Ulysses Exam Final Part

Episode 3: Proteus

Dense, erudite, and consisting almost entirely of Stephen's stream-of-consciousness, "Proteus" is where most first-time readers of Ulysses throw in the towel. Don't. Sure, even the most robust Joyce scholar could spend an entire career reading deeply in this episode, but you needn't get bogged down if you don't want to. Here, I'll give you what you need to move you through to meeting Mr. Bloom in the next episode. Of course, if you like Aristotle, aesthetic theory, and Stephen's mind, pull out the Gifford and have at it! If not, here we go: The time is 11 am. Stephen has taken a tram from Dalkey, where Mr. Deasy's School is located, and gotten off at Sandymount, a suburb on Dublin bay, north of the Martello Tower in Sandycove but still south of the heart of Dublin. He has walked from the tram station to Sandymount Strand, where we join him. Stephen opens the monologue with queries into how the senses experience and interpret reality. He begins with Aristotle's ideas on sight and color, then closes his eyes and ponders sound, time, and space. He opens his eyes again and sees midwives coming down the stairs from the street level to the strand. He contemplates his own birth and imagines that one of the women has in her bag a dead foetus with its umbilical cord, prompting him to reconsider the omphalos idea from the opening episode. He imagines the cords linking everyone back to Adam and Eve, as if to a telephone operator. Stephen then contemplates his own parentage and creation, leading him to the Christian theological notion of Father-Son consubstantiality and then again to the heretic Arius (linked in Stephen's thoughts to Buck Mulligan in "Telemachus"). The world of reality, in the form of wind, asserts itself (even if laden with an allusion to Hamlet), and Stephen reminds himself of his promise to submit Mr. Deasy's foot and mouth disease letter to the newspaper and his plan to meet Buck at The Ship at 12:30. He mocks his own irresponsibility with money. Stephen then slows his walk to decide if he is going to pop into his Aunt Sara and Uncle Richie Goulding's house for a visit. He then imagines his father Simon's reaction to hearing that Stephen has visited his in-laws, involving Simon's mocking parody of Uncle Richie's stammer ("And and and and tell us, Stephen, how is Uncle Si?" (3.64-65)). Stephen then paints a vignette of his imagined arrival and warm welcome in the Goulding home. Stephen's attention returns to the present, and he seems to prefer it to the imagined future, saying "This wind is sweeter" (3.104). He laments the many "houses of decay" (3.105) in his life, and chastises himself for the lies he told his Clongowes School-mates about his family. He goes on to mock himself for his pious phase, his sins of simony, his misogyny, his literary pretensions, and his delusions of grandeur. While he may be feeling the sting of his failure to achieve the lofty goals he set for himself at the end of Portrait ("to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race" (P xx)), we have to feel that Stephen is hard on himself. He returns again to the physical present as he moves from sand to the "crackling mast, razorshells" (3.147-8) of the tideline, then stops, realizing he has, in his distracted thoughts, already "passed the way to aunt Sara's" (3.158). Oh well. He thinks about Irish expatriates in Paris and mocks his own cosmopolitanism in his Latin quarter hat and casual mentionings of his time in the City of Light. He reveals a measure of paranoia in carrying a punched ticket as an alibi if he was arrested on suspicion of murder there. Stephen continues to castigate himself for not accomplishing his stated goals in Paris, then shamefully remembers pretending not to speak English in order to avoid tipping the porter upon his arrival back in Dublin. He paints a Paris morning scene and again thinks of Kevin Egan and his son Patrick, Irish revolutionaries in exile, and snippets of their conversations together. "He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his boots." (3.265) "He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his boots." (3.265) He reaches the soft sand at the edge of the water, turns around to face south, and imagines the interior scene of the Tower. Knowing that Buck now "has the key," Stephen resolves, "I will not sleep there when this night comes" (3.276). Thus, he finds himself exiled. He climbs and sits upon a rock and notices a dead dog carcass nearby. Then, a live dog named Tatters, accompanying two cocklepickers, comes along the strand, spurring Stephen's panic (he and Joyce both are cynophobic). He decides to sit still and respect the creature's right to liberty. He thinks of Viking invaders on these shores, then compares Buck Mulligan's courage ("He saved men from drowning") to his own cowardice ("and you shake at a cur's yelping")(3.317-18). Despite this unfavorable comparison, Stephen affirms that "I want his life still to be his, mine to be mine" (3.327-28). Nevertheless, he remains haunted by the memory of his mother. We follow Tatters's jaunty fun on the beach for a few paragraphs, and then Stephen's inner monologue remembers his dream from the previous night: After he woke me last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open hallway. Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against my face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come. Red carpet spread. You will see who. (3.365-69) This passage, in addition to expressing the way we can and can't quite remember our dreams, foreshadows Stephen's encounter with Mr. Bloom late this night. Haroun al Raschid was a Persian King who, among other things, walked in disguise amongst his subjects. As for the remainder of the passage, "you will see" how Stephen's prophetic dream plays out in the later episodes of the novel. The encounter between these two wandering exiles is absolutely worth the reader's work here in "Proteus" and all the rest that lies ahead. Tatters's owners pass with a sidewards glance at Stephen's "Hamlet hat" (3.390), a metonymy of his correspondence with Hamlet as well as his cosmopolitanism (which Stephen mocked earlier in the episode) and, later, his fall. Stephen then composes some poetry in his head and searches his pockets for some paper. Realizing he has twice forgotten to take slips from the library, he tears off the bottom of Deasy's foot and mouth disease letter and uses that to work out a few lines of verse (about a romantic encounter between a woman and a vampire?). Then we get a rather poignant paragraph: "Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. Sad too. Touch, touch me" (3.434-36). I personally struggle to identify the voice of this passage with any degree of certainty. I used to think that it was Stephen himself expressing his vulnerability, loneliness, and deep desire for companionship and love (the "word known to all men"). Recently, I've read it as part of the poem he is composing. It's hard to attribute this one for sure, but the very next paragraph clearly begins in the narrator's voice ("He lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks" (3.437) but shifts quickly to Stephen's inner monologue ("That is Kevin Egan's movement I made" (3.439). Stephen sings a snippet of "Fergus's Song" and looks at his boots (Buck's hand-me-downs) and, in a wonderful synecdoche, reflects that they once held a "foot I dislove" (3.448-49). He then takes a piss. He imagines the scene of the drowned man being pulled from the water, expected this afternoon. His mind wanders from The Tempest to Proteus to Lucifer to Ophelia before noting that next Tuesday will be the Summer Solstice. He notes that his teeth are in poor shape and momentarily considers using this morning's pay from Mr. Deasy for a visit to a dentist. That's not going to happen. He picks his nose and leaves the booger on a rock, then has a moment of self-consciousness and peeks over his shoulder to see if anyone saw. No, but he does see a tall ship with "crosstrees" (3.504), Christological imagery portending crucifixion. This ship, like Stephen, is due in Dublin.

Episode 13: Nausicaa

A mawkish, clichéd, third-person narrative describes the summer evening on Sandymount Strand, near Mary, Star of the Sea church. Bloom stands across the beach from three girlfriends—Cissy Caffrey, Edy Boardman, and Gerty MacDowell—and their charges: Cissy's twin toddler brothers and Edy's baby brother. Cissy and Edy tend to the babies and occasionally tease Gerty, who is sitting some distance away. The narrative sympathetically describes Gerty as beautiful, and outlines the commercial products she uses to maintain her looks. Gerty's crush—the boy who bicycles past her house—has been aloof lately. Gerty daydreams of marriage and domestic life with a silent, strong man. Meanwhile, Edy and Cissy deal loudly with the children's disputes. Gerty is mortified by her friends' unladylike obscenity, especially in front of the gentleman (Bloom). Nearby, at the Star of the Sea church, a men's temperance retreat begins with a supplication to the Virgin. The toddlers kick their ball too far. Bloom picks it up and throws it back—the ball rolls to a stop under Gerty's skirt. Gerty tries to kick the ball to Cissy but misses. Gerty senses Bloom's eyes on her and notices his sad face. She fantasizes that he is a foreigner in mourning who needs her comfort. Gerty displays her ankles and her hair for Bloom, knowing she is arousing him. Gerty wonders aloud how late it is, hoping Cissy and Edy will take the children home. Cissy approaches Bloom and asks for the time. Bloom's watch has stopped. Gerty watches Bloom put his hands back in his pockets and senses the onset of her menstrual cycle. She yearns to know Bloom's story—is he married? A widower? Duty-bound to a madwoman? Cissy and the others are preparing to leave when the fireworks from the Mirus bazaar begin. They run down the strand to watch, but Gerty remains. Gerty leans back, holding her knee in her hands, knowingly revealing her legs, while she watches a "long Roman candle" firework shoot high in the sky. At the climax of the episode and Gerty's emotions (and Bloom's own orgasmic climax, we soon realize) the Roman candle bursts in the air, to cries of "O! O!" on the ground. As Gerty rises and begins to walk to the others, Bloom realizes that she is lame in one foot. He feels shock and pity, then relief that he did not know this when she was arousing him. Bloom ponders the sexual appeal of abnormalities, then women's sexual urges as heightened by their menstrual cycles. Remembering Gerty's two friends, he considers the competitiveness of female friendships, like Molly's with Josie Breen. Bloom remembers that his watch was stopped at 4:30, and he wonders if that is when Molly and Boylan had sex. Bloom rearranges his semen-stained shirt and ponders strategies for seducing women. Bloom wonders if Gerty noticed him masturbating—he guesses that she did, as women are very aware. He briefly wonders if Gerty is Martha Clifford. Bloom thinks about how soon girls become mothers, then of Mrs. Purefoy at the nearby maternity hospital. Bloom ponders the "magnetism" that could account for his watch stopping when Boylan and Molly were together, perhaps the same magnetism that draws men and women together. Bloom smells Gerty's perfume in the air—a cheap smell, not like Molly's complex scent, opoponax. Bloom smells inside his waistcoat, wondering what a man's smell would be. The scent of the lemon soap reminds him that he forgot to pick up Molly's lotion. A "nobleman" passes Bloom. Bloom wonders about the man and considers writing a story called "The Mystery Man on the Beach." This thought reminds him of the macintosh man at Dignam's funeral. Looking at Howth lighthouse, Bloom considers the science of light and colors, then the day he and Molly spent there. Now, Boylan is with her. Bloom feels drained. He notices that Mass seems to be over. The postman makes his nine o'clock round with a lamp. A newsboy cries the results of the Gold Cup race. Bloom decides to avoid going home just yet. He reconsiders the incident in Barney Kiernan's— perhaps the citizen meant no harm. Bloom thinks about his evening visit to Mrs. Dignam. Bloom tries to remember his dream last night. Molly was dressed in Turkish breeches and red slippers. Bloom picks up a stray piece of paper, then a stick. Wondering if Gerty will return tomorrow, he begins to write her a message in the sand—"I AM A"—but stops as there is not sufficient room. He erases the letters and throws the stick, which lands straight up in the sand. He decides to have a short nap, and his thoughts become muddled by sleep. Bloom dozes off as a cuckoo clock chimes in the priest's house nearby.

Episode 6: Hades

As Mr. Bloom has planned all morning, he joins Paddy Dignam's funeral cortege at 11 am. Together with Martin Cunningham, Jack Power, and Simon Dedalus (Stephen's father), Mr. Bloom will traverse Dublin by horse-drawn carriage, beginning at the Dignam home in the southeast corner of central Dublin (just east of the Aviva Stadium noted on the Google map to the right), going through the heart of the City Center, and ending at Glasnevin Cemetery in the north (marked on the map with the red drop pin). In Homer's Odyssey, "Hades" is the land of the dead, to which Odysseus travels in order to learn from the great prophet Tiresias how he might return to his home in Ithaca. Likewise, Mr. Bloom in this episode visits the memories of loved one who have passed away and wrestles with thoughts of his own home, where his wife Molly and her lover Blazes Boylan will meet later this afternoon. The episode is divided into two parts: first, the 20ish minute journey through town and the conversation between the four men in the carriage (along, of course, with the inner monologue of Mr. Bloom); then, the funeral itself at Glasnevin (nee Prospect) Cemetery. We gather from the social interactions depicted in this episode, snarling as they are with anti-Semitism, that Mr. Bloom is exiled within his community, in juxtaposition to Stephen Dedalus's self-declared exile. Leaving the Dignam home, Mr. Bloom takes the last of the four seats in the carriage. As the procession through the city begins, Simon Dedalus notices that folks on the road stop and doff their hat out of respect for the deceased. Mr. Bloom spots Stephen Dedalus, "a lithe young man, clad in mourning, a wide hat" (6.39-40), and tells Simon, who launches into a rant about Buck Mulligan, who he fears is corrupting his son. Bloom silently observes Simon's noisy anger but tolerates the right of a father to be "full of his son" (6.74). Poignantly, Bloom imagines his own son, Rudy, who died at 11 days old just over a decade ago, now as a young man, dressed in an Eton suit beside Molly. He silently mourns this loss, then pivots to thinking positively of his daughter Milly and his fatherhood. The men in the carriage complain about the rickety carriage supplied by their acquaintance Corny Kelleher, who works for the funeral home. As their inspection of the carriage continues, the men notice crumbs and then, perhaps, unspecified evidence of lovemaking. Mr. Bloom ruminates on diseases and expresses gratitude that Milly didn't get many in her childhood. Seeing an SPCA in the distance triggers the memory of his late father imploring him in his suicide letter to take care of Athos, his dog. It begins to rain, but only briefly. The men begin to recount with spiteful humor the pontification of Tom Kernan, another acquaintance. In their parody of Kernan's speech, we see for the first time the phrase "retrospective arrangement," a term that appears seven times in the novel and may signal Joyce's own conception of how Ulysses works: there exists in the novel an overarching intelligence (the "arranger," as the scholar David Hayman calls it) that knows everything in the book and systematically arranges the details, references, echoes, and revelations in a manner that amplifies the book's meanings. In essence, the more you know what's in the book, the more meaningful it is from a perspective of looking backwards with that knowledge in mind (in retrospection). This technique of "retrospective arrangement" is what offers such rich rewards to the re-reader of Ulysses (and, of course, to the re-re-reader, and the re-re-re-re-reader...). Bloom, as he has done already, goes about the sort of mental accounting we all practice (where did I put that...oh right, in this pocket, and did I remember to...and I need to make sure later to...). He also has creative ideas for inventions and improvements, such as a device that could switch the tram track, but he displays his characteristic compassion by worrying about the impact of the improving device on the livelihood of the worker currently employed in the job then made obsolete by the invention. He remembers briefly that Blazes Boylan will meet with Molly that afternoon, and, coincidentally, just at that moment the other men in the carriage see Boylan emerging from the Red Bank, a restaurant known for its seafood and, in particular, its oysters (ahem). Looking down anxiously at his nails, Bloom silently questions Boylan's appeal. Mr. Power, perhaps with some malice, asks Bloom about the concert tour, and as Bloom begins to speak, Power asks pointedly if Bloom himself will be accompanying Molly on the tour. It seems that all of Dublin knows what's going on between Boylan and Molly, and these fellows seem to enjoy digging the knife into Bloom's side. Then, the men notice Reuben J. Dodd, a Jewish moneylender, as the carriage passes him in the street. Simon Dedalus curses him, Mr. Power laughs, and Martin Cunningham suggests that "We have all been there" (6.259), meaning been in debt, then looks at Bloom and corrects himself - "nearly all of us" (6.261). The implication, of course, is that Jewish Mr. Bloom has never owed money to a Jewish money lender. Eager to disassociate himself from Reuben J. Dodd, Bloom begins to share a bit of recent gossip about Dodd, but he stumbles in his narration, and Martin Cunningham hijacks the story (Dodd's son fell into the river and Dodd rewarded the boatman who saved him with a gift of 2 shillings (a relatively small sum)). The other men make sure that Mr. Bloom is kept on the outside of the joke, and the anti-Semitism clouding the air of the carriage remains heavy. The men turn their attention to Paddy Dignam, celebrating his good humor in life and mourning the suddenness of his death. Dignam died of complications related to his alcoholism, which the men euphemize as a breakdown of the heart. Humane Mr. Bloom finds solace in the fact that Dignam died quickly, with no suffering. However, for Catholics such as Bloom's companions in the carriage, a sudden death is terrible because it affords no opportunity for the sacrament of last rites, whereby the dying person would receive final absolution for sins and the soul prepared for heaven. Mr. Bloom, trying to be nice, once again finds himself silently ostracized. A carriage carrying a child-sized coffin passes by their window, and Bloom's thoughts turn again to Rudy. Mr. Power begins to rail against suicide as the worst disgrace, and Simon adds cowardice to the accusations. Martin Cunningham, aware of Bloom's father's suicide, sympathetically attempts to thwart this line of conversation. Mr. Bloom considers speaking up, but decides against it and remains silent. He appreciates Cunningham's compassion and remembers the scene of his father's deathbed and inquest: the bottle of poison, the yellow streaks on his deceased father's face, the coroner, the suicide note left for Leopold. The cortege reaches the north side of the city, close to Bloom's neighborhood, and they pass by a herd of cattle on the road heading down to the boats for slaughter on Friday (Mr. Bloom knows a bit about the cattle trade from his previous job in Cuffe's). He offers the idea of running a tramline from the farmland to the boat docks for the cattle, thus clearing the roads of these herds. Martin Cunningham agrees. Seizing on this momentum, Bloom also offers the idea of running a line to the cemetery for funeral trams. After some debate, the men agree with this idea, too, especially since it would eliminate unpleasant scenes of hearse carriages hitting a bump and knocking the coffin out into the road. Bloom imagines such a macabre scene, and Mr. Power points out Dunphy's pub, where funeral goers customarily stop off for a drink after. The carriage passes over the Royal Canal (the fourth of four Dublin rivers/canals the carriage crosses, an allusion to Odysseus and the rivers of the underworld. We see for the first time a man standing on a barge (he will subtly reappear later in the novel). Bloom continues to observe the cityscape passing outside his window, and Mr. Power points out the site of the Childs murder, a famous and enthralling case that attracted the attention of 17 year old James Joyce, who attended three days of court proceedings to hear and learn from the superior oratory and rhetorical skills of the attorneys. Bloom returns to his earlier idea of visiting his daughter down in Mullingar and decides he shouldn't arrive unannounced (for fear that he might catch her with her pants down...). The funeral procession arrives at Glasnevin Cemetery, and Bloom moves the soap that had made him uncomfortable all throughout the carriage ride from his hip to his chest pocket. He notices that the funeral is rather poorly attended and walks behind the other men toward the mortuary chapel. The narrative perspective shifts from Bloom to the other men ahead as Cunningham informs Mr. Power of Mr. Bloom's father's suicide. Power seems genuinely not to have known. Bloom, walking behind with Tom Kernan, a Protestant and the subject of the other men's ridicule earlier in the carriage, inquires as to state of Paddy Dignam's finances. Kernan informs that yes, he was insured, but Dignam had borrowed against the policy. Bloom is concerned for the well-being of the wife and five children left behind. He then contemplates the loss of a spouse and assumes that Molly would remarry. Simon Dedalus greets an old friend from his hometown of Cork, who informs him that they are taking up a collection to support the Dignam family until the insurance begins to pay out. Dedalus, broke, dodges the appeal. The funeral moves into the chapel. Bloom has characteristically practical thoughts about the religious ceremony (the Latin, the holy water, the alter boys, the liturgy, so on). They wheel the coffin out of the chapel and towards the gravesite. Simon nods toward the burial site of his late wife, expresses his readiness to join her in death, and begins to cry quietly to himself. Mr. Bloom and Tom Kernan, again walking behind the others, comment briefly on the Catholic rituals in which they are unpracticed. Kernan compares the Catholic liturgy unfavorably to the Protestant service, and Bloom thinks about death in its most practical terms: the heart is a pump, and "once you are dead you are dead" (6.677). As happened a few pages prior with Cunningham and Power, the narrative perspective shifts up a few yards, this time to John Henry Menton, a lawyer and former employer of Paddy Dignam, who asks Ned Lambert who Bloom is. Ned tells Menton that he's married to Molly, with whom Menton fondly recalls dancing and flirting. Menton inquires further, remembering that Bloom used to work in Wisdom Hely's stationery store and that he once quarrelled with Bloom over a game of lawn bowling years ago. Lambert tells him that Bloom now works in advertising, and Menton questions why Molly, with all her talent, charisma, and looks, would have married him. John O'Connell, the caretaker, joins the funeral and greets the men in attendance cordially, even offering a joke to lighten the mood. Bloom's mind hops around, from worrying about Molly finding out about his correspondence with Martha, to the amorous activity sometimes surrounding funerals, to the creative idea of burying people upright rather than lying down in order to save space, to the fecundity of the soil in and near a cemetery, to morbid imagination of flesh decomposing beneath the ground. We overhear O'Connell discussing their business with Corny Kelleher. Then we encounter one of the novel's great mysteries: who is the man in the brown macintosh? Bloom considers with some gallows humor the moment of one's death as well as the inevitability of being forgotten to the world as one's acquaintances likewise die off. Thinking of his own death for a moment, he glances toward the plot on the cemetery grounds he has purchased for his family, where Rudy and his mother are buried (not his father, though; suicides are refused Christian burial). As the gravediggers begin shoveling dirt onto Dignam's coffin, Bloom panics that perhaps he isn't actually dead! Maybe they should put a telephone in the coffin? A flag of distress? Just in case? Joe Hynes, a newspaperman, comes around to get the names of the attendants for the notice. Bloom gives his own and asks Hynes to put down M'Coy, too. Promise kept. There's a bit of confusion as Hynes asks the name of the man in the brown... "macintosh," Bloom finishes, and Hynes jots down M'Intosh, mistaking that for the man's name. Many Joyce scholars and Bloom himself take an interest in solving the mystery of the identity of the man in the brown macintosh (he has seven subsequent references/appearances in the book), and, sure, it is a fun thread to follow, but it seems to me a puzzle intentionally lacking pieces. The funeral ends. Hynes and Power head over to pay respects at Parnell's grave, and Bloom walks off himself, thinking about visiting his father's grave at the end of the month and his obligation to pay the gardener who tends the plot. Bloom considers more interesting information to engrave on tombstones, such as the profession or particular talents of the deceased. He has the staggering thought that all of the people here buried once walked the streets of Dublin, then imagines playing voice recordings of the deceased to keep them in memory. Bloom is halted by a fat, old, grey rat toddling over by the crypt and thinks again about decay and what happens to a corpse after death Approaching the gates of the cemetery, Bloom's mood lifts in affirmation that he has lots of life left to live. He notices and remembers John Henry Menton, who had earlier noticed and remembered him, and likewise recalls their dispute during the game of lawn bowling. Here, a pun on "the bias" signifies both the curved shot of a weighted bowl and Menton's anti-Semitic prejudice that produces in him "hate at first sight" (6.1012) toward Bloom. Bloom observes that there is a dent in the side of Menton's hat and politely lets him know. Menton reluctantly thanks him, and Bloom falls back to politely avoid eavesdropping on his conversation with Martin Cunningham. Bloom concludes the episode with his tolerance for Menton being a jerk and optimism for being alive this morning.

Episode 16: Eumaeus

Bloom rouses Stephen and begins walking him to a nearby cabman's shelter for food. On the way, Bloom lectures Stephen about the dangers of Nighttown and drinking with "friends" who desert one. Stephen is silent. The men pass by Gumley, a friend of Stephen's father's. Further down, Stephen is accosted by a down-and-out acquaintance, Corley. Stephen half-seriously advises Corley to apply for Stephen's soon-to-be-vacant post at Deasy's school, then gives him a halfcrown. Bloom is appalled by Stephen's generosity. As they continue on, Bloom reminds Stephen that he has no place to sleep tonight himself now that Buck and Haines have ditched him. Bloom suggests Stephen's father's house and reassures Stephen of Simon's pride in him. Stephen is silent, remembering a depressing home scene. Bloom wonders if he has misspoken in his criticism of Buck. Bloom and Stephen enter the cabman's shelter, the keeper of which is rumored to be Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris, the getaway-car driver during the Phoenix Park murders. Bloom orders coffee and a roll for Stephen. A red-haired sailor asks Stephen what his name is, then if he knows Simon Dedalus. Bloom is confused by Stephen's noncommittal response. When the sailor begins telling tall tales of Simon Dedalus, Bloom assumes it must be a coincidence. The sailor introduces himself as D.B. Murphy and begins telling travel stories. He passes around a picture postcard of tribal women. Bloom notes suspiciously that the addressee's name is not Murphy. The sailor's tales remind Bloom of his own unambitious travel plans and of the untapped market of affordable travel for the average man. The sailor describes seeing an Italian knife a man in the back. At the mention of knives, someone brings up the Phoenix Park murders. Silence descends as the clientele think about the Park murders and glance surreptitiously at the keeper. Murphy shows off his tattoos: an anchor, the number 16, and a profile of Antonio, a friend who was later eaten by sharks. Bloom notices Bridie Kelly standing outside and ducks his head in embarrassment. Seeing her leave, Bloom lectures Stephen about dis-ease-ridden prostitutes. Stephen shifts the conversation from traffic in sex to traffic in souls. A confused discussion ensues—Bloom talks about simple grey matter, and Stephen talks about theological debates about souls. Bloom urges Stephen to eat and brings their conversation back to the sailor's tale about the Italian knifer. Bloom agrees that Mediterraneans are hot-tempered and mentions that his wife is half-Spanish. Meanwhile, the other men discuss Irish shipping—the keeper insists England is draining Ireland's riches. Bloom thinks a break with England would be foolish, but he wisely keeps silent. He describes to Stephen the similar scene with the citizen, and his own comeback about Christ also being a Jew, though Bloom reassures Stephen that he (Bloom) is not actually a Jew. Bloom outlines his own antidote to the citizen's combative patriotism: a society in which all men worked and were rewarded with a comfortable income. Stephen is unenthusiastic, and Bloom clarifies that work in Bloom's Ireland would include literary labor. Stephen scoffs at Bloom's plan, which condescends to Stephen—Stephen arrogantly inverts this by insisting that Ireland is important because it belongs to him. Bloom silently excuses Stephen's impolite and possibly unstable behavior on account of his drunkenness or his difficult homelife. Bloom thinks again about the providence of their meeting, and imagines writing a Titbits piece entitled "My Experiences in a Cabman's Shelter." Bloom's eyes wander the evening Telegraph, including an item about Throwaway's Gold Cup victory and one about Dignam's funeral, in which Stephen's name and "M'Intosh" are listed as attendees and his own name is misspelled as L. Boom. Stephen looks for Deasy's letter. Conversation in the shelter switches to Parnell and the possibility that he is not dead but merely exiled. Bloom thinks of the time he returned Parnell's dropped hat to him in a crowd. Bloom meditates on the theme of the long-lost returned or an impersonator claiming to be the long-lost. Meanwhile, the keeper aggressively blames Kitty O'Shea—Parnell's married mistress—for Parnell's downfall. Bloom's sympathies are with O'Shea and Parnell—Kitty O'Shea's husband was obviously inadequate. Bloom shows Stephen a picture of Molly. Bloom silently hopes Stephen will abandon his prostitute habit and settle down. Bloom considers himself similar to Stephen, remembering his own youthful socialist ideals. Bloom, his head full of plans for them both, invites Stephen to his house for a cup of cocoa. Bloom pays the bill for Stephen's uneaten fare, and he takes Stephen's arm, as Stephen still seems weak. They begin walking home and chat about music, then usurpers and sirens. Stephen sings an obscure song for Bloom, who considers how commercially successful Stephen could be with his vocal talent. The episode ends with a streetsweeper's view of the two men walking arm in arm into the night.

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, subconscious, anxiety-ridden hallucinations. Near the entrance to Nighttown, Dublin's red-light district, Stephen and Lynch walk toward a familiar brothel. The focus switches to Bloom, nearby. Bloom has attempted to follow Stephen and Lynch to Nighttown, but he has lost them. He ducks into a pork butcher's to buy a late-night snack. Bloom immediately feels guilty about the expense, and a hallucination begins in which Bloom's parents, Molly, and Gerty MacDowell confront Bloom about various offenses. Next, Mrs. Breen appears—she and Bloom briefly renew their old flirtation. In a dark corner, Bloom feeds his meat purchases to a hungry dog—this suspicious-looking act engenders another hallucination in which two nightwatchmen question Bloom, who responds guiltily. Soon, Bloom is on public trial, accused of being a cuckold, an anarchist, a forger, a bigamist, and a bawd. Witnesses such as Myles Crawford, Philip Beaufoy, and Paddy Dignam in dog form appear. Mary Driscoll, the former housemaid to the Blooms, testifies that Bloom once approached her for sex. The nightmarish scene ends as Bloom is approached by prostitute Zoe Higgins. Zoe guesses that Bloom and Stephen, both in mourning, are together. She tells him Stephen is inside. Zoe playfully steals Bloom's lucky potato from his pocket, then teases Bloom for lecturing her on the ills of smoking. Another fantasy ensues, in which Bloom's smoking lecture escalates into a campaign speech. Soon Bloom, backed by Irish and Zionists, is coronated as leader of the new "Bloomusalem." The nationalist hallucination turns sour when Bloom is accused of being a libertine—Buck Mulligan steps forward and testifies about Bloom's sexual abnormalities, then pronounces Bloom a woman. Bloom gives birth to eight children. The hallucination ends with the reappearance of Zoe. Only a second of "real time" has passed since she last spoke. Zoe leads Bloom inside Bella Cohen's brothel, where Stephen and Lynch are socializing with prostitutes Kitty and Florry. Stephen is pontificating and playing the piano. Florry misunderstands Stephen and assumes he is making an apocalyptic prophecy. An apocalyptic hallucination, Stephen's, ensues. Another hallucinatory sequence, Bloom's, begins with the arrival of Lipoti Virag, Bloom's grandfather, who lectures Bloom about sex. When Bella Cohen herself enters the room, a long hallucination begins—Bella becomes "Bello," proceeding to master and violate a feminized Bloom, while taunting him about past sins and Boylan's virility. Bello suggests that Bloom's household would be better served without him, and Bloom dies. The hallucination continues—perhaps in Bloom's "afterlife"—with the pristine nymph (from the picture in the Blooms' bedroom) humiliating Bloom for being a dirty mortal. The spell ends only when Bloom confronts the nymph with her own sexuality. Bloom finds Bella Cohen standing before him—again, only seconds seem to have "really" passed since her entrance. Bloom gets his lucky potato back from Zoe. Bella demands payment from the men, and Stephen gives Bella more than enough money for all three of them. Bloom puts down some of his own money and returns Stephen's overpayment to him, then takes control of all Stephen's money for the evening, since Stephen is drunk. Zoe reads Bloom's palm and pronounces him a "henpecked husband." Another hallucination ensues, involving Bloom watching Boy-lan and Molly have sex. Talk turns to Stephen's Parisian adventures and Stephen colorfully describes his escape from his enemies and his father. Zoe starts the pianola, and everyone except Bloom dances. Stephen spins faster and faster, nearly falling. The rotting ghost of his mother rises up from the floor. Stephen is horrified and remorseful—he asks for confirmation that he did not cause her death. The ghost is noncommittal in response, speaking of God's mercy and wrath. The others notice Stephen looks petrified, and Bloom opens a window. Stephen defiantly tries to dispel the ghost and his own remorse, proclaiming that he will stand alone against those who try to break his spirit. Stephen crashes his walking stick into the chandelier. Bella calls for the police, and Stephen runs out the door. Bloom quickly settles with Bella, then runs after Stephen. Bloom catches up with Stephen, who is surrounded by a crowd and is haranguing British Army Private Carr about unwanted British military presence in Ireland. Stephen announces his own personal intent to mentally subvert both priest and king. Bloom tries to intervene. Carr, feeling his king has been insulted, threatens to punch Stephen. Edward VII, the citizen, the Croppy Boy, and "Old Gummy Granny," the personification of Ireland, appear to encourage the fight, though Stephen remains distasteful of violence. Lynch impatiently leaves. Stephen calls Lynch "Judas," the betrayer. Carr knocks Stephen out. The police arrive. Bloom spots Corny Kelleher, who is close with policemen, and enlists his help with Simon's son. Kelleher satisfies the police and leaves. Alone in the street, Bloom bends over the barely conscious Stephen, as an apparition of Rudy, Bloom's son, appears.

Episode 17: Ithaca

Episode Seventeen is narrated in the third person through a set of 309 questions and their detailed and methodical answers, in the style of a catechism or Socratic dialogue. Bloom and Stephen walk home chatting about music and politics. Arriving home, Bloom is frustrated to find that he forgot his key. He jumps over the fence, enters through the kitchen, and re-emerges at the front gate to let Stephen in. In the kitchen, Bloom puts the kettle on. Stephen declines Bloom's offer to wash, as Stephen is a hydrophobe. The contents of Bloom's kitchen are reviewed, including those that betray Boylan's presence earlier in the day—a gift basket and betting tickets. The latter remind Bloom of the Gold Cup, and the misunderstanding between himself and Bantam Lyons (in Episode Five) dawns on him. Bloom serves cocoa for them both, and they drink in silence. Bloom, watching Stephen think, considers his own youthful forays into poetry. The narrative reveals that Bloom and Stephen have met twice before—once when Stephen was five, and another time when he was ten. On the latter occasion, Stephen invited Bloom to dinner at the Dedalus's, and Bloom politely declined. Their personal histories are compared, as well as their temperaments—Stephen's is artistic, while Bloom's tends toward applied science through his interest in invention and advertising. The two men trade anecdotes, and Bloom considers the possibility of publishing a collection of Stephen's stories. They recite and write Irish and Hebrew for each other. Stephen senses the past in Bloom, and Bloom senses the future in Stephen. Stephen goes on to chant the anti-Semitic medieval story of "Little Harry Hughes," in which a Christian boy is beheaded by a Jew's daughter. Stephen's exposition of the story suggests that he could see both himself and Bloom as the Christian child of the story. But Bloom has mixed feelings and immediately thinks of his own "Jew's daughter," Millicent. Bloom remembers moments from Milly's childhood and, thinking of a potential union between Stephen and Milly (or Molly), invites Stephen to stay the night. Stephen gratefully declines. Bloom returns Stephen's money to him, rounded up one pence, and suggests a variety of future interactions. Stephen seems noncommittal, and Bloom becomes pessimistic. Stephen seems to share Bloom's sense of dejection. Bloom shows Stephen out, and they urinate together in the yard while looking at the night sky, where a shooting star suddenly appears. Bloom lets Stephen out, and the two shake hands as the church bells ring. Bloom listens to Stephen's footsteps and feels alone. Bloom goes back in. Entering the front room, he bumps his head on furniture that has been moved. He sits down and begins to disrobe. The contents of the room and Bloom's budget for the day (omitting the money paid to Bella Cohen) are catalogued. Bloom's ambition to own a simple bungalow in the suburbs is described. Bloom deposits Martha's letter in his locked cabinet drawer and thinks pleasantly about his favorable interactions today with Mrs. Breen, Nurse Callan, and Gerty MacDowell. The contents of the second drawer include several family documents, including Bloom's father's suicide note. Bloom feels remorseful, mostly because he has not upheld his father's beliefs and practices, such as keeping kosher. Bloom is grateful for his father's monetary legacy, which saved him from poverty—here Bloom daydreams of his unrealized vagrant self, traveling all over the globe, navigating by the stars. Bloom's revery ends, and he moves toward his bedroom, thinking of what he did and did not accomplish today. Entering the bedroom, Bloom notices more evidence of Boylan. Bloom's mind skims over his assumed catalogue of Molly's twenty-five past suitors, of which Boylan is only the latest. Bloom reflects on Boylan, feeling first jealous, then resigned. Bloom kisses Molly's behind, which is near his face, as he is sleeping with his head at the foot of the bed. Molly wakes up, and Bloom tells her about his day with several omissions and lies. He tells Molly about Stephen, whom he describes as a professor and author. Molly is silently aware that it has been over ten years since she and Bloom have had sexual intercourse. Bloom is silently aware of the tenseness of their relations since the onset of Milly's puberty. As the episode comes to a close, Molly is described as "Gea-Tellus," Earth Mother, while Bloom is both an infant in the womb and the sailor returned and resting from his travels. A typographical dot ends the episode and indicates Bloom's resting place.

Episode 4: Calypso

Just as Book 5 of The Odyssey leaves Telemachus and restarts the narrative from the perspective of Odysseus, the "Calypso" episode of Ulysses leaves Stephen and begins the day with Mr. Leopold Bloom. We join him at 8:00 am in the kitchen of his home at 7 Eccles Street, where he is preparing breakfast for his wife and bidding good morning to his cat. On the first page, you will see many images which echo the "Telemachus" episode: Buck/Bloom preparing breakfast, a tower, green stones, cat/panther, milk, and so on. However, you'll feel relief from heavy resonances: rather than a metaphor for English colonization of Ireland, the green stones are Bloom's cat's eyes; rather than an omphalos of an Irish literary renaissance, the tower figures into Bloom's curiosity about his cat's perception of his height; rather than the milkwoman representing Athena and the decrepitude of Irish culture, Bloom's milk jug was just filled by Hanlon's milkman. Other contrasts between the two opening episodes are obvious. Buck spouts blasphemies while preparing the breakfast while Bloom thoughtfully makes a plate for his wife, Molly Bloom. Stephen brings volumes of knowledge to every thought while Bloom brings wonder. Bloom's mind has a lighter air than Stephen's, but it is no less active. He considers his breakfast options then calls upstairs to his sleepy wife to make sure she doesn't want anything from the butcher's. Ever rooted in sensory experience, Bloom hears the jingle of loose quoits on the bed and considers Molly's childhood in Gibraltar where her father, Tweedy, was an officer. On his way out, Bloom grabs his Plasto's high grade ha (the "t" has worn off), and checks inside the headband to make sure that the "white slip of paper" (4.70) remains hidden there. Let me solve this little mystery for you: Bloom has a secret post office box under the name Henry Flower, and this little hidden card allows him access to it (more on this in the next episode). He takes further inventory: he has his shrunken potato talisman, but his key to the house remains in his other pants (he is wearing his black suit for Paddy Dignam's funeral later this morning). Mr. Bloom enters the streets of Dublin this sunny morning and we begin to see the city through his eyes. He possesses tireless powers of observation - in this encounter with just his own block of his own neighborhood, he notices details of a neighbor's "loose cellarflap," the steeple of George's church, and a bread van, amidst curiosity about why you feel hotter in a black suit as well as thoughts of his wife's preference for day-old loafs and new undergarments, intertwined with a reverie of walking though a Middle Eastern market that he quickly dismisses as overly romanticized. Get used to this agile sort of mental activity - we will spend the better part of 10 episodes with Mr. Bloom, frequently accessing his inner monologue. As Bloom anticipates, he sees Larry O'Rourke (the proprietor of his local pub) as he turns the corner from Eccles to Dorset Street on his way to Dluglacz's butcher shop. He contemplates the economics of pubs but gets distracted from his math as he passes Saint Joseph's National school and hears the ABCs recited through the open windows. He arrives at Dluglacz's and is pleased to wait behind a young woman as she places an order for sausages. He admires "her vigorous hips" (4.148) and hopes to hurry with his own order so that he can walk behind her "moving hams" (4.172). Bloom is a bit of a letch. He receives his kidney (remember, "Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls (4.1-2)) wrapped in butcher's paper and heads home, reading a prospectus for Agendath Netaim, a Zionist investment opportunity, which touts the land's fertility. Then, "a cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly" (4.218) - the same cloud that covered the sun in the "Telemachus" episode (see 1.248). This cloud represents our first direct incident of parallax, the idea of the same object being observed from different viewpoints (like Wayne's World: "camera 1, camera 2"). We will see this concept employed throughout the day as Stephen and Bloom both think about and experience the same things from their own unique perspectives. In any event, the cloud casts a shadow on Bloom's mind (just as it does to Stephen's), and he thinks of Israel as a dried up, barren, old, dead land as opposed to the idyllic portrayal in the Agendath Netaim ad as a land teeming with life. Horrified by the image his mind creates, he hurries home, thinking "Well, I am here now. Yes, I am here now" (4.232-33), asserting his identity as an Irishman despite his Jewish ethnicity. He arrives home and collects the morning mail: a card from Milly to Molly, a letter from Milly to Bloom, and a letter to Molly in the "bold hand" (4.244) of Blazes Boylan, the manager of Molly's upcoming concert tour (Molly is a prominent soprano in the Dublin music scene). Boylan addresses his letter to Mrs. Marion Bloom, when her name should properly appear as Mrs. Leopold Bloom; therefore, Boylan has effectively removed Leopold from the marriage. Indeed, Blazes Boylan will have sex with Molly this very afternoon, cuckolding Mr. Bloom and making good on that envelope's clerical promise. Molly tucks the letter under her pillow to read in private later. On his way back downstairs to finish making breakfast, Molly tells (commands?) Bloom to "scald the teapot" (4.270). Molly calls him Poldy, short for Leopold, perhaps de-lionizing him by removing the Leo from his name. Bloom does as commanded, puts the kidney in the pan on the coals, and then opens and skims Milly's letter before returning to the stove and taking the tray up to Molly in bed. There, he notices Molly's ample figure and "a strip of torn envelope peep[ing] from under the dimpled pillow" (4.308), evidence that she has read Boylan's letter while he was downstairs. Knowing full well who it was from, he asks anyway, and Molly tells that Boylan is going to come by the house that afternoon to review the tour programme. We also learn that Bloom will attend a funeral for his friend Paddy Dignam later in the morning. Molly then asks Bloom to explain a word she read in a book. The word is metempsychosis, and Bloom initially explains that it is Greek, meaning "the transmigration of souls" (4.342), but Molly dismisses this erudite definition, saying "O, rocks! [...] Tell us in plain words" (4.343). Bloom goes on to explain reincarnation in simpler terms, and he also collects Molly's book (Ruby: the Pride of the Ring - a cheap romance novel about a circus) to return for her. Molly smells burn, and Bloom hurries back downstairs, having forgotten about his kidney on the stove. He salvages his breakfast and sits down with a cup of tea. There, he opens and reads his daughter's letter to him, thanking him for her birthday presents (she turned 15 yesterday (June 15th)) and giving a brief update on her social life down in Mullingar, where she is working in a photography shop. One detail stands out to Mr. Bloom: "there is a young student comes here some evenings named Bannon" (4.4.406-7). Likewise, this bit of information should catch our attention, as Buck learns from Haines in the "Telemachus" episode that his friend Bannon "found a sweet young thing down there. Photo girl he calls her" (1.684-85). So, in another instance of parallax, Bloom's daughter Milly is involved with a young man in Buck Mulligan's circle of friends. Even without knowing anything about Bannon, Bloom, like any good father, appropriately responds to this development "with troubled affection" (4.432). Milly also mentions a song that will return to Bloom's mind over the course of the day: "Seaside Girls." Singing a few lines of the song to himself, Bloom's mind conflates Milly's blossoming sexuality with his wife's impending sexual encounter with Boylan: "a soft qualm, regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will happen, yes. Prevent. Useless: can't move" (4.447-48). We might admire Bloom's wisdom in passivity here: if Molly wants to have an affair, he is ultimately powerless to stop her. She will find a way. Same thing with Milly's involvement with the Bannon boy. Bloom will later think, "Woman. As easy stop the sea" (11.641). His memory of running to the midwife's house on the morning of Milly's birth turn his mind to the birth of his son Rudy, who would be eleven years old now had he lived beyond his eleven days. The pang of this loss will rise to the consciousness of both Bloom and Molly throughout the day. Bloom, as physical as Stephen is cerebral, feels his bowels loosen and grabs some reading material for a trip to the outhouse. In his yard, he thinks about some gardening and a few other snippets return from the day thus far, then he sits down with a short story, "Matcham's Masterstroke" by Mr. Philip Beaufoy, and takes a dump. Just as at the conclusion of "Telemachus," we hear the three bells signalling 8:45. Whereas Stephen's mind translated them into three verses of a Catholic prayer for the dying, Bloom hears them as Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! Heigho! (4.546-48) This further instance of parallax (responding differently to the same bells) demonstrates that, again, Bloom and Stephen are going to encounter the same things but through different perspectives. This contrast is emphasized in Mr. Bloom's last words of the episode: "Poor Dignam!" (4.551). Whereas Stephen's last word is the self-centered "Usurper" (1.743), Mr. Bloom is thinking of others with a spirit of charity and compassion. We may consider this impulse in Mr. Bloom as an important reference point as Joyce begins to redefine the notion of the epic hero.

Episode 7: Aeolus

The "Aeolus" episode, with its newspaper headlines, represents the first of many chapters where Joyce pushes the boundaries of the novel as a form. Can a novel contain newspaper headlines? Is a novel still a novel if ⅕ th of it is written as a play? What if it also contains a catechism? How do these devices alter the reading experience? Joyce saw all forms of language - from Dublin slang to Deuteronomy, from pop music lyrics to Virgil's Eclogues, from advertising slogans to Shakespeare - as fodder for the great project of Ulysses. In the case of the headlines in the episode at hand (which Joyce added to the text at proof stage) we immediately notice their effect of simultaneously interrupting and framing the prose and narration. In the schema, Joyce identified the lungs as the organ for this chapter; indeed, the episode features lots of comings and goings (inhales and exhales), and the diction is suffused with references to air and wind. In terms of the correspondence to Homer, the episode is named for Aeolus, the keeper of the winds, who gives Odysseus a magical sack of winds; appropriately, this chapter is filled with the hot air of political speeches, rhetorical devices, and the inflated prose of newspapers and newspapermen. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew have nearly returned home - they can even see men tending fires on the shores of Ithaca. Relieved, and exhausted from sailing for two-weeks straight, Odysseus takes power nap. While he's sleeping, Odysseus's men jealously assume that the sack of winds contains riches, gripe about unfair distribution of wealth, and open the bag, letting loose the winds and blowing the ship all the way back to Aeolus's island. In correspondence to this frustrating moment in The Odyssey, the "Aeolus" episode includes a few near-misses as Bloom attempts to do his job; likewise, Mr. Bloom and Stephen just miss seeing each other. By noon, the funeral-goers have returned from Glasnevin Cemetery (likely by way of Dunphy's pub) to the center of Dublin, where Mr. Bloom gets right to work on placing an advertisement for House of Keyes teashop in the Evening Telegraph newspaper. He meets first with Red Murray, who cuts out an older ad for Keyes, which Mr. Bloom then takes to the foreman, Nannetti, who is also a city councillor tipped to become Lord Mayor of Dublin (he will indeed do so in 1906). In Nannetti's office, Bloom finds Hynes submitting his piece about Dignam's funeral. Hynes owes Bloom three shillings from three weeks ago, and Bloom gives a subtle hint to that effect by informing Hynes that the cashier is about to head to lunch...maybe try to catch him? And maybe pay me back with what you get paid? Hynes doesn't bite. Bloom tactfully explains to Nannetti his idea for the art to be added to the Keyes ad - two keys crossed inside a circle - which signifies the Manx parliament on the Isle of Man, representing a form of home rule and therefore independence from Britain. Thus, Mr. Bloom's idea for the ad makes a faint political statement. Mr. Bloom has seen a design for the art in a Kilkenny newspaper, which he could get at the National Library. Nannetti likes the idea and agrees to run the ad if Keyes gives the paper a renewal of three months. So, Mr. Bloom has a deal to broker. Like George Costanza in the "jerk store" episode of Seinfeld, Bloom's mind returns to the encounter with Menton at the end of the "Hades" episode, and he thinks he should have said, after Menton popped out the dent in the hat, something like "Looks as good as new now" (7.173). So very human of Bloom to re-play and revise a moment of social tension from earlier in the day. Amid the din of the printing press, Bloom thinks about the way inanimate objects make sounds that resemble words. Bloom also lingers to marvel at the speed of the typesetter laying out the letters backwards. The text of the novel reads "mangiD kcirtaP" in imitation of the way the type would be laid, but, of course, the letters themselves would also be backwards (e.g., a "b" would look like "d"). For all of its clever inventiveness, this little moment demonstrates the text's limitations in representing exactly what Joyce is trying to do. Without question, Ulysses pushes the boundaries of what written language can represent to a reader, ranging from economical narration, pitch-perfect dialogue, and exquisite description to the silent discourse of an individual's consciousness and, later, the fleeting and irrational fantasies of the subconscious. Keyes's teahouse is in Ballsbridge, a southeastern suburb of Dublin, and Bloom smartly decides to call the shop before heading down there on a tram to make sure Mr. Keyes himself is on the premises. He heads to the office where the telephone is. He also moves the lemon soap back from his breast to his hip pocket, the smell of the soap triggering him to remember Martha Clifford's question about what perfume Molly wears, which prompts him to consider popping home to see Molly before her encounter with Boylan, but he decides against it. Bloom enters the office of the Evening Telegraph to find Simon Dedalus, Myles Crawford, Ned Lambert, and a man called professor MacHugh laughing at the terribly inflated language of Dan Dawson's speech given the previous day, which was published in the paper that morning, and which was discussed in the funeral carriage earlier. J. J. O'Molloy, a failing lawyer, enters the office and is greeted by the other men. We notice that Bloom received no such greeting. Simon Dedalus prompts an excursion with Ned Lambert to The Oval pub just down the street. Myles Crawford and the professor remain behind, and Bloom asks to use the phone. A man named Lenehan (seen in the Dubliners story "Two Gallants") enters, offering his pick for the Gold Cup (Sceptre). We overhear Bloom's side of the call to Keyes - Mr. Keyes has stepped out of the shop to go to Dillon's auction rooms, which happen to be just around the corner from the newspaper offices. Bloom, in a rush to catch Keyes and save himself the trip to Ballsbridge, pops out of the office and collides with Lenehan, who makes a bit of a scene. Bloom tells Crawford where he's going (hint: I'll need your final approval for this ad, so please don't leave before I return) and hurries off, followed by newsboys mocking his walk behind him. Crawford suggests they all go to meet Simon and Ned at The Oval, the professor begins a meditation on empire (British Empire compared unfavorably to Roman, Roman culture compared unfavorably to Jewish), Lenehan demands silence (and does not receive it) for his new riddle ("what opera resembles a railwayline?" (7.512) - the answer will be The Rose of Castille), and Stephen Dedalus enters with O'Madden Burke to deliver Mr. Deasy's letter on foot & mouth disease. With Stephen's arrival, we now have access to his inner monologue for the first time since we left him at the end of Proteus. Careful readers will remember that he tore off a bit of Deasy's letter to compose a few lines of poetry on the rocks of Sandymount strand - Mr. Crawford notices the tear, and Stephen mentally recites the quatrain he wrote. Stephen is slightly embarrassed to serve as courier for Garrett Deasy, but he has done as he promised. We might observe here an echo of Bloom's inserting M'Coy's name into the list of funeral attendees in the previous episode; both Stephen and Bloom honor small but somewhat unpleasant commitments. The men in the office discuss Deasy and his wife, who it's clear is a difficult woman and from whom Mr. Deasy is now separated. Perhaps this information explains some of Deasy's misogyny in the "Nestor" episode? They also wistfully discuss Irish history, we see a few other inner echoes from Stephen's morning, and Lenehan again presses to offer and answer his riddle. (a quick aside here: in a fantasy in the "Circe" episode later in the novel, Bloom will deliver this same riddle, and he will be condemned as a plagiarist...but Bloom is not present for either of Lenehan's deliveries of this riddle here in "Aeolus." Did Joyce make a (gasp) mistake?) There's a recognition of all the diverse talent present in the room (which is slightly absurd, because J. J. O'Malloy is a failing lawyer, professor MacHugh is not actually a professor, Stephen is to this point an unsuccessful poet, and Lenehan is, well, yappy). The professor adds Bloom to the list as a representative of "the gentle art of advertising" (7.608), and Burke suggests Molly's talent for singing, which draws a laugh from Lenehan, who we might assume sees Molly principally for other of her "talents." Crawford directly implores Stephen to write for the newspaper and uses the work of Ignatius Gallaher (from the Dubliners story "A Little Cloud") as an exemplar of journalistic excellence. In the middle of Crawford's explanation of a particular piece Gallaher wrote about the Phoenix Park murders, Mr. Bloom calls back to the office from Dillon's. Bloom is trying to close the deal with Keyes but needs Crawford's approval for the negotiated terms. When MacHugh tells Crawford that Bloom is on the phone, the editor says "tell him to go to hell" (7.672) and continues speaking to Stephen. Stephen, for his part, is distracted from Crawford's exposition by his own mental editing of the poem he started that morning. He is not interested in the world of journalism. As his mind wanders to Hamlet, he offers an interesting query: if King Hamlet was asleep when Claudius poisoned him, how did he know who did it? The other men ask Stephen his opinion of A. E. and the theosophy crowd, and they report that A. E. told an American interviewer something about Stephen. Insecure as ever, Stephen desperately wants to know what was said but refrains from asking. MacHugh raises a new topic: a speech he heard by John F. Taylor about the revival of the Irish language, which he lauds as one of the best displays of oratory he has ever heard. He goes on to recite the speech, which metaphorically identifies England as Egypt and Ireland as Israel, as best he can remember it. Stephen offers to stand a round of drinks, and the other men respond with excitement. Lenehan suggests Mooney's, a pub just down the street. Crawford agrees to publish Deasy's letter. As the group leaves the offices, Stephen begins to tell a story that, with a bit of work, could serve as a Dubliners short story: a short, anticlimactic slice of everyday life. The men enter the street on their way to the pub and encounter a panting Mr. Bloom, who, because Crawford refused to take his call, has had to hustle from Dillon's. Keyes has countered with a two month renewal (Nannetti had asked for three), and Bloom wants to know whether the paper will accept this deal. Crawford tells Bloom to tell Keyes to kiss his arse. Bloom, recognizing that the group is off for a drink (and specifically recognizing "careless" (7.987) Stephen as the ringleader), doesn't want to be an obstruction and offers just to work up the design. Crawford improves on his earlier reply: Keyes can kiss his royal Irish arse. As the men continue their walk down the street, Stephen resumes his story of the two women and their plums climbing to the top of Nelson Pillar and spitting out the pits. As he finishes, he is celebrated as a new Antisthenes.

Episode 12: Cyclops

The "Cyclops" episode of Ulysses narrates what occurred in Barney Kiernan's pub between the hours of 5:00 and 6:00 on June 16, 1904 from the narrative perspective of a working class Dubliner. I want to emphasize the past tense of "occurred" in the previous sentence because the nameless narrator (referred to as the Nameless One) is telling this story in a pub at some later point - since he lacks financial means, storytelling is the currency he exchanges for drinks. Perhaps the closest the novel approaches to moralizing, the "Cyclops" episode directly engages questions of nationalism and prejudice, love and hate, violence and injustice, but Joyce only provides the opportunity to engage these lofty topics while viewing Bloom through the eyes of someone prejudiced against him. If not the climax of the novel, the "Cyclops" episode certainly represents a significant flashpoint in the events of Bloomsday. The anti-Semitism that has lingered in the background of many of Bloom's social interactions throughout the day emerges as an overt and aggressive force, principally represented in the character of the Citizen, an Irish nationalist with an eyepatch and a myopic view of who qualifies as truly Irish. This man, in the cave of Barney Kiernan's pub, is the cyclops our Odysseus/Bloom must overcome. During this hour, rumors about Bloom are hashed out, and misunderstandings lead to seething resentment. Bloom scores a few points in his debates with the other men in the pub, but he is not competing with equals. We might do well here to remember the corresponding story in The Odyssey: Odysseus and his crew land on an island and decide to explore a cave and discover whether its inhabitants are civilized and generous to guests. The cyclops, named Polyphemus, answers this question without ambiguity by eating some of Odysseus's men and trapping the rest of them in the cave. Odysseus tells the cyclops his name is "Nobody," then devises a plan to get Polyphemus drunk before stabbing out his eye with the hot point of a stick. Polyphemus calls for help from his fellow cyclops on the island, hollering that "Nobody is killing me," to which the other cyclops holler back, "Well, if nobody is killing you, then it must be a plague, and there's no way I'm coming to help you and risk getting myself infected. Sorry." As he sails away, Odysseus, too impressed by his own cleverness, calls back to taunt Polyphemus and reveals his true identity. Enraged, the cyclops hurls a boulder at Odysseus as he sails away but misses; he then prays to his father, Poseidon, to hound Odysseus for the rest of his journey. In terms of style, The Nameless One's narrative (told by one big "I" (another cyclops)) is frequently interrupted and undercut by parodies inserted by the Arranger. These interruptions - sometimes absurdly formal, sometimes mythologizing, sometimes elevating the events to an ethereal plane, - employ irony to reveal just how commonplace the proceedings really are. The Nameless One begins his narrative on the street, describing a close brush with a chimney sweep's gear and then his meeting of Joe Hynes (who we have seen in "Hades" and "Aeolus" - remember that he owes Bloom three shillings). The Nameless One reveals that he is currently employed as a debt collector (an ignominious profession) and that he's currently working a job on behalf of a Jewish tea merchant (Herzog) owed money by a man called Geraghty. Then, the Arranger interrupts the narrative with a parody of legal proceedings related to the Herzog-Geraghty dispute. The normal narrative resumes with Hynes inviting the Nameless One to accompany him to Barney Kiernan's pub so that he can tell the Citizen about a meeting he's just attended on Foot and Mouth Disease. The narrator notes that Hynes is generous when he has money, but he rarely has money. The narrative is interrupted by a mock-heroic description of the city, wherein the pub is recast as a "shining palace" (12.87). Photograph of Bernard Kiernan's public house, date unknown. Reproduced in David Pierce, James Joyce's Ireland (Yale UP, 1992), courtesy of the University of Southern Illinois Library. Photograph of Bernard Kiernan's public house, date unknown. Reproduced in David Pierce, James Joyce's Ireland (Yale UP, 1992), courtesy of the University of Southern Illinois Library. The two men enter Barney Kiernan's, where the Citizen is passing time with a mangy dog called Garryowen, waiting on someone to arrive with money enough to stand rounds. The Citizen is what's called a sponger - someone without money who'll drink up whatever someone else will buy for him. So too, for that matter, is the Nameless One. Hynes offers to buy a round, and the men place their orders. In an interruption, the Citizen is described in fantastic terms: a middle-aged former shot-putter becomes a "broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero" with "rocklike mountainous knees" and whose "heart thundered rumblingly causing the ground, the summit of the lofty tower and the still loftier walls of the cave to vibrate and tremble" (12.151-67). The technique listed for this episode in the schema is "gigantism," as this passage exemplifies. Terry, the publican, brings the three pints, and Joe Hynes puts down a £1 coin to the amazement of the Nameless One. The Citizen then reads the marriage announcements and obituaries from the newspaper. As the narrator takes his first sip, he offers a truly wonderful string of phrases to describe the satisfaction of his thirst: "Ah! Ow! Don't be talking! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint. Declare to God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click" (12.242-43). Inside, the Nameless One notices Bob Doran, who is rumored to be on a bender, passed out and snoring in the corner of the pub. Outside, Denis and Josie Breen pass by, amusing Alf Bergan, who shares the gossip about the U.p: up postcard and Denis Breen's pursuit of legal recourse. Bob Doran rouses from his stupor and tries to catch up with the conversation. In a parody, Alf Bergan pays for a round of drinks: he "could ill brook to be outdone in generous deeds" (12.290-91), which prompts an explanation of the notion of "an economy of expenditure" as applied by Mark Osteen in his excellent chapter on the "Cyclops" episode in his book The Economy of Ulysses. In Osteen's explanation, Dublin pub culture featured a practice of men projecting their social and economic strength by treating other men in the pub to rounds of drinks. In this sort of potlatch culture, Osteen explains: Power and prestige accrue not through investing, saving money or acquiring goods, as in bourgeois economies, but through expenditures and loss of goods. But the gifts in a potlatch only seem voluntary; actually there are three intersecting obligations - to give, to receive, and to reciprocate. To fail in any of the three is to suffer social humiliation and loss of honor. The potlatch constructs the boundaries of the social group and solidifies its hierarchies: those who give or destroy wealth are included, and those who do not are cast out; those who cannot reciprocate by giving back a larger gift than the one they have received lose social status. The greater the loss, the greater the prestige. (Osteen 262-63) In short, men can promote a comfortable financial situation by cavalierly spending money. Of course, if one man stands a round, then others (like Alf Bergan above) are compelled to reciprocate the act, leading to a tit-for-tat competition of strength, wealth, generosity, and, ultimately, masculinity. The yield of this practice: everyone ends up drunker and poorer than if they simply paid for their own drinks (as promoted by the anti-treating league). The Citizen growls at Bloom pacing outside of the pub; he is waiting on Martin Cunningham and is reluctant to enter. Eager to label and delineate, the Citizen identifies Bloom as a freemason. Alf Bergan says that he just saw Paddy Dignam; Joe Hynes shares with him the bad news that Dignam is dead. Alf is shocked and is certain he just saw Dignam minutes before, prompting us to wonder how well these men really know each other. Bob Doran, hammered drunk, is trailing the conversation by a few beats and tries to catch up with the news of Dignam's death. We have an interruption of a parodied theosophical seance raising Dignam from the dead. The Citizen then sees Bloom again. Bob Doran disparages Christ, gets told off by the publican for that kind of talk, and then weeps over "poor little Willy [sic] Dignam" (12.392). The men in Barney Kiernan's pub (which is decorated with various hangman's photographs, which strikes me as rather odd) read a letter written by a hangman, H. Rumbold. After lingering outside for a time, Bloom enters the pub and is immediately pressed to order a drink (and thus join the potlatch already underway). Bloom, ever the "prudent member" (12.437), ducks this pressure by asking for a cigar, a deft move which politely accepts Hynes's offer of a gift while avoiding the obligation to reciprocate by standing a round of drinks for everyone already in the pub. The men continue their conversation, and Bloom is quick to interject with his opinion and erudition (or at least that's how the Nameless One tells the story; we might be shrewd to question his reliability - when and to whom is he telling this story? What are his audience's prejudices? Might the Nameless One be shading his narrative against Bloom to best position himself for drinks from his listeners?). In any event, Bloom wants to talk about scientific phenomenon and the Citizen wants to talk about Irish nationalist heroes. Bob Doran clumsily plays with Garryowen. Bloom and the Citizen get into a bit of an argument, and the Nameless One veers to mention Molly ("a nice old phenomenon" (12.503)) and recounts a few rumors about the Blooms from their time in the City Arms Hotel years ago. One has to do with Bloom angling for an inheritance in the will of Mrs. Riordan (Dante from Portrait). A few have to do with drinking. All are shadowy. None are flattering to the Blooms. The narrative returns to the bubbling tension between the Citizen (who is becoming belligerent) and Bloom (who seems oblivious to the danger he's tempting). Because we have seen Bloom be rather reserved in key moments throughout the day, it seems strange for him to emerges as so willfully argumentative here. A further note about the interruptions: lot of interesting scholarship has been devoted to the forms and functions of these interruptions - they parody the events taking place in the foregrounded narration, they inflate what's taking place just as the Nameless One tears everything down, they are fun-house mirrors that distort reality. Because they abide their own rules and function independently from the dominant text, they have been explained by Fritz Senn as emblems of Irish home rule. Robert Colson, by contrast, suggests that these interruptions are immigrants who don't really belong in the Citizen's conception of an Irish nation. So on and so forth. While these interruptions are simultaneously fascinating, fanciful, funny, and frustrating, they might not be of immediate necessity to the first time reader. So, you might want simply to skim the longer ones, appreciating the different flavors they bring to the episode while not getting bogged down in them. The newspaper parody that spans lines 525-678 might be one such opportunity for skimming. When we return to the narrative, the Citizen and Bloom are trading points about the factors limiting Ireland: the Citizen feels that the Irish aren't Irish enough, and Bloom highlights alcoholism. Bloom mentions the anti-treating league, and the Nameless One faults Bloom for drinking off others and not standing rounds; of course, Bloom has just declined a drink and the Nameless One himself has already leeched multiple beers off Joe...so we again must question the reliability and biases of this narrator. Garryowen noses over toward the Nameless One, and the Citizen senses that the dog makes him anxious. An interruption parodies a newspaper advertisement paragraph for an exhibition of Garryowen as a dog who can speak. Pretty funny. Funnier still, in my mind, is the joke at line 757: when asked if he'd like another pint, the Nameless One replies, "Could a swim duck?". That's gold. Joe again asks Bloom if he'd like a drink, Bloom again declines and explains that he's waiting on Martin Cunningham to working through the Dignam's insurance situation (apparently Paddy Dignam had mortgaged the policy, so now there are complications in the widow recovering the payout). As Bloom muddles through his explanation of these technicalities, the Nameless One remembers Bloom getting into some legal hot water over selling Hungarian lottery tickets. Again, suspicion and rumor cloud over Bloom's reputation in this city. Also, Bloom has a bit of a Freudian slip, saying "wife's admirers" rather than "wife's advisors" (12.767, 769). Obviously, his own wife's admirer weighs heavy on his mind today. Bob Doran continues his "bloody foolery" (12.784), bewailing the passing of "poor little Willy" Dignam and imploring Bloom to pass along his condolences to Mrs. Dignam. The text then repeats this conversation in high formality ("Let me so far presume upon our acquaintance..." (12.786)) before returning to the Nameless One's narration of these rather low events ("And off with him and out trying to walk straight. Boosed at five o'clock" (12.800)). He offers some gossip about Bob Doran's prior benders and how his brother-in-law (Jack Mooney) promised violence if Bob didn't marry his sister, Polly. Now, we've read "The Boarding House" in Dubliners and saw Jack's menacing glare down the staircase, but he didn't overtly threaten to "kick the shite out of" Bob Doran if he didn't marry Polly, as the Nameless One reports. Again, we would be wise to question the storyteller in this episode - his version of events is proximate to the truth, but he's trading almost exclusively in gossip and rumor. The spongers drink another pint on Joe's tab. We have a moment of parallax with Joe's discussion of foot and mouth disease and its effect on the cattle trade, and then the Nameless One passes on another rumor about Bloom getting fired from a previous job with Cuffe's for talking too much and superciliously to a rancher. Indeed, the Nameless One has characterized Bloom as "Mister Knowall" (12.838) throughout the episode. Anyhow, Councillor Nannetti is currently on his way to London to speak before parliament on the problem of foot and mouth disease. For Bloom, Nannetti leaving town presents a problem - he is still trying to to nail down the Keyes ad and will ultimately need Nannetti's approval to seal the deal. The men raise the topic of Irish games (Gaelic football, hurling, etc.) being banned by the British, who wanted the Irish to play English games like rugby and cricket. This topic turns attention back to the Citizen, who led a revival of Gaelic sports as part of the Irish independence movement and who himself was a champion shot-putter. The men debate health and athletics, and Bloom again is portrayed as a loquacious contrarian. An interruption parodies the discussion as formal meeting minutes. The men then discuss the Keogh-Bennett boxing match on which Blazes Boylan is rumored to have won £100 (and the same fight young Patrick Dignam saw a poster for back in "Wandering Rocks"); Bloom tries to turn the topic back to lawn tennis. There's a brief allusion to a rumor about Boylan and/or his father gaining wealth by cooperating with the English. Anyhow, the men discuss the fight, and an interruption parodies sports journalism. The discussion returns to Boylan and the concert tour he is planning. Joe Hynes, already knowing that Molly is part of Boylan's plans (indeed), prods Bloom to discuss the tour. We've previously seen other men around town insinuate about Molly and Boylan, but this intrigue comes as news to the Nameless One - somewhat surprising, given his penchant for gossip. "Hoho begob ... Blazes doing the tootle on the flute" (12.996-98) - safe to say that he is amused by this revelation In walks Ned Lambert and J. J. O'Molloy, they order drinks, and the Nameless One wonders what they were up to together. You might recall that J. J. O'Molloy visited Ned back in "Wandering Rocks" to ask for money, and the Nameless One suggests that a quid pro quo was agreed; in exchange for a loan, J. J. O'Molloy will use his access to the legal apparatus to get Lambert off the grand jury list. (I mean, who doesn't want to get out of jury duty?) Denis Breen and the U. p: up postcard are discussed, and Joe asks Alf Bergen if he wrote it. J. J. brings some legal knowledge to the conversation, but all seem to agree that Mr. Breen is crazy. Bloom clearly has a soft spot for Josie Breen and expresses his pity for her in being married to a nut. The Nameless One drops some gossip about the Breens. The men drink. Breen walks past again. J. J. gives some updates on other legal cases, mentions Reuben J. Dodd, and mocks an overly merciful judge. After an interruption, the Citizen ramps up his racism and xenophobia, referring to foreigners (and specifically Jews) as "bugs" (12.1142). Blooms pretends not to have heard and starts talking to Joe Hynes, reminding him of the money he owes him (even while excusing him from the debt for the moment) while exacting a bit of usurious interest in the form of Joe speaking to Miles Crawford back at the newspaper office about the Keyes ad. Hynes promises to help. By working this new angle, Bloom might be able to seal the deal without Nannetti after all! John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan enter the pub in bad moods, disappointed by the result of the Gold Cup (the dark horse Throwaway won the race; the men had all wagered on either Sceptre or Zinfandel - more on that in a bit). The Citizen continues to rail against immigrants and the English strangers in the Irish house, directing his nasty speech toward Bloom, who is doing his best to ignore these provocations. Nationalism and colonialism are discussed, and the Citizen continues to berate the English for cultural deficiencies. The men worry about deforestation, hope for a return to direct trade with Europe, order more drinks, and discuss hazing practices in the British navy. The topic turns to Irish revolt and the French's unfulfilled promises in support of the Irish cause, followed by comments on the English monarchy. The men order another round - the drinks are adding up, and they are all surely buzzed by this point. Bloom and John Wyse Nolan are debating nationalism, persecution, and hatred, and Nolan asks Bloom to define what a nation is: "the same people living in the same place" (12.1422-23), Bloom replies. The men poke holes in this definition and laugh. The Citizen's seething hatred for Bloom takes center stage as he asks Bloom directly "what is your nation?": Bloom responds, "Ireland. I was born here. Ireland." (12.1430-31). The Citizen hawks and spits with disgust at Bloom's answer. Drinks are served and an interruption provides some comic relief in describing the Citizen's handkerchief in elevated detail. Bloom continues, identifying himself with the Jewish race in addition to his Irish nationality, and states that his race suffers from hate, persecution, and injustice. John Wyse Nolan suggests the Jews stand up for themselves with force, but Bloom rejects this solution on very simple yet profound grounds: "Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life [...]. Love, the opposite of hatred" (12.1481-5). The text responds spastically to the mention of love. Bloom then leaves abruptly to search for Martin Cunningham back at the courthouse. In his absence, the men debate Bloom's treatise on love and have another drink. Lenehan claims that Bloom is in fact out to collect his winnings from the Gold Cup - remember the unwitting tip ("I was just going to throw it away" (5.534)) Bloom gave Bantam Lyons at the end of "Lotus-Eaters"? And remember in "Lestrygonians" that Bantam Lyons told the other men in Davy Byrnes Pub that Bloom had tipped him off on Throwaway? Lyons also told Lenehan, and Lenehan now tells the men in Barney Kiernan's that he supposes Bloom won 100 shillings on a 5 shilling wager (the odds on Throwaway were 20-1). The Nameless One goes out back to take a leak, and when he returns rumors about Bloom are swirling about his involvement with Sinn Fein (a revolutionary independence party). Martin Cunningham finally arrives and asks where Bloom is. The men ask Martin about Bloom and Sinn Fein, and Martin confirms Bloom's role in introducing "the Hungarian system" of subverting colonial institutions (whereby Hungary successfully achieved independence from Austrian rule) into the practices of Sinn Fein. This exchange also contains another of my favorite jokes in the novel: "Who made those allegations? says Alf. / I, says Joe. I'm the alligator" (12.1625-26). Anti-Semitic comments fly, and then Ned Lambert tells a story, making fun of Bloom for preparing for the birth of his child...the Citizen uses this story to challenge Bloom's masculinity...Joe Hynes wonders if Bloom has ever had sex...the Citizen questions the legitimacy of Bloom's children...the Nameless One suggests killing Bloom would be "justifiable homicide" (12.1662). The men order more drinks. There's a long interruption with a list of names. Bloom returns in a hurry seeking Martin. Everyone in the pub assumes he has just collected his winnings from the Gold Cup, making Bloom's reluctance to pay for a round of drinks all the more infuriating. The Citizen begins to confront Bloom, and Martin, seeing trouble coming, starts to shuffle Bloom out of the pub. As they leave, the Citizen gets up and pursues Bloom with a mocking cheer for Israel. Here, the Nameless One starts to condemn the Citizen's belligerence (or he at least expresses exasperation). Bloom retorts back to the Citizen by naming famous Jewish philosophers and artists, Jesus chief among them. This sends the Citizen over the edge - he goes back inside the pub, grabs the biscuit tin, and hurls it at Bloom as the carriage drives away. An interruption describes the event in seismic terms, and the episode concludes with a description of Bloom's safe departure with imagery of biblical rapture.

Episode 8: Lestrygonians

The "Lestrygonians" episode returns to Mr. Bloom as our principle narrative perspective, and we join him at 1:00 pm as he moves south from the newspaper office on O'Connell Street toward the River Liffey, past Trinity College, and toward Grafton Street, the posh shopping district of Dublin's City Center, where he will eventually eat a light lunch in Davy Byrne's Pub. We begin the episode with Bloom's thoughts on candy as he walks past Graham Lemon's Confectioner's Hall. He then accepts an evangelical flyer from a young YMCA fellow, skims its contents ("Are you saved? ... Elijah is coming" (8.10-13)), before dismissing this sort of proselytizing advertisement as a for-profit enterprise. As he approaches the River Liffey, he glances to his right down Bachelor's Walk to see Dilly Dedalus, Stephen's little sister, malnourished, wearing a tattered dress, waiting outside of Dillon's auctionrooms. Bloom presumes that she is selling off furniture and reflects specifically on the collapse of the Dedalus household since the passing of Stephen's mother and generally on the folly of enormous Catholic families. The view of Bachelor's Walk, where Mr. Bloom sees Dilly Dedalus, from O'Connell Street. The view of Bachelor's Walk, where Mr. Bloom sees Dilly Dedalus, from O'Connell Street. Crossing O'Connell bridge, Bloom observes a barge carrying Guinness for export to England and considers with some measure of disgust the frequent occurrence of rats falling into the vats of beer, drinking themselves drunk, puking, and eventually drowning - "Imagine drinking that!" (8.47-49), he exclaims, but soberly reconciles himself to the inevitability of ingesting horrible stuff, saying "Well, of course, if we knew all the things" (8.50). In our own era of industrial food production, we probably would rather not know what we may be eating. He watches gulls flapping in hungry hope of food, and he tosses into the river the "Elijah is coming" flyer he has just received and crumpled up (remember this little vessel as it begins its voyage down the Liffey - we'll see it again). He contemplates what makes for poetry, then buys two Banbury cakes to toss generously into the water for the gulls. He sees an ad for trousers on a rowboat anchored in the river, admires the cleverness of that placement, and thinks of other smart ads he's seen. In a moment of panic, he wonders whether Boylan has an STD but decides surely not and encourages himself to "think no more about that" (8.108) afternoon meeting between Boylan and Molly, which he knows will happen at 4:00. He looks at the clock on the Ballast Office across the river to see that it is just after 1:00. As the clock ticks toward his cuckolding, Bloom thinks of this morning's conversation with Molly about metempsychosis and her "O rocks!" (8.112) rejection of pretentious vocabulary. Bloom then argues with himself over whether or not his wife is clever. He sees men walking toward him wearing sandwichboards bearing the letters H-E-L-Y-S, for Wisdom Hely's shop, where he previously worked, and criticises the ineffectiveness of this kind of ad while thinking of the advertising ideas he had suggested to Mr. Hely during his tenure in that job. We get a few memories from his professional and personal life, leading him to muse that he was "happier then" (8.170) than he is now. Sad. His absorption in memories of Molly is interrupted by Mrs. Breen, formerly Josie Powell, a past girlfriend of young Poldy. They ask about one another's families, and Bloom's interior gives access to his smooth strategies in conversations with women (smoother, at least, than with men, it would seem). Mrs. Breen shares with Mr. Bloom the trouble she's having with her slightly unhinged husband, who last night woke up from a nightmare, explaining that "the ace of spades was walking up the stairs" (8.253), and is currently meeting with John Henry Menton to research libel laws in regards to a postcard he received this morning that reads "U. p: up" (8.258). Bloom shifts the topic of conversation to poor Mina Purefoy, a mutual friend, who has spent the past three days deep in the throes of childbirth at the Holles Street Hospital (remember this: Mr. Bloom will spend the 14th episode of Ulysses, called "Oxen of the Sun" at the hospital waiting for news of Mrs. Purefoy's labor). Then, a Dublin eccentric named Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell passes by Bloom and Mrs. Breen, wearing a too tight hat, carrying a coat, a stick, and an umbrella, and walking outside the lampposts. Mrs. Breen then spots her husband and takes off after him. Bloom resumes his walk southward, passing by the offices of the Irish Times and considers dropping in to collect any new responses to his wanted ad for a "smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work" (8.326-27). Out of the forty-four he has already read, he began his correspondence with Martha Clifford, the most recent missive of which we have already seen in the "Lotus-Eaters" episode. He stops to consider his dining options, remembers that he needs to visit the National Library later and therefore opts for the Burton over Rowe's due to its location on the way. He moves along. At this point, you might take notice of the stop-and-start nature of Bloom's physical and mental passage through this episode; the schema for this episode lists the style of this chapter as "peristaltic," referring to the contraction and relaxation of muscles in the digestive track, moving food along in waves. Bloom thinks again of Mina Purefoy, laments the awful pain of childbirth, and proposes a social savings plan whereby the state would give everyone 5 pounds at birth to grow at interest over the lifespan to a "tidy sum" (8.386). As he passes the Irish House of Parliament (now the Bank of Ireland), he sees a flock of pigeons and imagines them plotting out "who will we do it on?" (8.402) like a bombing squadron fixing its target. He continues through the heart of Dublin, crossing "under Tommy Moore's roguish finger" (8.414), prominent on the statue of this Irish poet, singer/songwriter, and entertainer. He sees squads of policemen in formation, thinks about Irish revolutionary groups, and passes by Trinity College's "surly front" (8.476). He enters a rather gloomy mental space, culminating in the thought that "No-one is anything" (8.493). He thinks of John Howard Parnell, brother to the late Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish political leader, and then coincidentally sees him right there on the street. A.E. (the poet George Russell) along with his associate in poetry Lizzie Twigg then pass by on bicycles, and we catch a snippet of their conversation. Mr. Bloom, having thought about these two a few minutes earlier, is astounded by this second coincidence, and muses about the taste and style of aesthetes. Bloom pauses for an optical trick of "blotting out the sun" (8.566) with his finger, and continues down this avenue of thought as his mind returns to curiosity about the notion of parallax. Molly's impending affair returns to the forefront of Bloom's thoughts as he remembers an evening not long ago when Molly and Boylan flirted and made clear to one another each's intentions and interests toward the other. Bloom is simply tortured in this episode. He spies Bob Doran bobbing through the street on a bender, then returns to his thought that he was "happier then" (8.608), hearkening back to a decade earlier, before the loss of Rudy, and before that loss so deeply wounded his marriage. He reaches Grafton Street and window-shops outside Brown Thomas, a fancy store, thinking of what to get Molly for her birthday, still nearly three months away. Even in the midst this hour's gloominess over what is to come later in the afternoon, Mr. Bloom thinks of Molly. He turns onto Duke Street and pops into The Burton, witnesses a disgusting display of table manners from the lunchtime rush of men eating there, pretends that he doesn't see who he was meeting for lunch as an excuse to leave, then dips out and heads instead to Davy Byrne's "moral pub" (8.732) for a light lunch. Once inside Davy Byrne's, Mr. Bloom is greeted by Nosey Flynn, a rather greasy, somewhat unpleasant man perched in a corner of the pub, and orders a glass of burgundy and a gorgonzola cheese sandwich. Nosey Flynn asks about Molly's upcoming performances and rather unkindly but subtly twists the Blazes Boylan knife into Bloom, who needs a drink: "He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to speed it, set his wineglass delicately down" (8.796-96). Nosey Flynn scratches his crotch and praises Blazes Boylan as a winner in gambling. They discuss the Gold Cup horse race to be run today, and Bloom considers telling Nosey Flynn about Lenehan's tip but decides against it. Bloom, not a gambler, doesn't want to encourage another's bad habit. He enjoys his wine and mentally makes a plan to go home around six o'clock, by which time he expects Molly will be done with Boylan. Bloom thinks about how we know what foods are safe and tasty and which are poisonous, oysters for instance. He imagines himself as a waiter in a swish restaurant and notices two flies stuck together, perhaps copulating, which leads him to the memory of his picnic date with Molly high on Howth Head, a lovely hilly peninsula overlooking Dublin Bay from north of the city. This is a beautiful, romantic passage, and it leads Bloom to compare "Me. And me now" (8.917) - himself in that afternoon of passionate young love, and himself this afternoon of despondence and immenent cuckoldry. Bloom's attention shifts to the beautiful curve of the oak of the bar, then to the curves of the statues of goddesses in the National Library Museum and then to his curiousity as to the anatomical realism of those statues...he resolves to subtly check whether they have holes in their undercarrriage when visiting the museum later today. Funny fellow. Bloom steps out to use the restroom, and Davy Byrne in his absence inquires into Bloom's profession. Nosey Flynn explains that he works as an ad canvasser for the Freeman, but he goes on to claim that Bloom is a Freemason, a member of the secretive "ancient free and accepted order" (8.962), and that they "give him a leg up" (8.963) beyond what he makes in advertising. The two men go on alternatively to praise Mr. Bloom for his moderation and kindness and cast aspersions on his rumoured aversion as a Jew to swearing an oath or signing a contract. Paddy Leonard, Tom Rochford, and Bantam Lyons, who we met earlier in the morning at the end of the "Lotus Eaters" episode, come into Davy Byrne's Pub. Paddy Leonard offers to buy a round and is flabberghasted to hear that both men are passing up a drink - Rochford is dealing with indigestion and Bantam Lyons orders a ginger ale. These men, plus Nosey Flynn, discuss their wagers on the Gold Cup, and Bantam Lyons, just as Bloom walks out of the pub, tells the others that Bloom has given him a tip. Paddy Leonard is incredulous. The narrative perspective returns to Mr. Bloom, and we are with him as he begins making his way toward the library to get the art for the Keyes ad he's working on. His mood has improved after drinking the glass of burgundy, and he does a bit of mental accounting to tally up his accounts receivable and projected income and decides he's in good financial shape. He considers using these funds to buy for Molly a new silk underskirt, prompting his mind to turn again to what is to happen later this afternoon. He tries to escape those thoughts by considering organizing his own singing tour with Molly, taking her to the south coast of England. He passes another sweetshop and a bookstore before coming to an intersection where a young blind man appears tentative about crossing the street. Charitable Mr. Bloom helps him cross and wonders about the senses and how a blind person experiences the world - do different colors have different feels? He experiments on himself, feeling his own dark hair and light skin, and then wonders how blind people dream, having never seen. As Mr. Bloom approaches the library, he glimpses a man in a stawhat, wearing tan shoes and cuffed trousers - Blazes Boylan. His heart and breath betray his panic as he moves swiftly toward the museum, hoping to evade his rival. He pretends to be fascinated by the architecture of the museum, then pretends to search his pockets for the lemon soap. He reaches the gate of the museum and safety.

Episode 5: Lotus-Eaters

The "Lotus-Eaters" episode follows Mr. Bloom into the streets of Dublin for errands, encounters, and exoticisms. It is around 9:00 am (as noted in the Linati Schema. Although the Gilbert Schema says 10:00, I prefer 9 for a variety of reasons: eliminates an hour of Bloom puttering around the house and gives time on the backend of the episode for him to take his foreseen bath before joining the funeral procession). Mr. Bloom has walked south from his home in Eccles Street and across the River Liffey. He notices some scavenging children from working class families and imagines the scene of the boy sent to bring his father home from the pub on payday. While perhaps not as refined as Stephen's, Bloom's imagination is lively and vivid, as we will continue to see throughout the day (and, to be sure, the night). His first order of business on this warm morning, as hinted at in the "Calypso" episode, is to visit the Post Office and see if his illicit pen-pal has responded to his latest letter. Looking through the window of the Belfast and Oriental Tea Company, Bloom removes his hat under the auspices of running his hand over his brow but sneakily removes the "Mr. Henry Flower" name-card from its hiding spot in his hatband. Mr. Bloom returns his attention to the Oriental tea shop he has stopped in front of and entertains a reverie of the lethargic inhabitants of the far east (remember that Joyce titled this episode "Lotus Eaters" after the Homeric people who eat the mellow lotus fruit and lose all other desires). He remembers seeing a photo of a man floating in the Dead Sea, unable to sink due to the water's high salinity, and half-recalls a high school physics lesson on Archimedes' Principle (a solid body immersed in a liquid undergoes an apparent loss of weight equal to the weight of the liquid displaced), which he then conflates with the Law of Acceleration and Newtonian ideas on gravity. This passage exemplifies Bloom's interested mind and almost knowledge. Like all of us, he gets things wrong, but we must appreciate his mental activity. Crossing the road to the Westland Row Post Office, Bloom puts on a careless air to disguise his anxiety, lightly tapping his leg with the newspaper he has rolled into a baton as he walks. He gives the "Mr. Henry Flower" card to the postmistress and is surprised when she hands him a letter from Martha Clifford, his illicit pen-pal. Bloom puts the letter in his pocket, looks at a recruiting poster for the British military, and leaves the Post Office. He is covertly opening the envelope of the letter hidden in his pocket when a man named M'Coy interrupts him. Bloom is annoyed at being delayed in reading Martha's letter but behaves pleasantly enough, especially given that M'Coy is also distracting him from watching an attractive, high-class woman climb into a carriage across the street. As we saw in the butcher's shop earlier in the morning, Bloom has a bit of a lecherous streak to him. A few other things to take away from Bloom's conversation with M'Coy: many characters from the Dubliners stories are referenced, including Bob Doran ("The Boarding House"), Hoppy Holohan ("A Mother"), Bantam Lyons ("Ivy Day in the Committee Room"), and M'Coy himself ("Grace"). In this way, Joyce establishes continuity within the Dublin depicted in his various works of fiction; these characters have continued to exist, developing on unique and natural trajectories. For example, knowing from "The Boarding House" that Bob Doran was essentially trapped into marrying Polly Mooney, it makes some sense that he would go on benders from time to time. Also, Bloom's conversation with M'Coy is underlaid with the fact that the wives of these two men are rival singers, competing for music hall gigs and prominence. While Bloom is pleased to tell M'Coy the news of Molly's planned concert tour, doing so reminds him of this afternoon's meeting between his wife and Blazes Boylan. M'Coy asks Bloom the favor of putting his name down at Dignam's funeral, and the two men part ways. Alone again, Bloom congratulates himself on ducking M'Coy's trick of "borrowing" luggage from people (he pawns off the things he borrows!), and then thinks about seeing a performance of the play Leah tonight. This play invokes themes of anti-Semitism and suicide, which brings Bloom's mind to his father, who admired the play and who we later learn took his own life by poison. Bloom turns down a sidestreet and finally reads Martha's letter to Henry Flower. If Bloom worried that he went too far in his last letter, it seems Martha is enjoying the new, edgier tone of their flirtation. The letter contains quite a few typographical and grammatical errors, which is ironic because the ad to which Martha responded to begin this correspondence called for a "smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work." While titillated by the letter, Bloom foresees the arc of this relationship: Martha will push the flirtation while trying to maintain the appearance of the scrupulous Catholic woman, which he characterizes with the back-and-forth of a "usual love scrimmage." Bloom therefore resolves not to meet Martha, but he will continue to indulge the excitement of the written correspondence. He thinks about all the pins women have in their clothing while attempting to discern the meaning of various phrases from Martha's letter, then tears the envelope bearing Henry Flower's name into bits and tosses them into the road. Bloom ponders the similar ease with which someone could tear up a check, remembers a massive check cashed by a member of the Guinness family, and then resumes his contemplation of Dublin's pub economy from earlier in the morning. Again, he gets it almost right. Mr. Bloom decides to pop into All Hallows Church, where a woman's sodality is taking place. He sees a poster for a sermon on missionary work abroad to be delivered by Father Conmee (formerly the rector of Clongowes Wood College, where young Stephen Dedalus began school), and, typical of Bloom, notes the sensory experiences of the church, such as "the cold smell of sacred stone," the stupefying effect of hearing the Latin, the enjoyment of the music, and the appeal of drinking wine (more "aristocratic" than the Guinness the congregants are used to consuming). Also typical of Bloom, he has a relatively harmless but still rather lecherous thought that a church is a "nice discreet place to be next some girl." Bloom thinks about miracles, the practical effects of going to mass, and tries to recall the meaning of the INRI and the IHS notations surrounding the crucifix. Again, he is incorrect: INRI is "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" rather than "iron nails ran in," as Bloom supposes, and IHS is "Jesus, the savior of men" rather than "I have suffered." Along these same lines, Bloom is wrong both times he tries to recall the name of the man who ratted on the Invincibles (an Irish Nationalist group responsible for the Phoenix Park murders of Lords Cavendish and Burke): not Peter Carey, not Denis Carey, but James Carey. But before we condemn Bloom for his mental inaccuracy, who knows how often we ourselves are wrong in our own thoughts and recollections? Bloom has a slew of blasphemous yet humorous and pragmatic thoughts on the Church as he sits in the pew, deconstructing each act and thinking about Catholicism in a worldly frame. Consider these thoughts in echo and in contrast to Stephen's solemn and theological contemplation of blasphemy earlier in the novel. At the end of the service, Bloom stands up to leave and notices that two buttons on his waistcoat had been open all morning. Eager to generalize about women, he claims that women quite enjoy the unexpected exposure of a man's skin. Leaving the church, he checks the time (quarter past) and decides he has enough time to get some lotion made for Molly at Sweny's Chemist down the street; however, he realizes to his frustration that the recipe for the lotion is in his other trousers, as is the key to his home (which he had reminded himself to get earlier in the morning). He begins to curse the funeral (the reason he is wearing his black suit rather than his normal pants) but checks himself by remembering poor Dignam ("it's not his fault"). In a wonderful bit of natural thought and problem solving, Bloom thinks that the chemist can look up the recipe for Molly's lotion in his prescription book, and he tries to think of when he last had it made. Notably, he paid using a sovereign (a £1 coin, which would be like using a $100 bill in American currency...although it may have been closer in value to $300 today - see the "Money in Ulysses" page under the Other Resources tab on this site). Bloom enters Sweny's and does his best to remember the ingredients to the lotion while his mind pops around from moments with Molly this morning to the usefulness of home-remedies to the letter from Martha to the idea of taking a quick bath at the Turkish bath house down the street and the idea of, ahem, "combining business with pleasure" in the bath. He arranges to pay for a bar of lemon soap and Molly's lotion, for which he says he will return later in the day, and leaves the shop with the rolled newspaper under his armpit. On the street, an unhygienic man named Bantam Lyons nudges Mr. Bloom and asks to borrow the newspaper to see about the horses running later in the day in the Ascot Gold Cup, a major event in the British steeplechase horse-racing calendar (even so today). Bloom, hoping to get rid of Bantam Lyons, offers him the paper to keep, saying "I was just going to throw it away." Bantam Lyons eyes Bloom somewhat suspiciously, then says, inscrutably both to Bloom and to the reader, "I'll risk it" and speeds off. What just happened? Well, there's a horse named Throwaway running in the Gold Cup, and Bloom has unwittingly just given Bantam Lyons a tip on this 50-1 longshot. Make a note: this misunderstanding will reverberate later in Bloom's day. On his way to the bathhouse, Bloom the creative ad man spots and critiques an advertisement poster for college sports, then celebrates the pleasant weather of this morning, which he thinks would be perfect for playing the English game cricket, which is forbidden in Ireland in 1904 by Irish Nationalists who sought to promote the playing of traditional Irish sports. The episode closes with Mr. Bloom imagining himself naked in the bathtub. So there's that.

Episode 2: Nestor

The "Nestor" episode opens with Stephen in the midst of teaching a lesson at Mr. Deasy's school in Dalkey, which is a roughly 20 minute walk from the Martello Tower in Sandycove. Because Stephen departed the Tower no sooner than 8:45 (we heard the three bells at the end of the "Telemachus" episode), he presumably arrives a bit late to work. Stephen's skeptical feelings of history as "memory fabled," meaning inexact and romanticized, were perhaps preconditioned by Haines's statement in the previous episode that "history is to blame" for the English's "unfair" treatment of the Irish. Stephen reveals his lack of dedication to teaching this subject (and his work as a teacher overall) through his need to "glance at the name and date in the gorescarred book." The discussion of the Greek figure Pyrrhus's victory at Asculum refers to an extremely costly win over the Romans, like a soccer match that you win in overtime but five of your best players fall to season-ending injuries. In this way, Stephen recalls Pyrrhus's famous statement: "Another victory like that and we're done for." In his poetic mind, Stephen creates an image of Pyrrhus saying these words "from a hill above a corpsestrewn plain" while "lean[ing] upon a spear." Notice the rhythm, repetition, and rhyme of Stephen's articulation of this image. When the boys laugh "maliciously" at a weaker student, self-aware Stephen thinks of his "lack of rule" in the classroom. He is also cognizant of the boys' awareness of the high "fees their papas pay" for them to be in the classroom of an unprepared and less-than-dedicated teacher. Stephen loses his students when he floats a clever definition of a pier as a "disappointed bridge." He intends to remember this witticism "for Haines's chapbook" and anticipates that he will "pierce the polished mail of his mind." However, he registers self-aimed disgust towards his preoccupation with serving the role of "a[n Irish] jester at the court of his [English] master," an intellectual entertainer in search of his "master's praise." Stephen abandons the history lesson in favor of poetry. A "swarthy boy" reads a poem aloud to the class, the last line of which reinforces the drowning motif established in "Telemachus." In Stephen's silent monologue in response to the poem, we find one of Stephen's memories of his year in Paris: "the studious silence of the library of St. Genevieve where he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night." This image of Stephen contentedly surrounded by other "fed and feeding brains" contrasts sharply with the loudness and intellectually suffocating atmosphere of the Tower and perhaps Dublin in general. He concludes his lesson with a riddle and then gives extra math tutoring to a struggling student named Cyril Sargent. Looking at the "lean neck" and "tangled hair" of the "ugly" boy, he muses on the idea that "someone had loved him" - Cyril apparently has a face only a mother could love. This thought leads his mind to the haunting image of his own mother as a "trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes." Then, Cyril's math homework reminds him of Mulligan's claim that "he proves by algebra that Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlet's grandfather." Stephen also sees a bit of his childhood self in Cyril's "sloping shoulders" and "gracelessness." Upon Cyril's completion of the math exercise, Stephen dismisses the boy to join his classmates at hockey. Stephen then follows Mr. Deasy into his office to receive his bi-monthly payment. After he "gather[s] the money together with shy haste and put[s] it all in a pocket of his trousers," Stephen endures Mr. Deasy's lecture on the importance of saving money. However, we already know that Stephen plans to drink away his income, beginning with meeting Mulligan at The Ship, a pub, at 12:30. Deasy supports his argument through the employment of a Shakespearian allusion to Iago's statement to Roderigo: "Put but money in thy purse." Deasy takes this line from Othello completely out of context and reveals the superficiality of his literary knowledge; Iago says this quote while treacherously encouraging wealthy Roderigo to unknowingly fund his malicious plot against Othello and Desdemona. In the Shakespeare's play, the line has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility. Deasy continues to hit the wrong cords as he claims that "the proudest words you will hear from an Englishman's heart" are "I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life." Stephen's silent monologue responds by cataloguing the substantial debts he owes and dejectedly realizes that "the lump" of money he just crammed into his pant pocket is "useless" to even begin paying them off. Deasy then engages the topic of history with regards to the Irish independence movement and attempts to establish common ground with Stephen, saying "I have rebel blood in me too." He uses his leverage to ask Stephen to do him the "favor" of getting a letter about foot and mouth disease published in one of the city's newspapers. As Deasy finishes the letter, Stephen hears the celebratory "shouts" of the boys outside as one hockey team scores "a goal." He makes the connection between the competition of sports and bloody war and wonders about his place "among their battling bodies." Stephen, aware of the inescapable human attraction to conflict, desires to reject enlistment in these barbaric and unending fights, preferring to assert his independence through exile. Deasy finishes the letter, which Stephen skims and gathers that foot and mouth disease threatens the export of Irish cattle. Deasy's cousin in Austria claims that "cattledoctors" there have cured the disease and want to share their knowledge with Ireland. However, Deasy has encountered difficulties in getting the government's support. He attributes these difficulties to conspiratorial intrigues and the "backstairs influence" of the Jews. His anti-Semitism, not unlike that of Haines, imagines that powerful Jews represent a "sign of a nation's decay" and will weaken and eventually kill England in favor of Jewish self-interest. These sentiments establish the hostile social context into which Joyce will place Leopold Bloom, an Irish-born Jew. Tolerant and rational Stephen, however, defends Jewish merchants as no different from their gentile counterparts. Deasy's reply that "they sinned against the light" and "you can see the darkness in their eyes" cues Joyce's manipulation of the traditional connotations of light and dark imagery: Stephen and Bloom, Joyce's heroes, both wear black. Stephen's mind strays to thinking about the legend of the "wandering" Jew, who must wander the earth for eternity in punishment for rejecting Jesus. This trope quite directly foreshadows Mr. Bloom, a Jew who this day will spend 17 hours wandering Dublin. Stephen asks Deasy "Who has not?" in reference to his assertion that the Jews "sinned against the light," but he has lost his mentor's attention. Stephen's silent question of "Is this old wisdom?" reflects the failure of Deasy/Nestor to serve as the father figure to searching Stephen/Telemachus. Stephen offers his final condemnation of history, the schema's art form for this episode, saying famously that "history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." We might think of the cultural nightmare of Irish subservience to the English as well as Stephen's personal history with his mother both present in his consciousness at this point. Deasy instead proposes a typically Victorian conception of history "mov[ing] toward one great goal, the manifestation of God," which Stephen counters with a Biblical allusion to the anthropomorphized figure of Wisdom in Proverbs, defining God as "a shout in the street." Deasy posits an expansively misogynistic diatribe that blame's the fall of men on various historical female figures from the Bible (Eve), Homer (Helen of Troy), early Irish legend (Dermond's MacMurrough's wife of the 12th century), and modern Irish politics (Kity O'Shea). However, Deasy is correct in asserting that Stephen was "not born to be a teacher." Stephen agrees, claiming that he's "a learner rather." He silently questions himself about what he will learn "here" with Deasy specifically and in Dublin generally. Deasy offers an appropriate (if quaint) pearl of wisdom, saying "To learn one must be humble. But life is the great teacher." Proud young Stephen might do well to take this advice, but we might not blame him for ignoring Deasy in the context of his intellectual superficiality, anti-Semitism, and misogyny. Joyce's disgustingly detailed description of Deasy's "coughball of laughter leap[ing] from his throat dragging after it a rattling chain of phlegm" further emphasizes the novel's revulsion at intolerance in all its forms. Stephen leaves the school to take a tram up to Sandymount, where he will enjoy some quiet time alone with his own thoughts.

Episode 1: Telemachus

The first episode of Ulysses narrates the activities of Stephen Dedalus from 8 am to roughly 8:45 am on the morning of June 16th, 1904. In April, Stephen returned to Dublin from Paris after receiving a telegraph from his father, Simon, which read "MOTHER DYING COME HOME FATHER." Mrs. Dedalus has since passed away, and Stephen currently resides in the Martello Tower with two other young men: Buck Mulligan, an ambitious, blasphemous, and aggressively jocular Trinity Medical student frienemy, and a naïve but probably well-meaning Oxford Brit named Haines. At the outset of the novel, Buck parodies the Roman Catholic Mass while shaving on the rooftop parapet of the tower, which overlooks the town of Kingstown (now called Dun Laoghaire). Buck's parody of the Mass acquires further iconographical significance with the association of the religious imagery of the cross ("mirror and a razor lay crossed") and chalice ("bowl of lather"). Thus, the everyday act of shaving acquires spiritual significance, even if depicted in a mocking posture. Mulligan "blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains," thereby elevating the Martello Tower, the nation of Ireland, and the personified city of Dublin into a cosmic realm. This sentence also demonstrates Joyce's playfulness with prosody in that he employs iambic meter and rolling consonant sounds of "blessed gravely thrice the tower." Seven other examples of assonance and alliteration appear in the opening nine lines of the novel: "plump Buck Mulligan," "bearing a bowl," "dressinggown, ungirdled," "mild morning," "he held," "called up coarsely," and "mounted the round." Here, Joyce characterizes Buck with the diction of "plump," "ungirdled," "coarse," and "mount," all of which have negative connotations, many of which hint toward animals and beasts. This depiction continues as Stephen is "displeased" by the "shaking gurgling face" of Mulligan. As Joyce describes Buck's specific features with the diction "equine" and "oak," we may see a specific animal: a wooden horse (Odysseus's treacherous Trojan Horse?). Joyce makes another classical allusion in his characterization of Buck as "Chrysostomos," the golden-mouthed Greek rhetorician. Taken together, the first page of Ulysses presents Buck Mulligan's character as blasphemous, beastly, and distrusted while establishing Christianity and Antiquity as the two principle sources of information swirling around Stephen's head throughout the day. Joyce uses Buck to instigate the interaction of characters as he "peer[s] down the dark winding stairs" of the tower and calls to Stephen, "Kinch," the "fearful jesuit." Stephen, by contrast, is passive and therefore doesn't define himself with actions. As a result, Buck's aggressive attempt to label Stephen with names represents our initial perception of his character. "Kinch, the knife-blade," reflects Stephen's sharp mind, and Buck's implication that Stephen remains "fearful" reveals Stephen's deep-rooted concern for the state of his soul despite his abandonment of his once devout Catholic faith. Buck then further modifies "jesuit" with a second adjective on the next page, "jejune," which means immature, sophomoric, deficient, and dull. These nicknames allude to Stephen's brief period of religious zeal and intense contrition - indeed, his brief contemplation of a career in the Catholic priesthood - while studying under the Jesuit Order at Belvedere College. In addition to Buck's name-calling, he also mentions the "absurd[ity]" of Stephen's actual name, Dedalus, "an ancient Greek," which alludes to Daedalus, the mythological figure who created wings out of feathers and wax, and derives from the ancient Greek word "daidolos" which means "cunningly wrought." This definition resonates with Stephen's proclamation toward the end of A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man: I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use - silence, exile, and cunning. (Portrait 208) We see that Stephen remains true to his manifesto as he battles Buck (a symbol of the Irish "fatherland" in which Stephen "no longer believe[s]") and Haines (a symbol of domineering English imperialism) "using for [his] defense the only arms [he] allow[s] [him]self to use - silence, exile, and cunning." Stephen offers his first words in the form of a command ("Tell me, Mulligan") followed by a cunningly Socratic question ("How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?"). That the command comes "quietly" reflects the "silence" element of Stephen's "defense." He threatens self-imposed "exile" by initially claiming that "if [Haines] stays on here I am off." We should ask ourselves whether we find Stephen's battle tactics heroic. Stephen himself first indicates that he is "not a hero" because he does not "save men from drowning" as Buck has done, but we should avoid agreeing with him too readily. Labeling hastily (in the manner of Buck Mulligan) would disallow the opportunity to learn about the complexities of Stephen's character. We, like Haines, "can't make [Stephen] out" until we acquire more information regarding his thoughts and behavior. We need to spend a full day with Stephen, and later Bloom, before we can pass judgment on whether either is a hero or an anti-hero, and evidence abounds for each side of the argument. Joyce continues to use Buck as the vehicle for action as he borrows "the bard's noserag" and mock-elevates it as a "new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen." This adjective carries into a description of "the snotgreen sea," which itself acquires symbolic associations with Ireland personified as "a grey sweet mother." This metaphor leads to thoughts of Stephen's late mother, for whom he "refused" to kneel down and pray (recall his proclamation in A Portrait). Buck condemns this act despite his own professed "hyperborean" non-conformity, and he attempts to pin the label "sinister" to Stephen. This diction connotes Lucifer, the proud angel who refused to serve God by saying "non servium." Stephen's subconscious remains haunted by the guilt he carries from his behavior towards his dying mother. We see and smell Stephen's horrific dream of the ghost of his mother, then we return to Joyce's narrative description of the view and words spoken atop the tower, followed by a plunge back into the mind of Stephen, who continues to think of his mother's deathbed in a naturalistic manner: "the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting." This paragraph initiates the reader into Joyce's revolutionary narrative technique whereby he quickly shifts from Stephen's inner-monologue remembering a subconscious event into a detailed third person description of Stephen's posture and attire atop the tower, and then shifts again into a naturalistic recollection of a conscious experience. Furthermore, his mind follows associative threads through each mode of thinking - mother, sea, green, drowning, death, etc. We begin to understand the elusiveness of Stephen's character as Buck once again applies a label, "poor dogsbody," which colloquially refers to one who performs oddjobs. Buck shows concern for Stephen's dismal financial circumstances by offering to give him a pair of grey trousers, but Stephen declines because he feels he must wear black in mourning of his mother's death. This desire to outwardly display his inward mourning of a parent represents the first of many correspondences between Stephen and Hamlet. In response to Stephen's "etiquette," Buck diagnoses Stephen as having "general paralysis of the insane" and laughs unto the "sunlight now radiant on the sea" before mockingly asking Stephen to "look at yourself, you dreadful bard." Stephen acquiesces to Buck's command, "peer[ing] at the mirror held out to him, cleft by a crooked crack, hair on end." Stephen finds abstract meaning in this object as "a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant." This symbolism reflects Joyce's own "bitter" criticism and rejection of the early 20th century Irish literary movement as introspective, submissive, and self-pitying. Buck, again the active character, instigates the first physical contact of the novel by "suddenly link[ing] his arm in Stephen's." This act reminds Stephen of "Cranly's arm" from the end of the narrative in A Portrait. Buck then compliments Stephen, saying he has "more spirit than any of them," but Stephen's silent monologue recognizes this flattery as a defensive maneuver by Buck for "fear" of the attack of Stephen's "cold steelpen" just as he "fear[s] that of his." Thus, a tense dynamic of intellectual dueling, cohabitation, and mutual fear emerges. Buck proposes a truce by turning their attention towards a common enemy, Haines, the "oxy chap downstairs," and by proposing that he and Stephen "work together" to "Hellenise" Ireland. Buck claims to be "the only one that knows what [Stephen is]," which is ironic given the difficulty Buck has had in labeling Stephen, and he wants to know why Stephen doesn't "trust [him] more." He offers to "give [Haines] a ragging," which launches Stephen's mind's eye into the horrible memory of watching Clive Kemphorpe's hazing at school. Stephen detests cruelty and violence and consequently tells Buck to "let [Haines] stay." This passage also introduces the idea of the "omphalos," a trope that reappears throughout the novel. Stuart Gilbert explains that the "omphalos" refers to the "central point," the navel of the earth, the "cord linking up the generations of mankind," and in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey it "signifies a round protuberance, a swelling,"[i] not unlike the Martello Tower in which they live. Gifford also points out that some late-nineteenth-century Theosophists contemplated the omphalos variously as the place of the "astral soul of man," the center of self-consciousness and the source of poetic and prophetic inspiration. In this context, Stephen thinks of the Martello tower as the omphalos of Buck's Irish literary movement. Stephen, though, "free[s] his arm quietly" in silent rejection of Buck's movement, and he offers to explain his dislike for Mulligan. Buck pontificates on the omnipresence of death and curses the "absurd," "beastly" behavior of Stephen towards his dieing mother, which leaves "gaping wounds ... in [Stephen's] heart." Buck, like the usurping uncle Claudius in Hamlet, then implores Stephen to "give up the moody brooding" before singing "Fergus' song" as he descends the "dark winding staircase" into the main room of the tower. Stephen, who has a beautiful tenor singing voice, sang this very song, coincidentally enough, at the request of his crying mother on her deathbed. In terms of Joyce's strategies, be sure to take notice of the appearance of a "cloud" which "cover[s] the sun slowly, shadowing the bay in deeper green," and be on the lookout for its return elsewhere in the novel. Similarly, the motif of "Turko the terrible" shall feature prominently in the mind of Mr. Bloom, and its appearance here demonstrates the mental consubstantiality of father and son, Ulysses and Telemachus. Also, notice the first instance of a repetition as Stephen again recalls the haunting dream of his mother before building on the memory of her final moments, "her eyes on me to strike me down." Take note of the prayer intoned by the others: "Liliata rutilantium te confessorum turma cicumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat." This prayer, too, will return to Stephen's mind at certain points in the day. The mental image causes Stephen to "tremble at his soul's cry." By saying, "No mother. Let me be and let me live," he expresses his wish to be free of his mother and the haunting guilt that accompanies her memory. Completely unaware of Stephen's spiritual agony, Buck again raises the idea of "touching" Haines for some money in exchange for Stephen's ideas, and Stephen points out that he will "get paid this morning" for his work as a "dogsbody" teacher (he teaches history, math, and literature) at Mr. Deasy's School. Buck's spirits rise as he foresees getting "glorious drunk" on "whiskey, beer, and wine" with Stephen's money. Stephen sees that Buck has "forgotten" his shaving bowl, and he mulls over whether or not to "bring it down" to the main room of the tower or "leave it there all day." He decides to do Buck a favor, and this act of carrying the bowl of lather reminds him of "carr[ying] the boat of incense then at Clongowes," the school he attended as a boy. He contemplates his physical and spiritual development since those days, thinking "I am another now and yet the same" in that he remains a "server of a servant." He refers now to serving Buck, a servant of Ireland, just as he served the Clongowes priests, servants to Rome. The narrator moves the reader into the "gloomy domed livingroom of the tower" where Buck prepares breakfast for the three young men. Haines, the "tall figure" sitting on the hammock, asks regarding the whereabouts of "the key" to the tower, and Buck responds that "Dedalus has it" because he pays the rent. Joyce applies detailed attention to the action of the key, a trope that will acquire great significance, as it "scrape[s] round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been set ajar, welcome light and bright air entered." Buck again parodies religious language in his mock blessing, and then curses upon realizing that "there's no milk" because the milkwoman hasn't come yet. She represents Ireland and the nurturing of Irish Motherhood as Buck demands that he "wants Sandycove milk." His desire for a local Irish Mother contrasts with Stephen's willingness to accept the customs and culture of another place, Paris. British Haines announces the arrival of the Irish Mother bringing milk, and after continuing his sacrilege, Buck parodies the "wheedling" voice of his own Irish Mother, saying "when I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water." This parody provides a bit of humor before Buck peddles his Irish Mother to the English. Buck seeks Stephen's help in elevating "mother Grogan's tea" to the sacred level of the Hindi texts of the Mabinogion and the Upanishads, but Stephen "gravely" declines. Rather, he "imagines" that Mother Grogan more likely shares kinship with Mary Ann, a bawdy character from Irish folk songs. The milkwoman "darken[s]" the doorway as she enters the tower, and Stephen's silent monologue begins with "not hers" and continues until Buck responds to her "praise [of] the goodness of the milk" by saying, "It is indeed, ma'am." Homeric allusions abound in the silent monologue, and we should appreciate the poetry of the language that streams through Stephen's consciousness. In "scornful silence," his monologue resumes to reveal his venomous response to the Irish Mother's preference for "loud" Buck. Stephen might find vindication in the shortcomings of an Irish Mother who does not recognize the Irish language when she hears it. Of course, there's a touch of irony in that Haines speaks "confident" Irish, and his opinion that they "ought to speak Irish in Ireland" hints of tokenism. Buck pays the majority of the bill, implores Stephen to hurry back with money from the school, and parodies a slogan of Irish nationalism in anticipation of the drunken revelry to come. Haines indicates his intention to visit the national library, which foreshadows the "Scylla and Charybdis" episode of the novel. Buck wants to go for a swim in Forty Foot bathing area, but Stephen, "the unclean bard," washes only once a month, claiming that "all Ireland is washed by the gulfstream." Stephen's hydrophobia builds upon the sea-mother-control trope: he rebels against washing just as he rebels against his mother, his church, and his nation. Haines, who expressed no interest in Buck's offer of "five lines of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of Dundrum," explains that he "intend[s] to make a collection of [Stephen's] sayings." Stephen thinks of "Agenbite of inwit," the Middle English phrase for "remorse of conscience," and his next thought, "Yet here's a spot," quotes Lady Macbeth's subconscious conscience. That he alludes to guilt in both Middle English and Shakespearean English lends itself to Stephen's view that the people of England "wash and tub and scrub" to rid themselves of the guilt they feel for their historic oppression of the Irish. Haines confronts this guilt by seeking to educate himself on all things Irish. Stephen rudely responds to Haines's inquiry by asking if he would profit from contributing to Haines's collection. With "course vigour," Buck disapproves of Stephen's "lousy leer[ing]" reluctance to "play" the English for money, but Stephen contends that "the problem is to get money. From whom? From the milkwoman or from him. It's a toss up, I think." He sees "poor old" Ireland and wealthy, guilty England as his only potential sources of patronage, and he "see[s] little hope" from either. Buck answers Stephen's question of "From whom" by saying "from me," implying that Stephen could take a prominent place in Buck's Irish Renaissance movement. Buck's offer corresponds to the suitors in The Odyssey and the Biblical temptations of Christ. As "Mulligan is stripped of his garments" (a blasphemous allusion to the Stations of the Cross), Stephen prepares to walk to his teaching job in Dalkey by putting on his "Latin quarter hat," "taking his ashplant" walking stick, and dropping "the huge key in his inner pocket." Haines asks about the tower, so Buck tells him that theirs is "the omphalos," meaning both the architectural source of the other towers constructed by Billy Pitt and the artistic center of the secular Irish literary movement. Commenting that the Tower and the rocky coast of Sandycove remind Haines of Elsinore (the setting for much of Shakespeare's Hamlet), Haines presses Stephen on his Hamlet theory, but Buck claims need of "a few pints" before he can listen to the absurd complexity of Stephen's argument: "He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father." In essence, Stephen's Hamlet theory engages themes of paternity and creation. Haines tosses out "a theological interpretation" of Hamlet, "the Father and Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the Father," which adds the flavor of divinity to the theme of father-son consubstantiality (at-one-ment). Buck furthers this trope by calling Stephen "Japhet in search of a father!". Stephen, who struggles to free himself from his guilt-ridden impulses towards his mother, must shift his thinking, a la Telemachus and Hamlet, towards the search for a father. Buck recites his blasphemous ballad of Joking Jesus, which puns on the transformation of water into wine into water (urine). Stephen's silent monologue foresees that Buck wants that key to the tower and will ask for it. Stephen claims legitimate possession because he paid the rent. Haines, still probing Stephen, attempts to engage him in the typical twentieth century atheistic discussion, but Stephen intellectually toys with him in a manner similar to Hamlet's manipulation of Polonius. Haines removes from his pocket "a smooth silver case in which twinkled a green stone," which may metaphorically reduce emerald Ireland to a charming trinket in England's possession. However, Stephen accepts the cigarette Haines has offered and realizes that his "grim displeasure" against the Englishman might be exaggerated as he sees that naïve but well-intentioned Haines is "not all unkind." As a result, Stephen relaxes his defensive stance and explains that he serves "two masters, ... an English and an Italian" - the British Empire and the Roman Catholic Church - "and a third ... who wants [him] for odd jobs," Ireland, who uses Stephen as a "dogsbody" servant. Haines, expressing his English guilt (but avoiding responsibility), says that "we feel in England that we have treated you rather unfairly. It seems history is to blame." The reference to "history" sends Stephen's mind, which was already spinning with Christian theology, into thoughts of Church history, particularly its engagement of the controversy surrounding the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son. He quotes in Latin from the last section of the Nicene Creed, a prayer which contains the phrase "being of one substance with the Father" and was written in 325 to establish an official set of Christian beliefs. He also references the "Symbol of the apostles," the Apostles' Creed. Due to his musical bent, Stephen's mind pivots toward the history of music and the Church. He references the Italian composer Palestrina's 1565 "mass for pope Marcellus" which parallels the Apostles' Creed. Stephen would be familiar with this composition because it was first performed in Dublin in 1898. He then thinks of the Catholic church's invocation of the Archangel Michael against the heresy of the Protestant Reformation, which culminated in the Catholic Reformation's Council of Trent (1545-63). This church council restricted "all music in which anything lascivious or impure was mixed" (purists interpreted this to ban all music except Gregorian chant), but Pope Julius III repudiated these purists by appointing polyphonic Palestrina as master of the Cappella Giulia. Stephen then thinks of "Photius and the brood of mockers of whom Mulligan was one," which places Buck in the company of a man regarded by the Roman church as "one of its worst enemies" because the eastern schism, which he initiated, climaxed in 1054 in the separation of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. ... Photius's dissent was his assertion that the Holy Ghost proceeded not "from the Father and from the Son" (Roman Catholic orthodoxy) but "from the Father." Stephen also links Buck with Arius, another heretic who taught that Christ was God's first creation, that God created him out of nothing; and then Christ created the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit created our world. Thus Christ is God's first creation and inferior to God; and the Holy Spirit, as Christ's creation, is inferior to Christ. The first Council of Nicaea (325) ... used the term consubstantial to underscore the equality of the three persons of the Trinity in refutation of Arius's speculations. Stephen notes the connection between these tidbits of Church history and the "words Mulligan had spoken a moment since" in mockery of Stephen's Hamlet theory of father-son consubstantiality. Stephen, like the Church, invokes Michael's wrath against Buck, a heretic against both Stephen's "rare thoughts" and, as we've seen throughout the episode, the church. This damning of Buck to "the void" assumes a sacred divinity of Stephen's mind. To support this, the narrator refers to his "thoughts" as "a chemistry of stars," which alludes to Joyce's contemporaries' fascination with Alchemy and its belief in the transmutation of the physical into the spiritual. Just as Joyce's art seeks to elevate the details of everyday existence into a spiritual dimension, the author also intends to place his own mind on a similar plane of cosmic significance. Stephen is brought down from the elevated plane of his inner consciousness to the base plane of Haines's anti-Semitism. His fear of the influence of "German jews" establishes the hostile posture of the British Isles towards the people of Mr. Bloom's ethnic heritage. Stephen creates a mental image of the "swollen bundle" of a drowned man expected to arrive to shore with the afternoon tide. Haines and Mulligan share the latest news on their mutual friends. They discuss Bannon's new romantic interest in a "sweet young ... photo girl" living in a seaside town south of Dublin, and Seymour, in addition to changing his career from medicine to military, is apparently involved with a rich red headed girl. Like the earlier comment regarding Jews, the misogynistic stereotype that "redheaded women buck like goats" establishes the beastly tone of male sexuality and the objectification of women. Buck issues a command, "Give us that key, Kinch," but he veils his aggression with a practical purpose, "to keep my chemise flat." Stephen, despite his earlier assertion that "it is mine, I paid the rent," relinquishes his mode of entry to the tower. Before "plung[ing]" his "plump body" into the water, Buck demands money "for a pint," and Stephen again obliges the "usurper." They make plans to meet at The Ship, a pub, at 12:30, and Stephen begins his walk to Deasy's School. As Stephen leaves, three chimes of a local church ring out to signify that the time is now 8:45. With each chime, Stephen mentally recites one phrase from the deathbed prayer recalled earlier in the episode. Keyless Stephen realizes that he "will not sleep here tonight. Home also [he] cannot go." Subject to self-imposed exile, Stephen begins his day of wandering through Dublin.

Episode 18: Penelope

The first of Molly's eight giant "sentences" that comprise her interior monologue begins with her annoyance and surprise that Bloom has asked her to serve him breakfast in bed. Molly intuits that Bloom has had an orgasm today, and she thinks of his past dalliances with other women. She thinks of her afternoon of sex with the aggressive and well-endowed Boylan—a refreshing change after Bloom's strange lovemaking techniques. On the other hand, Molly guesses Bloom is more virile than Boylan and remembers how handsome Bloom was when they were courting. Thinking of Josie and Denis Breen's marriage, Molly feels that she and Bloom are perhaps mutually lucky. In Molly's second sentence, she considers her various admirers: Boylan, who likes her feet; the tenor Bartell D'Arcy, who kissed her in church; Lt. Gardner, who died of fever in the Boer War. Molly ponders Bloom's underwear fetish. Aroused, Molly anticipates seeing Boylan on Monday and their upcoming trip to Belfast alone. Molly's thoughts turn briefly to the world of concert singing, annoyingly girlish Dublin singers, and Bloom's help with her career. Molly remembers Boylan's anger over Lenehan's lousy Gold Cup race tip. Molly thinks Lenehan is creepy. Considering future meetings with Boylan, Molly resolves to lose some weight and wishes she had more money to dress stylishly. Bloom should quit the Freeman and get lucrative work in an office. Molly remembers going to Mr. Cuffe to plead for Bloom's job back after he was fired—Cuffe stared at her breasts and politely refused. In her third sentence, Molly ponders beautiful female breasts and silly male genitalia. She thinks of the time Bloom suggested she pose naked for a photographer to make money. She associates pornographic pictures with the nymph picture that Bloom used to ineptly explain metempsychosis this morning. Back to breasts, she remembers how Bloom once suggested they milk her excess breast milk into tea. Molly imagines gathering all of Bloom's outrageous ideas into a book, before her thoughts return to Boylan and the powerful release of her orgasm this afternoon. Molly's fourth sentence begins with a train whistle. Thoughts of the hot engine car lead her to thoughts about her Gibraltar childhood, her friendship there with Hester Stanhope and Hester's husband "Wogger," and how boring her life was after they left—she had resorted to writing herself letters. Molly thinks of how Milly sent her only a card this morning and Bloom a whole letter. Molly wonders if Boylan will send her a love letter. Molly's fifth sentence begins with her recollection of her first love letter—from Lieutenant Mulvey, whom she kissed under the Moorish wall in Gibraltar. She wonders what he is like now. Another train whistles, reminding Molly of Love's Old Sweet Song and her upcoming performance. She is again dismissive of silly girl singers—Molly views herself as much more worldly. Considering her dark, Spanish looks which she inherited from her mother, Molly guesses that she could have been a stage star if she had not married Bloom. Molly shifts in bed to quietly release built-up gas, chiming with another train's whistle. In her sixth sentence, Molly's mind wanders from her Gibraltar girlhood to Milly. Molly does not like being alone in the house at night now—it was Bloom's idea to send Milly to Mullingar to learn photography, because he sensed Molly and Boylan's impending affair. Molly ponders her close but tense relationship with Milly, who has become wild and good-looking like Molly used to be. Molly realizes with frustration that her period is starting and gets up to use the chamberpot. She realizes that Boylan did not make her pregnant. Scenes from the afternoon run through her mind. In her seventh sentence, Molly climbs quietly back into bed and thinks back over their frequent moves, a result of Bloom's shaky financial history. Molly worries that he has spent money on a woman today, as well as the Dignam family. Molly thinks of the men at Dignam's funeral—they are nice, but Molly resents their condescension to Bloom. Molly recalls Simon Dedalus's vocal talent and wonders about Simon's son. Molly remembers meeting Stephen as a child and fantasizes that Stephen is probably not stuck-up, just young enough, and appealingly clean. Molly plans to read and study before he comes again so he will not think her stupid. In her eighth sentence, Molly thinks of how Bloom never embraces her, weirdly kissing her bottom instead. Molly reflects on how much better a place the world would be if it was governed by women. Considering the importance of mothers, she thinks again of Stephen, whose mother has just died, and of Rudy's death, then stops this line of thought, for fear of becoming depressed. Molly imagines arousing Bloom tomorrow morning, then coldly telling him about her affair with Boylan to make him realize his culpability. Molly makes plans to buy flowers tomorrow, in case Stephen comes. Meditating on flowers and nature, the products of God, she thinks lovingly of the day she and Bloom spent outdoors on Howth, his marriage proposal, and her resoundingly positive response.

Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun

The narrative technique of Episode Fourteen is meant to represent the gestation of the English language. The prose styles of many different time periods, along with the styles of their most famous authors, are replicated and at times parodied in chronological order. Latinate prose, and then alliterative Anglo-Saxon, situate us at the Holles Street maternity hospital, run by Sir Andrew Horne. Bloom arrives at the hospital gates, having come to check on Mrs. Purefoy. Nurse Callan, an acquaintance of Bloom's, opens the gate and leads him inside. Their conversation about Mrs. Purefoy, who has been in labor for three days, is described in moralizing medieval prose. The emergence of Dixon, a medical student, from a noisy room down the hall is described in medieval-romance style. Dixon, who once treated Bloom for a bee sting, invites Bloom inside, where Lenehan, Crotthers, Stephen, Punch Costello, and medical students Lynch and Madden are boisterously gathered around a spread of sardines and beer. Dixon pours Bloom a beer, which Bloom quietly deposits in his neighbor's cup. A nun comes to the door and asks for quiet. The men discuss medical cases in which the doctor must choose between saving the mother or the baby—Stephen discusses the religious aspect of this question while others joke about contraception and sex. Bloom is somber, thinking of Mrs. Purefoy and of Molly's labor with Rudy. Bloom considers Stephen, imagining that he is wasting time with these men. Stephen's pouring of more beer and consideration of the quibbles of Mary's pregnancy with Jesus are described in Elizabethan prose. Punch Costello interrupts with a bawdy song about a pregnant woman. Nurse Quigley comes to the door and shushes them. The men's teasing Stephen about the piety of his youth is described in early seventeenth-century prose. A thunderclap erupts. Bloom notices that Stephen is truly frightened at this evidence of God's anger, and he attempts to calm Stephen by explaining the science of thunder. Buck Mulligan's meeting with Alec Bannon on the street nearby is described in seventeenth-century diary style. Alec tells Buck about a girl he is dating in Mullingar (Milly Bloom). The two men walk together to the hospital on Holles street. The good-for-nothing characters of Lenehan and Costello are described in the prose style of Daniel Defoe. The subject of Deasy's letter and cattle health is broached. A long, allegorical joke ensues about papal bulls, Henry VIII, and England's relationship to Ireland. Buck's arrival is described in Addison's and Steele's essay style. Buck jokes about his new occupation as a "fertiliser" for all female comers. A side conversation between Crotthers and Bannon about Milly, and Bannon's intent to purchase contraception in Dublin, is described in Lawrence Sterne's style. The men euphemistically discuss different contraceptive methods. The eighteenth-century style of Oliver Goldsmith follows. Nurse Callan summons Dixon: Mrs. Purefoy has borne a son. The men licentiously discuss Nurse Callan. Eighteenth-century political prose style is used to describe Bloom's relief at the news of Mrs. Purefoy's baby, and his disgust with the young men's manner. The satirical style of Junius queries Bloom's hypocritically self-righteous attitude toward the medical students. Edward Gibbon's style is used to describe the men's conversation about various topics related to birth: Caesarean sections, fathers who die before their wives give birth, cases of fratricide (including the Childs murder case, mentioned in Episode Six), artificial insemination, menopause, impregnation by rape, birthmarks, Siamese twins. Gothic prose is employed to describe Buck telling a ghost story. Charles Lamb's sentimental style is utilized to describe Bloom reminiscing about himself as a young man, then feeling paternal toward the young men. The hazy, hallucinatory style of Thomas DeQuincey manifests the pessimistic turn Bloom's thoughts suddenly take. Walter Savage Landor's prose style is incorporated to describe how Lenehan and Lynch manage to offend Stephen by broaching the topics of his fruitless poetic career and his dead mother. Conversation switches to the Gold Cup race, then to Lynch's girlfriend Kitty; we learn that Lynch and Kitty were the couple caught by Father Conmee this afternoon (in Episode Ten). Nineteenth-century historical and naturalist styles follow. The conversation turns to the mysterious causes of infant mortality. Charles Dickens's sentimental style is used to describe Mrs. Purefoy, joyous mother. Cardinal Newman's religious prose style is employed to describe how past sins can haunt a man. Walter Pater's aestheticist style follows. Bloom ponders Stephen's aggressive words about mothers and babies. Bloom remembers watching Stephen, as a child, exchange reproachful glances with his mother. John Ruskin's style is used to describe Stephen's spontaneous suggestion to proceed to Burke's pub. Dixon joins them. Bloom lags behind, asking Nurse Callan to say a kind word to Mrs. Purefoy. Thomas Carlyle's prose style hails the virility of Mr. Purefoy. The narrative breaks into a chaotic rendering of various twentieth- century dialect and slang as the men hurry to Burke's. Stephen buys the first round. The Gold Cup race is discussed, Stephen buys another round of absinthe, and Alec Bannon finally realizes that Bloom is Milly's father and nervously slips away. The barman calls time, and someone gossips about the man in the macintosh in the corner. The barman kicks them out as the Fire Brigade passes on its way to a fire. Someone vomits. Stephen convinces Lynch to come with him to the brothel district. A nearby poster advertising a visiting minister (the same ad that Bloom received in Episode Eight) inspires a final switch to the style of American sales-pitch evangelism.

Episode 9: Scylla and Charybdis

The ninth episode of the novel, "Scylla & Charybdis," takes place in the National Library, where Stephen Dedalus will deliver his much-anticipated (though sparsely attended) lecture on Shakespeare and Hamlet. Excepting the second half of "Aeolus," we have largely been in Bloom's mind since "Proteus," so the return to the intellectual density, social tension, and discursive loftiness of Stephen's thoughts in "Scylla & Charybdis" can be somewhat jarring...perhaps even off-putting. Some readers may be tempted to quit. Don't! Like with "Proteus," my goal is to get you through this episode and on to the rest of the book; indeed, a comprehensive guide to this episode would necessitate literally thousands of explanations and revelations. Just about every line contains a Shakespearean allusion! (As a frame of reference, "Scylla & Charybdis" requires 66 pages of annotations in the Gifford vs. the 32 pages glossing "Lestrygonians," an episode of nearly equal length. So, this episode is twice as dense as the rest of Ulysses, which is saying something.) Any devotee of Shakespeare should use the Gifford or some other resource of more scholarly depth to appreciate and enjoy Joyce's demonstration of mastery of (over?!) Shakespeare, but I am here primarily interested in helping the first-time reader through to the other side of the novel (as the 9th of 18 episodes in the book, "Scylla & Charybdis" is the final chapter of the first half of the book). So, here we go: In The Odyssey, Odysseus passes through a treacherous, narrow strait: on one side is Scylla, a murderous, multi-headed monster on the jagged rocks, and on the other is Charybdis, a giant sea-monster who creates a whirlpool to capture its prey. As Stephen delivers his lecture, he is navigating between various pairs of powerful forces: the ideas of Aristotle and Plato, the impulses of youth and maturity, the relationship between the art and the artist, and the disciplines of dogmatic scholasticism and spiritual mysticism. After spending about an hour (and a few shillings) drinking with the newspapermen in Mooney's Pub et al, Stephen has arrived at the National Library sometime before 2:00 and is speaking in the librarian's office with members of Dublin's literary elite, including Lyster (the quaker librarian), John Eglinton (a critic and essayist), and, in the shadows of the office, George Russell (the poet A. E.). Mr. Best (another librarian) will soon join them, and Mulligan will also eventually enter the conversation - his late arrival and interruption might be retribution for Stephen skipping their planned rendezvous at The Ship. Eglinton is hostile toward Stephen and appeals to George Russell (unsuccessfully) to join in his mockery of Stephen's delusions of grandeur. Stephen, who we have already seen mock himself for these delusions in "Proteus," resolves to "persist" (9.42) with his follies. Worth noting, of course, that Joyce likewise persists with his own subtle yet incredibly bold aspirations to grandeur. As Eglington suggests that "our young Irish bards have yet to create a figure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare's Hamlet," we might perceive Joyce's unspoken yet obvious promotion of his characters Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom as exactly the figures here called for. Later in the episode, it is thought that "Our national epic has yet to be written" (9.309). Joyce was not bashful about the work of genius he had created in Ulysses, and he was quite aware of the place his great book would occupy in the pantheon of literature. In this episode (and, later, in "Oxen of the Sun") Joyce is staking his claim to a hitherto empty seat beside Shakespeare and Homer. But, back to the librarian's office. Stephen enters the philosophical fray in defense of Aristotle, and we learn that Haines has visited the library but has just left to purchase a book of Irish poetry. The conversation returns to Hamlet, and Stephen poses the central question his lecture will answer: "Who is King Hamlet?" (9.131). In short, Stephen's theory is biographical in nature: Shakespeare is King Hamlet, husband to an unfaithful wife (Ann Hathaway/Gertrude), cuckolded by his own villainous brother (Richard Shakespeare/Claudius). Furthermore, Shakespeare has just lost his own father (John Shakespeare), so "being no more a son, he was and felt himself the father of all his race, the father of his own grandfather, the father of his unborn grandson" (9.867-69). This passage serves to explain (more or less) the paradox promised all the way back in "Telemachus" that Stephen's Hamlet theory "proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Hamlet's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father" (1.555-57). Furthermore, it seems reasonable for a person of Shakespeare's prodigious and prolific talent for creating human life in art, the person who played the primary role in expressing the modern notion of humanity we all share today, to feel himself "the father of all his race"; indeed, "after God Shakespeare has created most" (9.1028-29). Back in the Librarian's office, Platonic Russell shakes off Aristotelian Stephen's effort to make art (the ideal) about the artist (the real), decrying "peeping and prying into greenroom gossip of the day, the poet's drinking, the poet's debts. We have King Lear: and it is immortal" (9.187-88). Given that Stephen is ever so nearly (but not) an autobiographical figure of James Joyce, this discussion of how deeply we should read into the artist from the art is relevant and interesting. Then, Stephen's thoughts echo those of Bloom in the previous episode as he ponders the fluidity of identity (as a possible excuse for not paying a debt): "Wait. Five months. Molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got pound" (9.205-06). As he contemplates moments from his own history as past versions of himself, he rather elegantly expresses the conundrum in terms of punctuation: "I, I and I. I." (9.212). He continues his lecture, interrupted at turns by his own haunted thoughts of his dead mother, then by Eglinton, and later by Russell's departure. As he leaves, Lyster notes that "Mr. Russell, rumour has it, is gathering together a sheaf of our younger poets' verses" (9.290-91); Stephen is stung to have been excluded from this project. As Russell departs, Stephen passes along to him the second copy of Deasy's letter for the Irish Homestead's consideration. The discussion of Hamlet and Shakespeare continues. Buck Mulligan arrives and receives a convivial welcome from the other men. Stephen is silent for two pages. Mr. Lyster is called away by a library attendant to assist a gentleman from Freeman who has come to the library "to see the files of the Kilkenny People for last year" (9. 586-87); this is Mr. Bloom working on that Keyes ad, and we catch a glimpse of him as "a patient silhouette waited, listening" (9.597) and then as "a bowing dark figure following" (9.602-03). Buck tells the others the he saw Bloom looking at the statue of Aphrodite - we know from the previous episode that Bloom had planned to examine the statue's backside to see if it is anatomically accurate. It seems he was caught in this odd act! The discussion returns to Shakespeare's wife, Ann Hathaway, of whom there are only a few mentions in historical documents after her marriage: first, she borrowed money from a shepherd to pay a debt (meanwhile, William Shakespeare was at heights of fame and fortune), and then, in Shakespeare's will, he left Ann his second best bed. Both notes may serve as evidence of a broken marriage - why wouldn't a financially successful husband pay his wife's debt? Why not the best bed? (n.b., I have read or heard somewhere that, in those days, a person wealthy enough to own two beds would reserve the house's best bed for guests, so the second best bed would have been the only one Ann would have ever slept in, which renders this gift to Ann more a matter of practicality and less of a slight) Stephen then gets into the meat of his theory, claiming that Shakespeare is not Hamlet, as most assume, because that would mean his beloved 70-year-old mother is Gertrude, "the lustful queen" (9.833). Rather, Stephen asserts that Shakespeare was the Ghost of King Hamlet, speaking to his son, Hamnet Shakespeare (who died at 11 years old, perhaps of bubonic plague) about the incestuous adultery of Ann Hathaway with Shakespeare's brother, Richard. Eglinton dismisses the theory and asks if Stephen himself believes it: "No, Stephen said promptly" (9.1065-66). Mr. Best suggests Stephen write it as a dialogue, and Stephen, ever ungracious and graceless in money matters, says they can "publish this interview" (9.1085) for a guinea (see "Money in Ulysses" under the "Other Resources" tab on this site). It is noted that Stephen is the only contributor to the literary magazine Dana who asks for compensation for the publication of his work. There is further discussion of the literary gathering planned for this evening, and Mulligan is implored to attend; Stephen might be welcome to join, we can assume, but he is not explicitly invited. Mulligan leaves with Stephen, knowing that Stephen has been paid this morning and will be standing rounds. Buck is quite within bounds to expect a few drinks at Stephen's expense; Stephen owes Buck "nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one pair brogues, ties" (2.255). As they leave, Stephen might catch a glimpse of Emma Cleary in the reading room of the library. Buck reads to Stephen what he wrote in the office: a bawdy play title and character list. Stephen wants to leave him but doesn't. As they depart the library "a man passed out between them, bowing, greeting" (9.1204); this is Mr. Bloom, slipping between Stephen and Mulligan (Odysseus navigating between Scylla and Charybdis), triggering Stephen to recall the dream from the previous night he almost remembered back in "Proteus" which prophesies his encounter with Bloom later that night. As the book promises, "you will see" (9.1208). Buck makes a joke that Bloom "looked upon [Stephen] to lust after [him]" (9.1210). Bloom's "dark back" leaves before Stephen and Buck with the quiet "step of a pard" (9.1214). All three characters launch out as wandering rocks in the sea of Dublin's city streets.