.
The rest of the book is the record of her meditations, as she lies awake thinking over Bloom’s homecoming. She
has been mystified by his recent behaviour. Her attitude toward him now is at first a mixture of jealousy and resentment.
She congratulates herself upon the fact that, if Bloom neglects her nowadays, her needs are ably supplied by Blazes Boylan.
But she begins to ruminate on the possibility of Stephen Dedalus’ coming home to live with them. The idea of Blazes
Boylan’s coarseness becomes intolerable to her. The thought of Stephen has made her fastidious. She prefigures a relation
between them, which is of ambiguous but intimate character. It will be half-amorous, half-maternal. But it is Bloom himself
who has primarily been the cause of this revolution in Molly’s mind. In telling her about Stephen, he has imposed upon her
again his own values. In staying away from the house all day and coming back very late at night, and in asking for his
breakfast in bed, he has asserted his own will. And she goes back in her mind over her experience of Bloom: their courtship,
their married life. She remembers how, when she had promised to marry him, it had been his intelligence and his
sympathetic nature, that touch of imagination which distinguished him from other men, which had influenced her in his
favour. It is possible that Molly and Bloom, as a result of Bloom’s meeting with Stephen, will resume normal marital
relations. But it is certain that Stephen, as a result of this meeting, will go away and write Ulysses. Buck Mulligan has told
us that the young poet says he is going "to write something in ten years." That was in 1904. Ulysses is dated at the end as
having been begun in 1914.

THEME(S)

Major
The major theme of the novel is a son’s quest for a father figure. Stephen Dedalus is fed up with his father Simon.
He goes in search of a father figure who will embody his ideals of maturity and humanity, as well as encourage his pursuit
of art. Such a father figure he finds in Bloom who fulfils his desire for social support, maturity and humanity.
The quest theme is also embodied in Bloom who goes in research of a son figure. His son Rudy died a few days
after his birth. He succeeds in finding in Stephen a son who represents an ideal man, an excellent artist and an exceptional
moralist.

Minor

The minor theme of the novel is charity "which covereth a multitude of sins." Bloom is presented as the very
embodiment of kindness and charitable disposition. He gives generous practical assistance to Stephen in whom he sees an
image of a grown-up son. He saves Stephen from being exploited by Bella Cohen. He prevents the soldier from striking the
drunken Stephen. Thereafter he takes him home. He calls on Mrs. Purefoy at the maternity hospital. He helps a blind youth
cross a street. He has sympathy for the daughters of Dedalus. He is helpful to Paddy Dignam’s widow.

MOOD

The central mood of the novel is comic. However, we have serious and tragic moods in the presentation of Paddy
Dignam’s funeral, the portrayal of Simon’s poor daughters and the scene of childbirth in a maternity hospital.

CHAPTER SUMMARIES WITH NOTES

Chapter 1 Telemachus

Summary

It is morning. The time is 8 a.m. The day is June 16, 1904. The day begins for Stephen Dedalus, who is living in a
tower on Dublin Bay at Sandycove between Kingstown and Dalkey. This place is about eight or nine miles south of Dublin.
With him are Buck Mulligan, a medical student, and Haines, a resident visitor who is an English man from Oxford. Stephen
complains of the behaviour of Haines who is subject to hysterical nightmares. The previous night he has raved terrifyingly
after dreaming of a black panther. Mulligan disapproves of Stephen for having refused to comfort his mother by praying at
her deathbed. He tries to probe Stephen’s moodiness by asking, "What have you against me now?" Stephen refers to an
occasion soon after Mrs. Dedalus’ death, when Mulligan alluded to her callously as "beastly dead."
Mulligan shaves. He calls Stephen down to breakfast and repeats his suggestion that Stephen should demand
money from Haines. This is rejected by Stephen who reminds Mulligan that it is his payday. In the living room below
Mulligan, Haines and Stephen settle down to breakfast, which is cooked and served largely by Mulligan. The milk woman
arrives. Mulligan pays two shillings to reduce the outstanding debt to two pence. Haines expresses his intention to go to the
library that day. Mulligan proposes a swim first and then teases Stephen about his reluctance to wash.
Stephen, Mulligan and Haines leave the tower. Stephen puts the large key in his pocket. He broods on Mulligan’s
usurpation of the tower and his ever growing demands. Stephen and Haines make their way to the beach. They happen to
pass two men on the cliff. One of them is a boatsman who refers to a drowned man. His body is expected to be washed up
by that day’s tide. Down on the beach Stephen and Haines find Mulligan preparing for his bath. A young man, already in
the water, refers to his friend, Bannon of Westmeath, who has found a "sweet young thing", his "photo girl." An elderly
priest finishes his bath and gets out of the water nearby. The young man and Buck Mulligan discuss one Seymour, who has
abandoned medicine for the army.
Mulligan completes his undressing, gets the tower key from Stephen, borrows two pence in addition, then plunges into the
sea. Haines sits on a stone smoking. Having agreed to meet Mulligan at The Ship (an inn) at 12.30, Stephen walks away. He
recalls the prayer that was recited at his mother’s deathbed. His last thoughts are that he cannot return that night to the
tower. Nor will he be in a position to go back to his own house. Mulligan, calling to him from the seas, is the usurper.

Notes

Apparently nothing much happens in the first chapter of the first part. However, parallels with Homer’s Odyssey
are most obvious. In the first book of the Odyssey Telemachus, surrounded by his mother’s suitors, feels neglected and
dispossessed, though he is the son and heir of Odysseus. Those intruders, eating his substance, rob him of his patrimony.
Stirred from his childish ineffectuality by Athena, acting in disguise as messenger, he resolves to seek news of his missing
father. In Joyce’s novel, Stephen represents the sad and lonely Telemachus. He is also preoccupied with mother, father,
home and self. Mulligan, the usurper (Antionus) and Haines are the
suitors. The patrimony of which they rob Stephen is at once the tower, for which he pays rent, and Ireland. Athena is
probably suggested by the milk woman, "may be a messenger", and "lowly form of an immortal."
The biblical correspondences are very important. Stephen is Jesus at his baptism. Mulligan is John the Baptist. Haines is the
Devil who is shortly to tempt Jesus. The chapter contains the opening phrase of the Latin Mass, "Introibo ad altare Dei",
and various sections of the Mass are alluded to later in the chapter. Mulligan’s word "Christine" implies a feminine version
of Christ’s body. The Black Mass is traditionally celebrated over a
woman’s body lying on the altar. The key phrase in the New Testament for this chapter and indeed for the whole of Ulysses
is: "this is my body." Jesus commanded his disciples to take and eat it at the Last Supper.
This chapter also establishes the parallel of Hamlet. Mulligan says: "He proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is
Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father." Looking at the rocks around the tower, Haines
thinks of Elsinore. But his theological interpretation of Hamlet is more significant: "The Father and the Son idea. The Son
striving to be atoned with the Father." Atonement means becoming at one with. Finding his father, Stephen - Telemachus -
Hamlet will become his father. Mulligan like Claudius is a
usurper. Like Claudius, he fancifully indulges the story that Stephen is mad.
Buck Mulligan is modelled on Oliver St. John Gogarty, a young medical student, with whom Joyce had become
friendly. Joyce was attracted by his irreverence, although he also suspected him. For a few days in early September 1904,
Joyce stayed with him in the Martello Tower in Sandycove. Gogarty rented the tower as a kind of bohemian nucleus. He
wanted to Hellenise Ireland from an artistic colony there. Since Joyce was homeless,
he accepted his hospitality. The third member of the group was a highly-strung Anglo-Irish man, Samuel Chenevix Trench.
Haines is modelled on him. Like Haines, Trench suffered from nightmares. On the night of 14 September, he dreamt of
being chased by a black panther. Half asleep, he reached for the loaded revolver he kept by his side and shot into the
fireplace, narrowly missing Joyce. When he woke again, screaming about the panther, Gogarty took the gun from him and
shouted, "Leave him to me." Joyce took this as notice to quit, got dressed and left, although it was the middle of the night.
This incident provided the setting and atmosphere for the opening chapter of Ulysses.
One of the highlights of this chapter is a contrast between the two youths, Stephen and Mulligan. Mulligan is
always preoccupied with the immediate future, e.g., he looks forward to a drinking bout at Stephen’s expense. Stephen, on
the contrary, is always haunted by his past, e.g., he is haunted by memories of his mother’s death. Stephen is a character
endowed with inwardness. Mulligan, in contrast to Stephen, is an extrovert who is always busy with things external.
Stephen is a man of conscience. Mulligan is a man without conscience. He takes Stephen’s money without any feeling of
guilt. He goes to the extent of requesting Stephen to request Haines for a loan. The causes of Stephen’s brooding, his
mingled guilt and annoyance with Mulligan, are brought in slowly. We pick up the details of his life and personality from
occasional, passing comments, just as though we have met him in real life. Stephen does not like Mulligan’s arrogant and
domineering manner. He rejects the conventional Irish society, which Mulligan represents.

Chapter 4 Calypso

Summary

It is 8 a.m. Leopold Bloom prepares breakfast for himself and his wife. He plans to attend Paddy Dignam’s funeral.
He is visited by thoughts of death as he works through the conventional activities of morning. Bloom has a pet cat and a
faded wife, Molly, both to be routinely fed their breakfasts. As he watches the cat lap its milk, thoughts pass through his
mind of food, of popular cat stories, and of the creaking bed upstairs which he believes was bought by Molly’s father in
Gibraltar. Getting no clear reply from his sleepy wife, he checks a mysterious piece of paper in his hat.
Bloom leaves the house on a brief errand to the butcher. He has no key with him. The day is warm, and he realizes
how hot he will be in his funeral suit. In his daydream, the hot streets of Dublin turn into an oriental bazaar. The sights and
smells around him pull him back to reality. He spots Larry O’Rourke in the window of his tavern. He exchanges greetings
with him, broods on the wealth of the brewers and the frequency of pubs
in Dublin. When he comes to Dlugacz’s butcher shop, he pauses to take in the scene and admire a neighbour’s servant girl,
standing in front of him in the queue. He rapidly buys three pence worth of kidney.
He hopes to be in time to walk back behind her. But he is too late to see the girl. He walks back reading a piece of
newspaper taken from the pile of wrapping paper at the butcher’s. As an advertising man, he is interested particularly in the
advertisements. He recollects the exotic Mediterranean scene as he reads of orange groves. The sky clouds over and Bloom
hurries home, mindful of breakfast and his wife’s presence recollecting her past girlish beauty.
When he gets home he finds two letters in the mail, one from his daughter and one to his wife from Blazes Boylan,
her manager and lover. He puts his kidney on to cook. He takes breakfast up to his wife who comments briefly on the letter
from Boylan. She asks Bloom the meaning of "metempsychosis." Bloom’s explanation seems to go clean above her head.
She sends him downstairs to check a burning smell kitchen. His kidney has scorched a little. He eats it while rereading his
daughter’s letter, which alludes to her affair with Bannon. Remembrances of his daughter’s birth and the early death of his
son gives way to nostalgic reflections on his wife and their courtship. The cat’s mewing brings him back to reality. Sitting in
the outdoor privy, he reads an old number of the weekly tabloid, Titbits. He considers the possibility that he might write an
article for it. The Bells of St. George’s Church ring. He remembers the funeral and feels a pang of regret for "Poor
Dignam."

Chapter 15 Circe

Summary

The time is midnight. Bloom follows Stephen and Lynch into the area of brothels and slums. He is able to perform
some kind of rescue when the drunken young Dedalus is assaulted. The action begins at the Mabbot Street entrance to
Nighttown, a strange and dreadful land of sordid, drunken, crippled men, women and children. They are all living in this
modern slum. Stephen and Lynch stagger in, drunk from the tavern. They are mocked by the chorus of passer-by and
bystanders as poor, randy medical students. Bloom rushes in. He has followed Stephen out of some vague desire to protect
him from his debauchery. He is almost knocked down by a passing sander (which is servicing the tram tracks). He summons
to his recollection other escape from danger and violence. The Caffrey twins seem to collide against him. They bring to
mind his adventure with Gerty MacDowell. They stimulate a visionary, guilt-laden interview with his father and mother.
Molly appears
in a vision, fantastically dressed, to join the reproachful group around him. Bloom is anxiously discussing Italian
pronunciation with his vision of Molly. The real world intrudes, as a bawd approaches him. Images of guilt and frustration
come in the forms of Gerty and Mrs. Breen, who recalls episodes from the past when she and Bloom were close friends.
Bloom gives a pig’s trotter he has bought to a passing dog. He is arrested by the watch for committing a nuisance. In a
fantasy trial Bloom tries first to conceal his identity, then to identity himself as a respectable, decent man. But images and
characters from his past appear as witnesses and jurymen, to confront him. The trial focuses on Bloom’s obsession with
aristocratic ladies and his perverse desire to abase himself to them. Before the fantasy trial can lead to an execution, Bloom
abruptly returns to reality.
Bloom confronts Zoe Higgins who has information about Stephen’s whereabouts. Bloom speaks with her. His
mind is half busy with reality, half busy with sentiment dream-world of beauty. His reception by Zoe stimulates his
thwarted desire for recognition and affection. It produces a massive imaginary triumph. Bloom becomes the leader of men,
the judge and the giver of gifts. Again, figures from his past life reappear in strange guises. But now the generous, all-
powerful Bloom receives them like a Divinity. Not only is he an Irishman, he is the accepted successor to Parnell. But the
glorious image is soon sullied again by Bloom’s guilts and fears. Men rise up to refute Bloom-worship. Dr. Dixon speaks of
him as a pathological case, womanly and pregnant. His miracles are not accepted. He is executed in a farcical crucifixion.
So even his failures are deified in his feverish imagination. Zoe brings him to reality again. Bloom enters the brothel in
search of Stephen who is in the Music-Room talking elaborate drunken nonsense. His evangelical cast of mind
predominates. The prostitutes confess their sins to him who is like Elijah. Bloom, like his own grandfather Virag, shows
interest in technological insights, which he apparently feels come from his ancestors. At the same time, his romantic
idealism is given a free play. His imagination relives the entire gamut of his love affairs. A dialogue develops between the
twin sides of his nature: Virag and Henry Flower. Stephen and the girls meanwhile continue the discussion of theology and
the clergy. Stephen metamorphoses himself into he noble Cardinal Dedalus. Bella Cohen, the mistress of the establishment,
enters. Her powerful and massive appearance reawakens Bloom’s perverted appetites. Partly in imagination, partly in the
spirited physical actions of the brothel, Bloom performs a number of demeaning acts. He becomes in imagination a
feminine figure, punished for a variety of sins. In the fantasy he mistakes Milly for Molly. He realizes his age and feels
himself totally rejected by Bella. He supposes himself packed off to oblivion. Mysterious voices shout: "Bloom? Never
heard of him." So his new fantasy is quite opposed to his earlier one of power and apotheosis. Recollections of a more
sexually innocent childhood follow. Bloom is aware of the chatter of the brothel running in a stream through his
meditations. He is able to see the essential vulgarity and ugliness of the situation and of Bella.
The men settle their bills. Bloom takes a direct hand in assisting Stephen. He checks the payment of money and
makes sure that the younger man is not cheated. The group then move to the pianola and begin a wild and chaotic dance. As
the images swirl, Stephen visualizes his mother among the dancers. In despair and anguish, he strikes out with his stick,
breaking the chandelier. Bloom rushes to help, Bella calls for the police. A general confusion follows. While Bloom soothes
Bella, Stephen and Lynch, outside at the corner of Beaver Street, run into Private Compton and Private Carr. Stephen is still
vivaciously talking of philosophy and politics. To the drunken ears of the English soldiers, he appears to have insulted the
King. Edward VII himself appears, supervising the execution of the Croppy Boy to general applause. The soldiers and
Stephen quarrel.
Lynch gets the girls away. Bloom tries to protect Stephen who drops to the ground. The police appear. Corny Kelleher the
undertaker turns up just in time to persuade them not to arrest Stephen, and the incident is over. The inhabitants of and
visitors to Nighttown drift away. Bloom is left alone. He stares down at the peaceful and drunken Stephen. An idealized
vision of Rudy appears before him.

Notes
 The Homeric story is that of the witch Circe (Kirke) who transforms some of Odysseus’ men into pigs. Odysseus is
warned by Hermes of her. He is given a herb called ‘moly.’ He confronts Circe and conquers her magic with his moly. He
then makes her swear that she will release his men and do him no harm. She keeps her word and entertains Odysseus and
his men handsomely. She gives him good advice about his descent into Hades and about dealing with the Sirens and Scylla
and Charybdis. The whore who turns men into swine is a magnificently apt correspondence. We are to remember that
syphilis, though actually of unknown origin, has been derived from Greek ‘swine’ and ‘love’ in popular etymology.
Bloom’s moly that preserves him from enchantment is literally the piece of potato he carries in his pocket as a remedy for
rheumatism. On another level, it is his sexual indifference after the evening’s masturbation and his natural prudence, which
prevails over perverse lust.
In the Biblical narrative this chapter seems to have three parallels. Since it is at the end of Book II of Ulysses, the
Old Testament or Jewish section, it refers to the last book of the Old Testament. The prophet Malachi says there: "Behold, I
will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." In parallel, there is the last
book of the New Testament, the Revelation of St. John of Patmos. The apocalyptic theme resounds powerfully, from the
building of the New Bloomusalem in the shape of a giant kidney to the scene of destruction ("Dublin’s burning") at the end.
The third set of Biblical references is to the Passion narrative. Stephen suffers at the hands of the British soldiers. At the end
of the chapter Bloom as God the Father looks down sorrowfully from heaven at his crucified Son who is a fusion of the
unconscious Stephen and the dead Rudy.
Above all else, the chapter is a demonstration of the power and effect of the daydreams that have bemused Bloom
and Stephen from the beginning. Here, stimulated by the drinking session at the hospital, loosened by their tiredness (they
have both had a long day) and encouraged by the gaudily artificial romance of Nighttown, their fantasies take hold of their
minds. They blot out reality for a time and cause uncertainty and incompetence when they return to the real world. So
Bloom, for example, is wakened from a reverie by the snapping of a trouser button.
Stephen in his daze is unable to comprehend the menace of the buffle headed English soldiers. Until this crucial
part of the novel, the daydreams have been responses to the immediate environment and hence disciplined by the real world
which Stephen and Bloom see as they muse.
Everything in this chapter is printed as if it were a play, with characters’ names, stage directions and dialogue. But
only a small part of this is literal, giving the actual words and actions of Stephen, Bloom and a few to her characters. A
slightly larger proportion consists of interior monologue, mostly Bloom’s but most dramatically Stephen’s at the crucial
apparition of his dead mother. The greater part of the chapter is, however, a dramatization of fantasy. Each fantasy touches
on the ambitions, hopes and fears of Bloom and to a lesser extent of Stephen. The chapter might appear to contain much
action, but the action takes place almost instantaneously in the real time of the narrative. When the fantasies, interior
monologues and literal narratives are put together, the chapter forms a five-act drama, with a prologue and epilogue.
The "Circe" scene uses sound to any extent. In "Circe" there are the street cries, the unintelligible mutter of the
idiot, bawdy songs, the rattling bells of the cyclists, and the gong of the tram. Among remembered sound are those of the
cuckoo clock and the bed quoits, the chimes of St. George’s the bell of Dillon’s auction-rooms, the sound of a waterfall, the
bleat of a goat on Howth Hill, the song of the sluts. We hear the rustling of sequins of Zoe’s dress, the blare of a
gramophone, the squeak of a door handle, the snap of a trousers button, the rustling of the silver foil, the insipid notes of the
pianola, the ring of dancing bracelets, the guttering sound of a gas jet. In the street fight the altercation is accompanied by
the bark of a stray dog and the neighing of a horse.

The chapter contains a powerful symbol, namely the stick carried by Stephen. Plainly stick implies creative power.
In the first chapter it is described as Stephen’s "familiar" or attendant spirit. The stick there trails impotently down the path.
Entering Nighttown Stephen flourishes an ash plant stick, which Lynch calls "yellow". "Take up your crutch and walk",
says he. He advises Stephen to become the artist he pretends to be. Idle no more, stick puts out Bella’s light. It destroys the
old before creating the new. Stephen breaks the chandelier lamp at Bella Cohen’s. His stick almost becomes a symbol of his
pilgrimage to creativity and self-awareness. This chapter provides the reader with answers to many questions raised earlier
in the novel.
Stephen and Bloom come together. We see fully revealed the barrenness of Bloom’s marriage. The perversities that
have been hinted at earlier fall naturally into place in the encyclopedic record of his daydreams. Earlier comments on
Freemasonry are confirmed here. Bloom is clearly a member of the order. For the first time in Ulysses, we sense the crucial
force of Stephen’s theological cast of mind and the despair of his personal and family situations. We see in this chapter the
destructive power of Dublin. It is dreadful in its slums and eaten
away by English influence.
Incidents in this chapter seem solemn enough, but there is an immense variety of sheer fun in the episode. Out of
the sordid setting and the painful insights into perverse humanity, Joyce has developed an extraordinarily vivacious comedy.
The outrageous juxtaposition of characters and incidents, the rapid shifts of style, the precise observation of human foibles
and the verbal wit combine to create a very funny effect.

Chapter 18 Penelope

Summary

Molly Bloom lies in bed thinking over her day and the visit of Blazes Boylan. Various scenes from her past life
crowd into her mind. She thinks of Leopold Bloom in particular. Bloom has asked for breakfast in bed next morning. Molly
is amazed, for he has never asked for such a thing since the old days when he used to act sick to try to waken Mrs.
Riordan’s sympathies. Molly was unsympathetic to Mrs. Riordan’s Puritanism. But she
admits approving of her husband’s kindliness to her, as to all old ladies, waiters and beggars. She suspects that he has had
an affair during the day. She thinks that his account of his movements was a pack of lies. She had caught him two days ago
concealing his letter to Martha and suspects that it was a letter to some poor girl he was deceiving. She does not much mind,
as long as he keeps her out of the house. She remembers the embarrassment of his affair with Mary Driscoll, their maid. But
she has entertained her lover, Boylan, in the house. Bloom
suspects something, she feels.
Molly feels some revulsion against the sexual act. She remembers the difficulties of making confession of carnal
acts. She wonders if Boylan is lying awake thinking of her. She had fallen asleep after he left, to be awakened by a clap of
thunder. She thinks over her affair with Boylan. She broods over the physical disadvantages of women. Mrs. Purefoy’s
annual pregnancies are a clear manifestation. She recollects her last visit there, a "squad of them falling over one another
and bawling you couldn’t hear your ear supposed to be healthy." She thinks of Mrs. Breen who had once been jealous of her
and furious at Bloom. But she remains impressed by her husband’s refusal to be provoked into rage. Bloom, after all, is a
better catch than poor, mad Breen.
Molly thinks again of Boylan and her first meeting with him. From this her mind moves on to other lovers and
admirers she has had, and ultimately to Bloom. Yet she remembers with pleasure his gentleness, his attractive love-letters
and his thoughtful presents. She is anticipating the pleasure of her forthcoming trip to Belfast with Boylan. She is pleased
that Bloom will not be able to come with them, as he has to visit his late father’s home. She thinks of an embarrassing and
comic episode on a previous tour when Bloom insisted on holding up a train until he had finished the bowl of soup he had
bought in the buffet. She thinks of the possible scandal of her relationship with Boylan. She recalls also other singers well
known in Dublin gossip. She apparently got her start in public performances by getting Bloom to act piously before the
Jesuits who were putting on a version of Stabat Mater. Unhappily, they found out that he was a Freemason. She thinks of
other lovers, of Boylan’s wealth, and of his friends such as Lenehan. She contrasts Boylan’s expenditure with Bloom’s
pathetic little gifts. She longs for the glamorous life of a famous star such as Lily Langtry. She thinks of her own physical
beauty and the ugliness of men’s bodies. Her disgust with men stimulates her to anger with Bloom’s pomposity and
incompetence.

The noise of a train’s whistle turns her thoughts to the power of the locomotives and the life of the train drivers in
their "roasting engines." The oppressive heat of the night summons up images of hot days in Gibraltar, particularly the hot,
dull days just before she left. She tosses on the bed, trying to get comfortable. She laments the drabness of her present life.
She recalls at length the romantic attachment she had had as a girl on
Gibraltar to Lieutenant Mulvey of H.M.S. Calypso. She remembers also other flirtations of distant days with idealized
young men such as Lieutenant Gardner who was killed in the South African war. The noise of the train brings her thoughts
back to reality. She is again furious with Bloom for his unromantic presence, sleeping beside her "with his cold feet on me."
Molly thinks about the pork chop she had had with her cup of tea. Perhaps it was not fresh. The pork butcher is
unreliable and her stomach is upset. She thinks of the morning’s breakfast, and the food she has planned for the coming day,
"I’ll get a nice piece of God." Memories of boating and Mediterranean fishermen follow. Bloom has had all sorts of dreams
about making money and having luxurious holidays in the Mediterranean. But they have never amounted to anything. Molly
has to spend all her time lonely in this big, barracks-like house. It was more cheerful when Milly lived there. On the other
hand, she feels some relief that Milly is away. She was beginning to be jealous of her daughter’s maturity and
sophistication. Her train of thoughts is interrupted by the sudden appearance of her menstrual period.
Molly wonders if she should go and see her doctor. Generally she is cynical about his behaviour. She remembers
visiting him before she got married and the jaw-breaking technical terms he had used then. Again she recalls Bloom’s
courtship, the beautiful letters he used to write and his curious behaviour nowadays. She doubts again Bloom’s account of
his day’s adventures. She thinks fondly of Stephen who seems likely to be a sensitive lover, not like the boisterous Boylan
or her odd husband. Thoughts of Stephen trigger recollections of Rudy. Her thoughts turn to Bloom. She thinks of
recapturing their long-lost full marital relationship, by going out of her way to attract and satisfy him. If she fails, she will
make him suffer the story of her adulteries. She will make him pay her handsomely for any privileges. The clock strikes.
Her thoughts range widely over the whole sleeping world. She thinks of flowers. She enjoys a recollection of her first love-
making with Bloom. She admits that Bloom’s "heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes." Molly’s affirmation
of life is one facet of a great complex whole wherein the forces of evil operate strongly too. The evil in Molly, as well as the
evil in her environment, has already struck the reader, as dominant. Right now the good in Molly, and the real possible good
in her environment seem to be dominant. Molly is as much a mystery as is reality. She has been fascinating, and she still is,
and will always be a woman of infinite variety.

Notes

In Book 23 of the Odyssey, when Odysseus has conquered the suitors he still has to win the acceptance of his wife
Penelope. She has been upstairs in bed during all the fighting, unaware that anything unusual has been taking place. Not
having seen her husband for twenty years, she will naturally be suspicious of a stranger who claims the kingdom. So
Odysseus has to convince her, by showing that he knows a secret that is otherwise known only to her husband. The secret is
that he formed one of the four posts of the marriage bed out of a living
tree that still grows through the room. When he tells her this, she accepts him as her true husband and grants him his marital
rights. So at the end of Ulysses Molly accepts Bloom as her true love.
The Christian and Dantesque story also comes to an end in Paradise. Bloom has ascended the Mountain of
Purgatory and reached the Earthly Paradise in his fantasy. Now he enters the Paradise of Molly’s mind. He achieves
immortality and salvation because at the end she thinks well of him, and indeed only of him. He is also deified and is not
only redeemed man but God in all three persons. Molly thinks much of roses, among other flowers. She repeats the words of
a popular song, "Shall I wear a red rose, or shall I wear a white?" The red rose must be a reference to her menstruation,
which begins halfway through her monologue. The red rose has of course a long history as a sexual as well as a religious
symbol. It provides a pivot for the ironic see-saw of earthly and heavenly love, Eros and agape. Finally Eros (personified by
Blazes Boylan) is vanquished by
agape (personified by Bloom).
This chapter projects Molly’s meditative monologue. The thoughts of Stephen and Bloom have been throughout
the book conditioned by their changing environment and the actions round them. Molly’s meditation, in bed with a sleeping
husband, in the early hours of the morning, is unconfirmed by eternal incident. Her mind ranges widely over her past life
and her expected future. The passage of time is marked only by her bodily functions, the whistle of a train and the chiming
of a clock. In her monologue, she is concerned with time and human mutability. She looks back over her past life: her
romantic Gibraltar girlhood and her present drab life married to the treacherous Bloom and courted by the brutal Boylan.
The girlhood is seen sometimes in a nostalgic glow.

Through the whole novel Molly is projected as a fine singer and a remarkably attractive woman. Yet in her
monologue she is delightfully unaware of her distinction in the concert hall and she tends to consider her physical
attractiveness as something common to all women rather than something uniquely hers. She takes her singing and her
amorous adventures for granted. Her roll call of lovers is presented without a feeling of guilt. Her speech makes use of the
words of the songs she knows. So love and song are integrated into her personality. So she is free from anxieties,
nightmares, guilty feelings or regrets that persistently affect Bloom and Stephen. She can even plot a seduction of Stephen
without qualm of conscience.
Molly’s freedom from fear and guilt seems far removed from the glum introspection of her men folk. Yet this
freedom is not altogether attractive. It is clearly shown to be a form of selfishness, even of arrogance. Molly’s triumph
over Mrs. Breen or Mrs. Purefoy is certainly not pleasant. Her refusal to allow her lovers any dignity in her recollections
shows a pettiness in her character. Molly has distaste for the sexual act. She refuses to encourage fertility. Like Gerty, she
dislikes children. She dismisses the passing thought that she might bear another child although she is only 34. The
appearance of her menstrual period stimulates the comment: "anyhow he didn’t make me pregnant."
Her thoughts constantly turn to Bloom. He has been the centre of her life. She seems still fascinated with her
curious private behaviour and his occasional public manifestations of eccentricity. He is the only one who knows both sides
of her, just as she is the only person who has experience of all his curiosities. That is why her hoped for reconciliation with
him is so meaningful. She seems to be looking forward to a life in which her unsatisfactory relations with a chain of lovers
is replaced by her love for this strange man whom we have come to know so well. Bloom to her is man in all his aspects:
infant, lover, sympathetic understander, responsible husband, cuckold and an odd one, "mad on the subject of drawers." "He
is beyond everything." Once he "wanted to milk me into the tea." "If I only could remember the one half of the things and
write a book out of it." Plainly, she inspired someone else to do that eighteen years later.
Molly has the last word and that word is "Yes." Although some critics think her yes means "no", we may take her
"Yes" to mean, "yes." This word, which D.H. Lawrence tried again and again to say, is the meaning of Ulysses. At once
particular and general, Molly’s "yes" is an affirmation of life. Molly’s affirmation of life is one facet of a great complex
whole wherein the forces of evil operate strongly too. The evil in Molly, as well as the evil in her environment, has already
struck the reader. Right now the good in Molly and the real possible good in her environment seem to be dominant. Molly is
as much a mystery as is reality. She has been fascinating, and she still is, and will always be, a woman of infinite variety.

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