Ulysses (novel)

Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal
The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, then published in its
entirety by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, in Paris. Many consider it one of the
most important works of Modernist literature.[1]

Ulysses chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an

ordinary day, June 16, 1904. The title parallels and alludes to Odysseus (Latinised
into Ulysses), the hero of Homer's Odyssey (e.g., the correspondences between
Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus
and Telemachus). Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate June 16 as Bloomsday.

Ulysses totals about 265,000 words from a vocabulary of 30,030 words (including
proper names, plurals and various verb tenses)[2], divided into 18 "episodes". Since
publication, the book attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from early
obscenity trials to protracted textual "Joyce Wars." Ulysses' stream-of-
consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prosefull of puns,
parodies, and allusionsas well as its rich characterisations and broad humour,
made the book a highly regarded novel in the Modernist pantheon. In 1999, the
Modern Library ranked Ulysses first on its list of the 100 best English-language
novels of the 20th century.[3]

Background

Joyce first encountered Odysseus via Charles Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses - an

adaptation of the Odyssey for children, which seemed to establish the Roman name
in Joyces mind. At school he wrote an essay on Ulysses as his 'favourite hero'.[4]
Joyce told Frank Budgen that he considered Ulysses the only all-round character in
literature.[5] He thought about calling Dubliners by the name Ulysses in Dublin,[6]
but the idea grew from a story in Dubliners in 1906, to a 'short book' in 1907,[7] to
the vast novel which he began writing in 1914.

Structure

See also: Linati schema for Ulysses and Gilbert schema for Ulysses

Joyce divided Ulysses into eighteen chapters or "episodes". At first glance much of
the book may appear unstructured and chaotic; Joyce once said that he'd "put in so
many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries
arguing over what I meant" in order to attain "immortality".[8] The two schemata
which Stuart Gilbert and Herbert Gorman released after publication to defend
Joyce from the obscenity accusations made the links to the Odyssey clear, and also
explained the work's internal structure.

Every episode of Ulysses has a theme, technique, and correspondences between its
characters and those of the Odyssey. The original text did not include these episode
titles and the correspondences; instead, they originate from the Linati and Gilbert
schema. Joyce referred to the episodes by their Homeric titles in his letters. He
took the titles from Victor Brard's two-volume Les Phniciens et lOdysse which
he consulted in 1918 in the Zentralbibliothek of Zrich. Brard's book served as
the source of Joyce's idiosyncratic rendering of some of the Homeric titles:
'Nausikaa', the 'Telemachia'.

Part I: The Telemachiad

Episode 1, Telemachus

It is 8 a.m. on the morning of 16 June 1904 (the day Joyce first formally went out
with Nora Barnacle).[9] Buck Mulligan (a callous, verbally aggressive and
boisterous medical student) calls Stephen Dedalus (a young writer first
encountered in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) up to the roof of the
Martello tower, Sandycove, overlooking Dublin bay. Stephen doesn't respond to
Mulligan's aggressive and intrusive jokes. Stephen is focused on, and initially
disdainful toward, Haines (a nondescript, anti-semitic Englishman from Oxford),
whom Buck Mulligan invited around. Stephen's annoyance stems from the
intrusion, as he was disturbed the previous night by Haines's moaning about a
nightmare.

Mulligan and Dedalus proceed to look out over the sea, and Stephen is reminded of
his deceased mother, for whom he is visibly still in mourning. This, and Stephen's
refusal to pray at his mother's deathbed, remains an issue of some contention
between the two. Stephen reveals that he once overheard Buck referring to his
mother as "beastly dead." When faced with this, Buck makes a brief attempt to
defend himself, but gives up shortly. He shaves and prepares breakfast, then all
three eat. Buck then departs, and sings to himself, unknowingly, the song that
Stephen once sang to his dying mother.

Later, Haines and Stephen walk down to the water, where Buck and his
companions are swimming. We here learn that Buck has an absent friend from
Westmeath who has a yet-unnamed girlfriend (later revealed to be Milly Bloom).
Stephen declares his intention to depart, and Buck demands the house key and to
be lent money. Departing, Stephen declares that he will not return to the tower
tonight, citing Buck as a "Usurper."

Episode 2, Nestor

Stephen is teaching a history class on the victories of Pyrrhus of Epirus. The class
is visibly bored, unconcerned with the subject and not disciplined. Before seeing
the boys out of the classroom, Stephen tells the students a cryptic and impenetrable
riddle about a fox burying his grandmother under a bush, which falls flat. One
student, Sargent, stays behind so that Stephen can show him how to do a set of
arithmetic exercises. Stephen indulges him, but looks at the aesthetically
unappealing Sargent and tries to imagine Sargent's mother's love for him.
Afterwards, Stephen visits the anti-semitic school headmaster, Mr. Deasy, from
whom he collects his pay and a letter to take to a newspaper office for printing.
Deasy lectures Stephen on the satisfaction of money earned and the importance of
efficient money-management. This scene is the source of some of the novel's most
famous lines, such as Dedalus's claim that "history is a nightmare from which I am
trying to awake" and that God is "a shout in the street." He rejects Deasy's biased
recollection of past events, which he uses to justify his prejudices. At the end of
this episode, Deasy makes another incendiary remark against the Jews, stating that
Ireland has never extensively persecuted the Jews because they were never let in to
the country.

Episode 3, Proteus

In this chapter, characterized by its stream of consciousness narrative style, the

action is presented to the reader through the prism of Stephen's interior monologue.
He finds his way to the strand and mopes around for some time, mulling various
philosophical concepts, his family, his life as a student in Paris, and again, his
mother's death. As Stephen reminisces and ponders, he lies down among some
rocks, watches a couple and a dog, writes some poetry ideas, picks his nose, and
urinates behind a rock.

Part II: The Odyssey

Episode 4, Calypso

The narrative shifts abruptly. The time is again 8 a.m., but we have moved across
the city to Eccles Street and to the second protagonist of the book, Leopold Bloom,
a part-Jewish advertising canvasser. Bloom lives at No. 7 Eccles Street and is
preparing breakfast at the same time as Mulligan in the tower. He walks to a
butcher to purchase a pork kidney for his breakfast and returns to finish his
cooking. He brings breakfast and the mail to his wife Molly, whose given name is
Marion. He reads his own letter from their daughter, Milly. The chapter closes with
his plodding to the outhouse and defecating.

Episode 5, The Lotus Eaters

Bloom now begins his day proper, furtively making his way to a post office (by an
intentionally indirect route), where he receives a love letter from one 'Martha
Clifford' addressed to his pseudonym, 'Henry Flower'. He buys a newspaper and
meets an acquaintance, C. P. M'Coy; while they chat, Bloom attempts to ogle a
woman wearing stockings, but is prevented by a passing tram. Next, he reads the
letter and tears up the envelope in an alley. He makes his exit via a Catholic church
service and thinks about what is going on inside it. He goes to a chemist, then
meets another acquaintance, Bantam Lyons, to whom he unintentionally gives a
racing tip for the horse Throwaway. Finally, Bloom visits the baths to wash for the
rest of the day.

Episode 6, Hades

The episode begins with Bloom entering a funeral carriage with three others,
including Stephen's father Simon Dedalus. They make their way to Paddy
Dignam's funeral, passing Stephen and making small talk on the way. Bloom scans
his newspaper. There is discussion of various deaths, forms of death, and the tram-
line before arriving and getting out. They enter the chapel into the service and
subsequently leave with the coffin cart. Bloom sees a mysterious man wearing a
mackintosh during the burial and reflects upon various subjects. Leaving, he points
out a dent in a friend's hat.

Episode 7, Aeolus

At the newspaper office, Bloom attempts to place an ad, while Stephen arrives
bringing Deasy's letter about 'foot and mouth' disease. The two do not meet. Bloom
notices a worker typesetting an article in backwards print, and this reminds him of
his father reading the Haggadah of Pesach (written in Hebrew, read from right to
left). The episode is broken up into short sections by newspaper-style headlines,
and is characterized by a deliberate abundance of rhetorical figures and devices.
Lenehan and Corley appear in this section.
Episode 8, The Laestrygonians

This chapter opens with Bloom walking down the street. He is handed a leaflet,
advertising a visiting American evangelist reading, "Blood of the Lamb." Bloom
walks over a bridge and tosses the leaflet into the water. He buys two cakes from a
woman selling cakes and apples and throws them into the water, watching the gulls
quickly snatch up the food. He notices another advertisement on the side of a boat.
He thinks about other effective places for ads, such as a doctor's flyer about
sexually transmitted diseases in a bathroom. Bloom then wonders if Boylan, who
he suspects is having trysts with Marion, might have an STD.

Later, Bloom meets a former girlfriend, Josie Breen. She is now married to Denis
who is paranoid, and not mentally stable. Mr. Breen received an anonymous
postcard this morning, reading, "u.p.: up." Breen is subsequently attempting to
respond with legal action. He asks Josie about Mina Purefoy and she tells him that
she is in the hospital about to have a baby. Throughout the rest of the chapter,
Bloom returns to the image of Mina giving birth, recalling Molly's pregnancy as
well.

Bloom then walks past a group of police officers. This encounter reminds him of
the time when mounted policemen chased a gaggle of anti-British medical
students. Bloom feels it is likely that those students are probably now part of the
institutions they were criticizing. He thinks about other turncoats, such as Carey of
the Invincibles and house servants who inform on their employers.

As his walk progresses, Leopold passes an optician's, and thinks about eclipses. He
holds up a finger to block out the sun, remembering the time, at night, when he
walked with Molly and her lover, Boylan. He speculates that Molly and Boylan
may have been touching.

Bloom then enters a restaurant, Burton's. Repulsed by the anti-social sentiments

and manner of the patrons, he makes a hasty exit heading instead to Davy Byrne's.

Inside, Bloom is greeted by Nosey Flynn who inquires about Molly and her
upcoming tour with Boylan, her manager. Bloom's mind turns to Molly, and her
affair. He gives an order of a gorgonzola cheese sandwich and a glass of red wine
(burgundy). Bloom then eats. Noticing two flies stuck on the window pane Bloom
reminisces about a previous intimate moment with Molly on the Howth Hill: as
Bloom lay on top of her, Molly fed him seedcake out of her mouth, and they made
love. The reader will later hear this story from Marion's perspective in her
soliloquy. Looking back at the flies, Bloom thinks sadly of the many dissimilarities
between himself then, when he was happy with Molly, and now.

Bloom finishes his meal and heads to the outhouse.

Having left, Bloom goes to the National Museum to look at the statue of Venus, in
particular, her bum. Coming across a blind man, Bloom helps him across the road
and meditates on how other senses of blind people must be heightened. Bloom
suddenly spots Boylan across the street. Panicked, he sharply turns into the gates of
the National Museum.

Throughout this episode, Bloom muses upon the concept of a parallax, which he
does not fully understand. This can be considered self-reflexive, as the narrative of
Ulysses, and the reader's perception, changes profoundly when shown the different
characters' perceptions of the same events. The book itself uses parallax as a
narrative device.

Episode 9, Scylla and Charybdis

At the National Library, Stephen explains to various scholars his biographical

theory of the works of Shakespeare, especially Hamlet, which he claims are based
largely on the posited adultery of Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway. Bloom
enters the National Library to look up the Keyes ad. He only encounters Stephen
briefly and unknowingly at the end of the episode. Buck Mulligan does see Bloom,
however, and jokingly warns Stephen of Bloom's possible homosexuality.

Episode 10, The Wandering Rocks

In this episode, nineteen short vignettes depict the wanderings of various

characters, major and minor, through the streets of Dublin. The chapter ends with
an account of the cavalcade of the Lord Lieutenant, William Humble, Earl of
Dudley, through the streets, where it is encountered by the various characters we
have met in the episode. Neither Stephen nor Bloom sees the Viceroy's procession.

This chapter is unique in that it draws Homeric parallels to an incident that is

described third-hand in the Odyssey. That is to say, the Wandering Rocks are
spoken about in the Odyssey, but never experienced by its protagonist, Odysseus.
This is perhaps why Joyce disembodies the narrative from the three main
characters.

Episode 11, The Sirens

In this episode, dominated by motifs of music, Bloom has dinner with Stephen's
uncle Richie Goulding at the Ormond Hotel, while Molly's lover, Blazes Boylan,
proceeds to his rendezvous with her. While dining, Bloom watches the seductive
barmaids Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy and listens to the singing of Simon
Dedalus and others.

Episode 12, The Cyclops

This chapter is narrated largely by an unnamed denizen of Dublin, although his

style of speech is heavily modelled on John Joyce, Joyce's father. He runs into
Hynes and they enter a pub for a drink. At the pub, they meet Alf Bergan and a
character referred to only as the 'Citizen', who is largely modeled on Michael
Cusack, founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association. Eventually, Leopold Bloom
enters waiting to meet Martin Cunningham. The citizen is discovered to be a fierce
Fenian and begins berating Bloom. The atmosphere quickly becomes anti-Semitic
and Bloom escapes upon Cunningham's arrival. The chapter is marked by extended
digressions made outside the voice of the unnamed narrator: hyperboles of legal
jargon, Biblical passages, Irish mythology, etc., with lists of names often extending
half a page. The episode title Cyclops refers both to the narrator, who is often
quoted with 'says I', and to the Citizen, who fails to see the folly of his narrow-
minded thinking.

Episode 13, Nausica

Three young women, Cissy Caffrey, Edy Boardman, and Gerty MacDowell, have
come to the strand to watch a display of fireworks. The chapter opens by following
Gerty's stream of consciousness as she daydreams of finding someone to love her.
Eventually, Bloom appears and they begin to flirt from a distance. The girls are
about to leave when the fireworks start. Cissy and Edy leave to get a better view,
but Gerty remains. Bloom has made his way to the rocks of Sandymount Strand
where he encounters the young beauty. Bloom becomes the romantic stranger to
Gerty by watching her from a distance. She sees Bloom's troubled face and
ponders over what terrible thing may have cast him out upon this rocky shore. It is
here that Gerty becomes like the Virgin Mary, the beacon "to the storm-tossed
heart of man" (346). Her romantic notions of marriage and passion become more
abundant as she views Bloom.

Gerty becomes anxious for her friends to leave and inquires of the time as a subtle
hint that they should be getting on their way. One of the girls approaches Bloom,
asking for the time. Bloom discovers that his watch has stopped at half past four.
Later the reader discovers that this is probably the time at which Bloom's wife,
Molly, was committing adultery with Blazes Boylan. Bloom does not strike up a
conversation with the girl but rather keeps his focus on Gerty who is now fully
aware of her admirer. The girls decide that it is late and begin to leave. As they are
packing up the children's things, Gerty begins to entice the stranger through the
exploitation of her body.

At about this time the benediction at the church has drawn to a close and fireworks
are set off. Everyone runs to see the fireworks except for Gerty and Bloom. Gerty,
filled with passion, is enticed by the fireworks as she tilts her body backwards to
see. As she moves back on the rocks she deliberately exposes herself fully to
Bloom. At this moment a long Roman candle is shot off into the air. Gerty sees the
long rocket as it goes "higher and higher" (Joyce 366) and leans back even further,
exposing even more to Bloom. Gerty's sexual excitement grows as she is
"trembling in every limb" (Joyce 366). The imagery of the long rocket corresponds
with Bloom's manhood as he is masturbating to Gerty's display in time with the
rocket. Finally the two reach their climax as the Roman candle explodes in the air
and from it gushes out "a stream of rain gold hair threads" (Joyce 367).

Gerty then leaves, revealing herself to be lame, and leaving Bloom meditating on
the beach. Gerty's display of her body is inset with allusions to the Benediction of
the Blessed Sacrament taking place across the street from the strand in a Catholic
church. This is usually read as Joyce's playful punning on the ceremonial display
of the 'Body of Christ' in the form of the Host coupled with Gerty's displaying her
own body to Bloom (who is clearly acting out his own version of an Adoration).
Gerty's final revelation of being 'lame' is also read as Joyce's opinion of the state of
the Roman Catholic Church, especially in Ireland. The first half of the episode is
marked by an excessively sentimental style, and it is unclear how much of Gerty's
monologue is actually imagined by Bloom.

Episode 14, The Oxen of the Sun

Bloom visits the maternity hospital where Mina Purefoy is giving birth, and finally
meets Stephen, who is drinking with Buck Mulligan and his medical student
friends. They continue on to a pub to continue drinking, following the successful
birth of the baby. This chapter is remarkable for Joyce's wordplay, which seems to
recapitulate the entire history of the English language to describe a scene in an
obstetrics hospital, from the Carmen Arvale

Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus.

to something resembling alliterative Anglo-Saxon poetry

In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mildhearted eft rising with
swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leaping lightens in
eyeblink Ireland's westward welkin. Full she dread that God the Wreaker all
mankind would fordo with water for his evil sins. Christ's rood made she on
breastbone and him drew that he would rathe infare under her thatch. That
man her will wotting worthful went in Horne's house.

and on through skillful parodies of, among others, Malory, the King James Bible,
Bunyan, Pepys, Defoe, Addison and Steele, Sterne, Goldsmith, Junius, Gibbon,
Lamb, De Quincey, Landor, Dickens, Newman, Ruskin and Carlyle, before
concluding in a haze of nearly incomprehensible slang, bringing to mind American
English employed in advertising. Indeed, Joyce organized this chapter as three
sections divided into nine total subsections, representing the trimesters and months
of gestation.

This extremely complex chapter can be further broken down structurally. It

consists of sixty paragraphs. The first ten paragraphs are parodies of Latin and
Anglo-Saxon language, the two major predecessors to the English language, and
can be seen as intercourse and conception. The next forty paragraphs, representing
the 40 weeks of gestation in human embryonic development, begin with Middle
English satires; they move chronologically forward through the various styles
mentioned above. At the end of the fiftieth paragraph, the baby in the maternity
hospital is born, and the final ten paragraphs are the child, combining all the
different forms of slang and street English that were spoken in Dublin in the early
part of the 20th century.

Episode 15, Circe

Episode Fifteen takes the form of a play script with stage directions and
descriptions, with characters names appearing above their dialogue. The majority
of the action of Episode Fifteen occurs only as drunken hallucinations.

The episode opens at Nighttown, which acts as Dublin's red-light district. Stephen
and Lynch walk toward a brothel. Bloom attempts to follow Stephen and Lynch to
Nighttown, but soon loses them. Here, the episode's first hallucination begins, in
which Bloom is confronted by family members, such as Molly Bloom and his
parents, and also by Gerty MacDowell, in regards to various offences.
Awakening from this hallucination, Bloom feeds a dog. This act leads onto another
hallucination in which Bloom is questioned by a pair of Night-Wardens. From
here, Bloom then imagines facing trial, accused of a variety of outlandish crimes,
including forgery and bigamy, possibly alluding to a subconscious guilt over his
marital duplicity. Bloom is accused and testified against by recognisable figures
like Myles Crawford, and Paddy Dignam. Mary Driscoll states that Bloom made
inappropriate advances towards her when she was under his employment. Shaking
off this fantasy, Bloom is approached by Zoe Higgins, a local prostitute. Zoe tells
him Stephen is currently in the brothel that she works in. Another fantasy ensues,
in which Bloom gives a campaign speech. Attracting the attention and subsequent
admiration of both the Irish and Zionists, and is subsequently hailed as the leader
of "Bloomusalem." The hallucination turns more surreal and unpredictable when
Bloom is accused of yet more outlandish offenses and for having rumoured sexual
abnormalities. Bloom is then declared a woman, and spontaneously gives birth to
eight children. Zoe then reappears, signalling the end of the hallucination, with
only a second having actually passed since she last spoke.

After Bloom is led inside the brothel and sees Stephen, another hallucination
begins with the arrival of Lipoti Virag, who lectures Bloom about sexual attitudes
and conduct. Then, the owner of the brothel, Bella Cohen, appears, and is then
credited as "Bello," who proceeds to dominate and humiliate Bloom. In this
hallucination, Bloom proceeds to "die". After his "death" he converses with the
nymph from the picture in the Blooms bedroom, who berates Bloom for his
fallibility. Bloom, regaining a degree of triumphant confidence, stands up to the
nymph, questioning her own sexual attitudes.

Bloom then returns to reality, finding Bella Cohen before him. Bloom takes his
lucky potato from Zoe and Stephen pays for the services received, in his drunken
state, paying far more than necessary. Seeing this, Bloom confiscates the rest of
Stephen's money. Another hallucination starts, involving Bloom watching Boylan
and Molly fornicate. Returning to consciousness, Bloom finds Stephen dancing to
the pianola. Another hallucination then starts, this time Stephen's, in which the
rotting cadaver of his mother rises up from the floor to confront him, a
manifestation of his own guilt and lingering uncertainty over his role in his
mother's death. Terrified, Stephen uses his walking stick to smash a chandelier.
Bloom quickly repays Bella, who demands more than is fair for the damage, then
runs after Stephen, worried for his safety.

Bloom quickly finds Stephen engaged in a heated argument, and Dedalus gets
punched and knocked out. The police arrive and the crowd disperses. Bloom tends
on and checks Stephen, as an apparition of Rudy, Bloom's deceased child, appears,
underlining the parental feelings Leopold has built up toward the younger Stephen.

In short, this episode is the longest in the novel yet occurs within a rather short
time-frame. Molly's letter from Boylan and Bloom's from Martha are reworked
into a series of seductive letters ending in a trial. Bloom's sexual infidelities,
beginning with Lotty Clarke and ending with Gerty McDowell, are relived and
reconciled.

Part III: The Nostos

Episode 16, Eumaeus

Bloom and Stephen go to the cabman's shelter to eat. There they encounter a
drunken sailor, as well as Lord John Corley.

Episode 17, Ithaca

Bloom returns home with Stephen, who refuses Bloom's offer of a place to stay for
the night. The two men urinate in the backyard, Stephen departs and wanders off
into the night,[10] and Bloom goes to bed. The episode is written in the form of a
rigidly organized catechism, and was reportedly Joyce's favourite episode in the
novel.

Episode 18, Penelope

The final episode, which also uses the stream of consciousness technique seen in
Episode 3, consists of Molly Bloom's Soliloquy: eight enormous sentences
(without punctuation) written from the viewpoint of Bloom's wife.

The first sentence begins with Molly expressing annoyance and surprise that
Bloom has asked her to serve him breakfast in bed, as it is he that usually does this
for her, (such as in the fourth episode, Calypso). She then guesses that Bloom has
had an orgasm today, and is reminded of his past possible infidelity with other
women. In turn, she thinks of her afternoon spent with Boylan, whose conventional
and masculine lovemaking technique provided a welcome change after a decade of
celibacy and Bloom's strange lovemaking techniques. Yet, Molly feels Bloom is
more virile than Boylan and remembers how handsome Bloom was when they
were courting. Reminded of Josie and the mentally unstable Denis Breen's
marriage, Molly feels that she and Bloom are lucky, despite the current marital
difficulties.
In Molly's second sentence, she reflects upon her previous and current admirers:
Boylan; the tenor Bartell DArcy, who she was kissed by in a church; Lt. Gardner,
who died during Boer War. Molly then thinks about her husband's underwear
fetish. She then thinks about seeing Boylan on Monday and their upcoming trip to
Belfast alone. She then thinks of her career: concert singing, and Bloom's help.
Thinking about her future meetings with Boylan, Molly decides that she must lose
weight. She thinks about how Bloom should quit his advertising job at Freeman
and get better paid work elsewhere, like in an office. But then remembers having to
plead with Mr. Cuffe, a previous employer for Bloom's job back after he was fired,
which was refused.

Moving onto the third sentence, Marion thinks of the time Bloom suggested she
pose naked in exchange for money, and of pornographic imagery, which she
associates with the nymph painting that Bloom used to explain the concept of
metempsychosis earlier this morning. Her thoughts once again turn to Boylan and
of her orgasm earlier.

Molly's fourth sentence begins with a train whistle and her Gibraltar childhood, her
companions there, and recollections of how she had resorted to writing herself
letters after they left, out of boredom and loneliness. Molly then thinks about how
Milly sent her a card this morning, whereas her husband received a whole letter.
She imagines that she may receive another love letter from Boylan, as she did
earlier.

This line of thought leads to the next sentence, in which she recalls her first love
letter, from Lieutenant Mulvey, whom she kissed under the bridge in Gibraltar. She
later lost contact with him and wonders what he would be like now. Her thoughts
turn again to her career, and she remains dismissive of silly girl singers. Molly
wonders what path her career could have taken had she not married Bloom.

In her sixth sentence, Molly thinks again about Milly and how it was Bloom's idea
to send Milly to Mullingar to learn photography, because he sensed Molly and
Boylan's impending affair. She feels that Milly has become as Molly used to be.
Molly senses the start of her period, confirmation that her tryst with Boylan has not
caused a pregnancy. Events of the day spent with Boylan run through her mind.

In her seventh sentence, Molly climbs quietly back into bed and thinks of the times
she and Bloom have had to relocate. Their financial situation makes Molly worry
that Leopold may have wasted money on another woman, or on the Dignam family
out of pity. Her mind then turns to Stephen, whom she met during his childhood.
She predicts that Stephen is probably not stuck-up, and is most likely clean.
Furthermore, she fantasizes about future sexual encounters with him, including
fellatio. Molly resolves to study before meeting him so he will not look down upon
her.

In her eighth sentence, Molly thinks of her husband's strange habits, how he never
embraces her, instead kissing her bottom, like he did earlier. Molly speculates that
the world would be much improved if it consisted of Matriarchal Societies, run
exclusively by women. She thinks again of Stephen, and of his mother's death, and
that of Rudy's death, she then ends this line of thought as it is making her
depressed. Molly thinks about arousing Bloom in the morning, then revealing the
details of her affair with Boylan to make him realize his culpability. Molly then
decides to procure some flowers, in case Stephen Dedalus decides to come around.
Thinking of flowers, Molly thinks of the day she and Bloom spent at Howth, his
marriage proposal, and her response, reaffirming her love for Leopold, even during
a period of turbulence within the marriage.

The concluding period following the final words of her reverie is one of only three
punctuation marks in the chapter, the others being after the fourth and eighth
"sentences." When written this episode contained the longest "sentence" in English
literature, 4,391 words expressed by Molly Bloom.[11]

List of characters

Leopold Bloom - A 38 year old advertising canvasser in Dublin. Loves

music and reading as well as thinking about science and explaining things to
others. He is preoccupied with his estranged wife, Molly. Leopold Bloom
identifies himself as a Jew in the Cyclops episode, although his mother,
Ellen Higgins, was Roman Catholic, and his father, Rudolph Virag, was
born Jewish but converted to Protestantism. Leopold himself converted to
Catholicism in order to marry Molly Bloom. He does not observe Jewish
customs, but nevertheless displays his sometimes flawed awareness of them
throughout the novel.

Marion (Molly) Bloom - Leopold Bloom's wife. Molly Bloom is 33 years

old, chubby, good-looking, and flirtatious. She is a professional singer,
managed by Blazes Boylan, with whom she begins having an affair.
Although not well-educated, she is clever and opinionated. Molly is
impatient with Bloom, especially about his refusal to be intimate with her
since the death of their son, Rudy, eleven years ago.
 Stephen Dedalus - The first protagonist introduced in Ulysses, Stephen's
development from a zealously religious youth to a rebellious aspiring writer
is traced in Joyce's earlier novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (in
which Stephen was the protagonist). The Stephen of Ulysses is a brilliant, if
often abstruse, failed exile - having returned to Dublin from Paris for his
mother's death. His complex relationship with his mother (and with Ireland
in general) forms the main internal conflict that Stephen deals with on June
16. As in the earlier work he appeared, Stephen is a semi-autobiographical
character, largely based on Joyce himself.

Malachi (Buck) Mulligan - A bawdy medical student and a friend of Stephen

Dedalus. Mulligan is well-read and ridicules everything and everyone
around him. He is well-liked by nearly everyone except for Stephen &
Simon Dedalus and Leopold Bloom. Mulligan was based on Joyce's
acquaintance and one-time roommate, Oliver St. John Gogarty.

Haines - A student at Oxford who studies Irish people and culture. He has
been staying at the Martello tower where Stephen and Buck live.

Hugh ("Blazes") Boylan - Molly Bloom's manager. Boylan is well-known

and well-liked around town. Boylan and Molly begin an affair during the
novel.

Millicent (Milly) Bloom - Molly and Leopold Bloom's fifteen-year-old

daughter, who does not actually appear in the novel but is only referred to.
The Blooms recently sent Milly to live in Mullingar to learn photography.

Simon Dedalus - Stephen Dedalus's father. Until his wife died, Simon
Dedalus was a fairly successful man but since then his home life has been in
disarray. However, he is still admired by others. Simon is a good singer and
story and joke teller. He is a heavy drinker. Simon is extremely critical of
Stephen. The character of Simon Dedalus was based on Joyce's father, John
Joyce.

A.E. - the pseudonym of George Russell, a famous poet of the Irish Literary
Revival. People admire his wisdom and consult him for advice.

Richard Best - A librarian at the National Library.

Edy Boardman - One of Gerty MacDowell's friends.

 Josie (ne Powell) and Denis Breen - Josie and Leopold Bloom were
interested in each other when they were younger. At that time, Josie was
good-looking but her marriage has taken its toll on her and she is now
haggard and worn out. After Bloom married Molly, Josie married Denis,
who is mentally unbalanced and paranoid.

Cissy, Jacky, and Tommy Caffrey - Cissy Caffrey is one of Gerty

MacDowell's best friends. She looks after her younger toddler brothers,
Jacky and Tommy.

The citizen - An older Irish patriot, a champion of Irish nationalism. Though

he has no official capacity, others look to him for news and opinions. He
was formerly an athlete in Irish sports. He is belligerent, xenophobic and
anti-semitic.

Martha Clifford - A woman with whom Bloom corresponds using the

pseudonym Henry Flower.

Bella Cohen - A conniving brothel-mistress. She has a son studying at

Oxford, whose tuition is paid by one of her customers.

Martin Cunningham - The leader of Bloom's circle of friends.

Garrett Deasy - Headmaster of the boys school where Stephen teaches.

Deasy is a Protestant and a rabid anti-Semite. His letter to the newspaper
about foot-and-mouth disease is the object of mockery among Dublin men
for the rest of the day.

Dilly, Katey, Boody, and Maggy Dedalus - Stephen's younger sisters. They
try to keep the Dedalus household running after their mother's death.

Patrick Dignam, Mrs. Dignam, and Patrick Dignam, Jr. - Patrick Dignam is a
friend of Bloom's who died very recently, apparently from drinking. His
funeral takes place on the day of the novel and Bloom and others raise
money for the widow Dignam and her children, who were left with almost
nothing.

Ben Dollard - A man known around Dublin for his superior bass voice. Ben
Dollard's business and career collapsed a while ago.
 John Eglinton - An essayist who spends time at the National Library. He
attacks Stephen's theories about Shakespeare.

Richie, Sara (Sally), and Walter Goulding - Richie Goulding is Stephen

Dedalus's uncle. Richie is a law clerk, who has been less able to work
recently because of a bad back a fact that makes him an object of ridicule
for Simon Dedalus. Richie and Sara's son, Walter, is "skeweyed" and has a
stutter.

Zoe Higgins - A prostitute in Bella Cohen's brothel.

Joe Hynes - A reporter for the Dublin newspaper who seems to be broke
he borrowed three pounds from Bloom and has not paid him back. He does
not know Bloom well, but he appears to be good friends with the citizen in
Episode Twelve.

Corny Kelleher - An undertaker's assistant.

Mina Kennedy and Lydia Douce - The barmaids at the Ormond hotel. Mina
and Lydia are flirtatious and friendly to the men who come into the bar,
though they tend to be scornful of the opposite sex when they talk among
themselves. Miss Douce is bronze-haired and has a crush on Blazes Boylan.
Miss Kennedy, who is golden-haired, is more reserved than the more
outgoing Miss Douce.

Ned Lambert - A friend of Simon Dedalus, often found joking and laughing.
He works in a seed and grain warehouse downtown.

Lenehan - A racing editor at a Dublin newspaper. Lenehan is a jokester and

flirtatious with women. He is mocking of Bloom but respectful towards
Simon and Stephen Dedalus.

Lynch - A medical student and old friend of Stephen. He is seeing Kitty

Ricketts. Based on Joyce's one-time friend Vincent Cosgrave.

Thomas W. Lyster - A librarian at the National Library in Dublin and a

Quaker.

Gerty MacDowell - A woman in her early twenties from a lower-middle-

class family who suffers from a permanent limp. She is fastidious about her
clothing and beauty regimen and she hopes to fall in love and marry.
 John Henry Menton - A solicitor in Dublin who employed Paddy Dignam
before he died. When Bloom and Molly were first courting, Menton was a
rival for Molly's affections.

The narrator of episode twelve - The unnamed narrator of Episode Twelve is

currently a debt collector, the most recent of many different jobs.

City Councillor Nannetti - A head printer for a Dublin newspaper and a

member of Parliament.

J. J. OMolloy - A lawyer who is now out of work and money. OMolloy is

thwarted in his attempts to borrow money from friends. He sticks up for
Bloom in Barney Kiernan's pub in Episode Twelve.

Jack Power - A friend of Simon Dedalus and Martin Cunningham.

Kitty Ricketts - One of the prostitutes working in Bella Cohen's brothel. She
is thin and her clothing reflects her upper-class aspirations.

Florry Talbot - One of the prostitutes in Bella Cohen's brothel. Florry is

plump and seems slow but eager to please.

Ulysses

JAMES JOYCE

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a

literary work.

The Quest for Paternity

At its most basic level, Ulysses is a book about Stephen's search for a
symbolic father and Bloom's search for a son. In this respect, the plot of
Ulysses parallels Telemachus's search for Odysseus, and vice versa, in
The Odyssey. Bloom's search for a son stems at least in part from his need
to reinforce his identity and heritage through progeny. Stephen already has
a biological father, Simon Dedalus, but considers him a father only in
flesh. Stephen feels that his own ability to mature and become a father
himself (of art or children) is restricted by Simon's criticism and lack of
understanding. Thus Stephen's search involves finding a symbolic father
who will, in turn, allow Stephen himself to be a father. Both men, in truth,
are searching for paternity as a way to reinforce their own identities.

Stephen is more conscious of his quest for paternity than Bloom, and he
mentally recurs to several important motifs with which to understand
paternity. Stephen's thinking about the Holy Trinity involves, on the one
hand, Church doctrines that uphold the unity of the Father and the Son
and, on the other hand, the writings of heretics that challenge this doctrine
by arguing that God created the rest of the Trinity, concluding that each
subsequent creation is inherently different. Stephen's second motif involves
his Hamlet theory, which seeks to prove that Shakespeare represented
himself through the ghost-father in Hamlet, but alsothrough his
translation of his life into artbecame the father of his own father, of his
life, and of all his race. The Holy Trinity and Hamlet motifs reinforce our
sense of Stephen's and Bloom's parallel quests for paternity. These quests
seem to end in Bloom's kitchen, with Bloom recognizing the future in
Stephen and Stephen recognizing the past in Bloom. Though united as
father and son in this moment, the men will soon part ways, and their
paternity quests will undoubtedly continue, for Ulysses demonstrates that
the quest for paternity is a search for a lasting manifestation of self.

The Remorse of Conscience

The phrase agenbite of inwit, a religious term meaning remorse of

conscience, comes to Stephen's mind again and again in Ulysses.
Stephen associates the phrase with his guilt over his mother's deathhe
suspects that he may have killed her by refusing to kneel and pray at her
sickbed when she asked. The theme of remorse runs through Ulysses to
address the feelings associated with modern breaks with family and
tradition. Bloom, too, has guilty feelings about his father because he no
longer observes certain traditions his father observed, such as keeping
kosher. Episode Fifteen, Circe, dramatizes this remorse as Bloom's Sins
of the Past rise up and confront him one by one. Ulysses juxtaposes
characters who experience remorse with characters who do not, such as
Buck Mulligan, who shamelessly refers to Stephen's mother as beastly
dead, and Simon Dedalus, who mourns his late wife but does not regret
his treatment of her. Though remorse of conscience can have a repressive,
paralyzing effect, as in Stephen's case, it is also vaguely positive. A self-
conscious awareness of the past, even the sins of the past, helps constitute
an individual as an ethical being in the present.

Compassion as Heroic

In nearly all senses, the notion of Leopold Bloom as an epic hero is

laughablehis job, talents, family relations, public relations, and private
actions all suggest his utter ordinariness. It is only Bloom's extraordinary
capacity for sympathy and compassion that allows him an unironic heroism
in the course of the novel. Bloom's fluid ability to empathize with such a
wide variety of beingscats, birds, dogs, dead men, vicious men, blind
men, old ladies, a woman in labor, the poor, and so onis the modern-day
equivalent to Odysseus's capacity to adapt to a wide variety of challenges.
Bloom's compassion often dictates the course of his day and the novel, as
when he stops at the river Liffey to feed the gulls or at the hospital to check
on Mrs. Purefoy. There is a network of symbols in Ulysses that present
Bloom as Ireland's savior, and his message is, at a basic level, to love. He
is juxtaposed with Stephen, who would also be Ireland's savior but is
lacking in compassion. Bloom returns home, faces evidence of his cuckold
status, and slays his competitionnot with arrows, but with a refocused
perspective that is available only through his fluid capacity for empathy.

Parallax, or the Need for Multiple Perspectives

Parallax is an astronomical term that Bloom encounters in his reading and
that arises repeatedly through the course of the novel. It refers to the
difference of position of one object when seen from two different vantage
points. These differing viewpoints can be collated to better approximate the
position of the object. As a novel, Ulysses uses a similar tactic. Three main
charactersStephen, Bloom, and Mollyand a subset of narrative
techniques that affect our perception of events and characters combine to
demonstrate the fallibility of one single perspective. Our understanding of
particular characters and events must be continually revised as we
consider further perspectives. The most obvious example is Molly's past
love life. Though we can construct a judgment of Molly as a loose woman
from the testimonies of various characters in the novelBloom, Lenehan,
Dixon, and so onthis judgment must be revised with the integration of
Molly's own final testimony.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can

help to develop and inform the text's major themes.

Lightness and Darkness

The traditional associations of light with good and dark with bad are
upended in Ulysses, in which the two protagonists are dressed in mourning
black, and the more menacing characters are associated with light and
brightness. This reversal arises in part as a reaction to Mr. Deasy's anti-
Semitic judgment that Jews have sinned against the light. Deasy himself
is associated with the brightness of coins, representing wealth without
spirituality. Blazes Boylan, Bloom's nemesis, is associated with brightness
through his name and his flashy behavior, again suggesting surface without
substance. Bloom's and Stephen's dark colors suggest a variety of
associations: Jewishness, anarchy, outsider/wanderer status. Furthermore,
Throwaway, the dark horse, wins the Gold CuThe
Home Usurped
While Odysseus is away from Ithaca in The Odyssey, his household is
usurped by would-be suitors of his wife, Penelope. This motif translates
directly to Ulysses and provides a connection between Stephen and Bloom.
Stephen pays the rent for the Martello tower, where he, Buck, and Haines
are staying. Buck's demand of the house key is thus a usurpation of
Stephen's household rights, and Stephen recognizes this and refuses to
return to the tower. Stephen mentally dramatizes this usurpation as a
replay of Claudius's usurpation of Gertrude and the throne in Hamlet.
Meanwhile, Bloom's home has been usurped by Blazes Boylan, who
comes and goes at will and has sex with Molly in Bloom's absence.
Stephen's and Bloom's lack of house keys throughout Ulysses symbolizes
these usurpations.

The East

The motif of the East appears mainly in Bloom's thoughts. For Bloom, the
East is a place of exoticism, representing the promise of a paradisiacal
existence. Bloom's hazy conception of this faraway land arises from a
network of connections: the planter's companies (such as Agendeth
Netaim), which suggest newly fertile and potentially profitable homes;
Zionist movements for a homeland; Molly and her childhood in Gibraltar;
narcotics; and erotics. For Bloom and the reader, the East becomes the
imaginative space where hopes can be realized. The only place where
Molly, Stephen, and Bloom all meet is in their parallel dreams of each other
the night before, dreams that seem to be set in an Eastern locale.

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent

abstract ideas or concepts.

Plumtree's Potted Meat

In Episode Five, Bloom reads an ad in his newspaper: What is home
without / Plumtree's Potted Meat? / Incomplete. / With it an abode of bliss.
Bloom's conscious reaction is his belief that the ad is poorly placed
directly below the obituaries, suggesting an infelicitous relation between
dead bodies and potted meat. On a subconscious level, however, the
figure of Plumtree's Potted Meat comes to stand for Bloom's anxieties
about Boylan's usurpation of his wife and home. The image of meat inside
a pot crudely suggests the sexual relation between Boylan and Molly. The
wording of the ad further suggests, less concretely, Bloom's masculine
anxietieshe worries that he is not the head of an abode of bliss but
rather a servant in a home incomplete. The connection between
Plumtree's meat and Bloom's anxieties about Molly's unhappiness and
infidelity is driven home when Bloom finds crumbs of the potted meat that
Boylan and Molly shared earlier in his own bed.

The Gold Cup Horserace

The afternoon's Gold Cup Horserace and the bets placed on it provide
much of the public drama in Ulysses, though it happens offstage. In
Episode Five, Bantam Lyons mistakenly thinks that Bloom has tipped him
off to the horse Throwaway, the dark horse with a long-shot chance.
Throwaway does end up winning the race, notably ousting Sceptre, the
horse with the phallic name, on which Lenehan and Boylan have bet. This
underdog victory represents Bloom's eventual unshowy triumph over
Boylan, to win the Gold Cup of Molly's heart.

Stephen's Latin Quarter Hat

Stephen deliberately conceives of his Latin Quarter hat as a symbol. The

Latin Quarter is a student district in Paris, and Stephen hopes to suggest
his exiled, anti-establishment status while back in Ireland. He also refers to
the hat as his Hamlet hat, tipping us off to the intentional brooding and
artistic connotations of the head gear. Yet Stephen cannot always control
his own hat as a symbol, especially in the eyes of others. Through the eyes
of others, it comes to signify Stephen's mock priest-liness and provinciality.
Bloom's Potato Talisman

In Episode Fifteen, Bloom's potato functions like Odysseus's use of moly

in Circe's denit serves to protect him from enchantment, enchantments to
which Bloom succumbs when he briefly gives it over to Zoe Higgins. The
potato, old and shriveled now, is an heirloom from Bloom's mother, Ellen.
As an organic product that is both fruit and root but is now shriveled, it
gestures toward Bloom's anxieties about fertility and his family line. Most
important, however, is the potato's connection to IrelandBloom's potato
talisman stands for his frequently overlooked maternal Irish heritage.

Themes

Every human goes on a journey, just as the mythical Odysseus (Roman

name, Ulysses) did in his heroic adventures in Homers Odyssey. But in the
real life of modern man, this journey is generally humdrum and uneventful,
as in Joyce's Ulysses, rather than heroic. The novel presents many other
themes, or sub-themes. Examples are the following:

Infidelity (Molly Bloom and Blazes Boylan)

Guilt (Stephen Dedalus and His Mother)
Anti-Semitism (The Citizen Insulting Bloom)
The Influence of Shakespeare (Dedalus and His Shakespeare
Theory)
Sexual Temptation (Bloom Ogling Gerty Macdowell and Others)
The Cycles of Life From Birth to Death (Mina Purefoy's and the Death
of Paddy Dignam)
Religion as a Nefarious Influence (Numerous References and
Allusions)
Camaraderie (Bar Scenes, Bloom and Dedalus)

Ulysses is an experimental novel in the modernist tradition. It uses parody

in its imitation of The Odyssey. It also uses satire and burlesque in
ridiculing religion, culture, literary movements, other writers and their styles,
and many other people, places, things, and ideas.
Style and Technique

The author writes in third-person point of view with frequent use of

allusions, symbols, Jungian archetypes, literary archetypes, pastiche, and
the stream-of-consciousness technique, all of which make the novel difficult
to comprehend for even the most intelligent and informed readers. In
stream of consciousness, a term coined by American psychologist William
James (1842-1910), an author portrays a characters continuing stream of
thoughts as they occur, regardless of whether they make sense or whether
the next thought in a sequence relates to the previous thought. (See the
last paragraph of the plot summary for an example.) These thought
portrayals expose a characters memories, fantasies, apprehensions,
fixations, ambitions, rational and irrational ideas, and so on. In the last
chapter of the novel, consisting of eight long paragraphs, Joyce omits
punctuation entirely in order to mimic the uninterrupted flow of naked
thoughts. Joyce also uses numerous sentences and phrases from Latin,
French, German, Spanish, Russian (transliterated), Italian, and other
languages. In addition, he uses refined language, vulgar language, slang
and demotic dialogue, gibberish, coined words such as noctambules for
night walkers (noctural ambulators) and circumjacent for surrounding
closely, passages in all-capital letters, unpunctuated sentences, and
abbreviations (such as H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir
Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C., K.
C. B., M. P, J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I. A., B. L., Mus.
Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P. I. and F. R. C. S.
I. Another technique he uses is to combine two words into one to create a
single adjective and sometimes a noun. Examples are the following:
dangerouslooking, hocuspocus, fifenotes, jogjaunty, deepmoved,
muchtreasured, dogbiscuits, snotgreen, rosegardens, shrilldeep,
canarybird, freefly, allimportant, gigglegold, candleflame, and grassplots.He
also writes one chapter in the format of a stage play, another in the format
of a Roman Catholic catechism, and another in language ranging from Old
English to modern English.

At times, he includes poetry, like the following triplet written in capital

letters:

BEHOLD THE MANSION REARED BY DEDAL JACK

SEE THE MALT STORED IN MANY A REFLUENT SACK,
IN THE PROUD CIRQUE OF JACKJOHN'S BIVOUAC.
Repetition also occurs frequently, as in the following passage:

Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A
loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle.
M. B. loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow.
Jumbo, the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle
with the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye.
The man in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His
Majesty the King loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W.
Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love a certain person. And this
person loves that other person because everybody loves somebody
but God loves everybody.

Joyce's bag of tricks also includes the following passage that associates
members of a wedding with trees, in response a barroom discussion about
the necessity to preserve the forests:

The fashionable international world attended EN MASSE this

afternoon at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan,
grand high chief ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir
Conifer of Pine Valley. Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara
Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, Mrs Holly Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays,
Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan
Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia Creeper, Miss Gladys
Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs Maud Mahogany,
Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower, Miss Bee Honeysuckle,
Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel Cedarfrond,
the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, Mrs Kitty
Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana
Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of
Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence. The bride
who was given away by her father, the M'Conifer of the Glands,
looked exquisitely charming in a creation carried out in green
mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed
with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with a triple flounce of
darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by bretelles and hip
 insertions of acorn bronze. The maids of honour, Miss Larch Conifer
and Miss Spruce Conifer, sisters of the bride, wore very becoming
costumes in the same tone, a dainty MOTIF of plume rose being
worked into the pleats in a pinstripe and repeated capriciously in the
jadegreen toques in the form of heron feathers of paletinted coral.
Senhor Enrique Flor presided at the organ with his wellknown ability
and, in addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played
a new and striking arrangement of WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE
at the conclusion of the service. On leaving the church of Saint Fiacre
IN HORTO after the papal blessing the happy pair were subjected to
a playful crossfire of hazelnuts, beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of
willow, ivytod, hollyberries, mistletoe sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr
and Mrs Wyse Conifer Neaulan will spend a quiet honeymoon in the
Black Forest.

All of these stylistic and technical devices, and many more, help Joyce to
depict his world as multifarious, like the motley-coated world of Homer's
Odyssey, with all of its strange peoples and unfamiliar climes. But, of
course, Joyce's world is mundane Dublin, reductio ad absurdam. These
devices also enable Joyce to show the world what a clever fellow he is.
However, at times, his language games and obscure allusions, many of
which he admittedly designed to confound "the college professors," mar the
novel, and many readers abandon it after plowing through a chapter or
two.

Is Stream of Consciousness a Flawed Technique?

Stream of consciousness (described above) attempts to present the

unedited, uncensored, free-flowing thoughts of a person. However, Joyce
and other writers who use this technique do so with forethought and
calculation. They are creating the thoughts of fictitious characters, not
brain-scanning the thoughts of real humans. The thoughts these writers
present to the reader are shaped to the theme of a literary work or the
mindset of its characters. Consequently, one may argue, they are not really
presenting true stream of consciousness.

Structure
The structure of Ulysses parallels symbolically the structure of Homers
epic poem, The Odyssey. In both works, a man goes on a journey,
encountering a variety of people and situations along the way. However,
the journey in Homers work lasts ten years, whereas the journey in Joyces
work lasts about 18 hours. The main characters in Ulysses also parallel
the main characters in The Odyssey. Thus, Joyces Leopold Bloom
becomes Homers Odysseus (Roman name, Ulysses); Stephen Dedalus
becomes Telemachus, the son of Odysseus; Molly Bloom becomes
Penelope, the wife of Odysseus; and Blazes Boylan becomes a
representative of all the suitors wooing Penelope. Joyces characters are
ordinary and unheroic in contrast to Homers extraordinary and heroic
characters