Haines Character Analysis

Haines is a condescending but well-meaning English student of Irish folk traditions who lives with Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan in the Martello tower. Stephen and Buck believe that Haines is only studying in Dublin because he feels guilty about the bloody legacy of English colonialism. However, he isn’t willing to take personal responsibility for England’s crimes—instead, he vaguely blames “history.” Haines’s guilt and resentment about the past make him a partial character foil for Stephen, who feels intensely guilty about failing to pray for his dying mother and sees history as “a nightmare from which [he is] trying to awake.” Stephen and Buck also make fun of Haines’s exaggerated reverence for Ireland, which is second only to that of delusional Irish nationalists like the citizen. Ironically, Haines also complains about Jews, which shows that his reverence for the Irish doesn’t translate into a general tolerance towards all kinds of different people.