Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ulysses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Alienation and the Quest for Belonging
Literature, Meaning, and Perspective
Love and Sex
Fate vs. Free Will
Religion, Atheism, and Philosophy
Irish Identity and Nationalism
Summary
Analysis
A cryptic introduction made up of sixty fragments opens this episode, foreshadowing key moments in its plot, introducing its major themes, and presenting its key motifs. This introductory section is full of imagery related to sounds, like “steelyringing,” “trilling,” “jingling,” “warbling,” and “tschink [and] tschunk.” This introduction ends, “Done. / Begin!”
In the Odyssey, the Sirens were two mythical mermaids who sang beautiful songs to attract sailors, then led those sailors to shipwreck. Odysseus managed to get past them by tying himself to the boat’s mast (so he could hear the songs without being tempted to steer the ship towards them) and plugging his men’s ears with wax (so they couldn’t hear the songs). In this episode, the Sirens loosely correspond to the barmaids Douce and Kennedy, and the episode’s focus is also on music. This poetic overture is definitely a way to introduce that point of focus, but it’s also a microcosm of the whole episode’s plot. It borrows many phrases that occur throughout the episode, and it structures them in broadly chronological order. In particular, “Done. / Begin!” suggests that this poem is like a warm-up for the rest of the episode, or a presentation of the core melodies on which the rest of the episode improvises. Curiously, this suggests that “Sirens” is less an organic narrative than a pre-rehearsed performance.
Themes
The plot of this episode begins with Miss Douce (who has bronze hair) and Miss Kennedy (who has golden hair) watching the viceregal cavalcade pass by from the Ormond Hotel bar, where they work. Kennedy considers Lady Dudley “exquisite,” while Douce notices a handsome man in the next carriage, and he sees her watching him. Meanwhile, Bloom walks nearby, carrying the novel The Sweets of Sin.
The episode’s action picks up immediately after “Wandering Rocks,” with one of the events that was frequently interpolated into it: Douce and Kennedy working in the bar, watching the cavalcade. By picking up this thread, Joyce implies that any of the moments in “Wandering Rocks” could be extended in this way—this adds to his suggestion that anyone can be a hero in the modern world, like his everyman Bloom.
Themes
One of the bar workers brings Douce and Kennedy their tea and rudely asks what they’re looking at out the window; Douce replies that she’s going to report his “impertinent insolence,” and he mocks her, saying “imperthnthn thnthnthn,” which is one of the lines from the episode’s introduction. While their tea brews, Douce and Kennedy chat about Douce’s sunburn and make fun of the “old fogey” who works in Boyd’s chemist shop. They laugh heartily and make a racket.
Even before it introduces any actual music, the episode is already quite musical in its style and tone. Joyce uses assonant sounds, repeats words, and carefully breaks up sentences to give his prose a rhythmic flow. Plus, Douce and Kennedy’s lively conversation, onomatopoetic jokes, and hearty laughter suggest that this episode is practically meant to be read aloud.
Themes
Bloom walks past statues of the Virgin Mary in a shop window and remembers staring at the statues of Greek goddesses in the museum, before Buck Mulligan started talking to him. Meanwhile, Miss Douce and Miss Kennedy continue to laugh uncontrollably, spitting out their tea and yelling in delight when they consider the ridiculous possibility of marrying the “old fogey” from Boyd’s shop. At the same moment, Bloom passes several pictures of virgins in the frame-maker’s shop window, which reminds him of Nannetti’s father (who made similar paintings) and the ad he still owes Nannetti. He remembers that it’s four o’clock and thinks of “the sweets of sin.”
With his characteristic ignorance about religion, Bloom ironically sexualizes the Virgin Mary. He returns to the binary opposition he outlined in “Lestrygonians”—on the one hand is the real but imperfect beauty of living, breathing women, and on the other is the eternal but unattainable beauty of the statues. By juxtaposing this with the barmaids Douce and Kennedy, Joyce further suggests that these women represent the mythical Greek Sirens. Bloom also adds the opposition from “Aeolus” between the creative Greeks and the practical Romans (or Catholics). Joyce may be faintly implying that the Greeks embraced “the sweets of sin” while the Catholics repress it. But he’s also undoubtedly referring to the four o’clock meeting between Molly and Blazes Boylan.
Themes
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Simon Dedalus walks into the bar and starts suggestively chatting up Miss Douce, who brushes off his advances. He orders a whiskey, and Douce quickly serves him after he pulls out a flute and starts playing. Lenehan enters the bar just when Bloom is reaching the Essex Bridge and thinking about writing back to Martha. Lenehan asks for Blazes Boylan, but Miss Kennedy says that Boylan isn’t around. Lenehan condescendingly tries to strike up a conversation with Kennedy, but she ignores him. The narration comments, “jingle jaunty jingle.”
By jumping around between different characters, this episode borrows subtly from the narrative structure of “Wandering Rocks.” This suggests that, while Joyce’s different episodes explore a wide variety of different narrative styles, they aren’t all necessarily independent—rather, they bleed into one another. It’s telling that Simon Dedalus orders a whiskey at the bar here, after meeting his starving daughter in the last episode and barely giving her any money—although it’s easy to miss, this is more clear evidence of his brazen failure as a father, and it helps put Stephen’s resentment toward his father in the proper context.
Themes
Lenehan turns to Simon Dedalus and starts chatting about his “famous son,” Stephen. But Simon doesn’t know anything about Stephen’s life. Lenehan reports that Dublin’s literary elite is fawning over Stephen, but Simon scarcely cares. Instead, Simon remarks to the barmaids that someone has moved the piano, and Douce speaks fondly of the young blind pianist who came to tune it that morning. A bell rings and the waiter Pat comes to retrieve a beer. As he impatiently awaits Blazes Boylan, Lenehan starts testing out the freshly tuned piano.
Simon’s ignorance about Stephen and indifference to his “fame” also underlines the vast distance and misunderstanding between them. That said, Lenehan has already proven himself to be an untrustworthy panderer, and this conversation shows that his tactics still aren’t working. Simon recognizes that someone moved the piano, which means that he’s clearly a regular at the bar. It’s important to know that the blind pianist is the same youngster whom Bloom helped cross the street at the end of “Lestrygonians.” He can’t see, but is an expert with sound—just like Stephen Dedalus in the “Proteus” episode, when he contemplated the nature of vision and hearing.
Themes
Just across the river, Bloom is buying stationery for his return letter to Martha. In the store, he notices a poster showing a mermaid, and he thinks of the love triangle in The Sweets of Sin. At just that moment, four o’clock, Bloom notices a jingling carriage crossing the Essex Bridge and feels that he ought to follow it. The shopgirl kindly reminds him that he hasn’t paid yet.
A cluster of motifs that represent adultery (Martha, the mermaids or sirens, and the Sweets of Sin love triangle) foreshadow Blazes Boylan’s jingling car, which appears immediately afterwards. Bloom’s curiosity gets the best of him, unlike in “Hades “ and “Lestrygonians,” when he tried his darndest to avoid looking at Boylan.
Themes
The piano tuner has accidentally left a tuning fork lying around in the Ormond bar. Someone strikes it, and it lets out a “dying call.” Simon Dedalus plays the piano and sings, “Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye,” while Lenehan keeps trying to get Miss Kennedy’s attention. She looks up from her book and tells him, “ask no questions and you’ll hear no lies.”
The tuning fork’s “dying call,” Simon Dedalus’s song, and Lenehan’s failed attempts to chat up Miss Kennedy all comment on the motif of rejection and failure. Of course, this is also a reference to how Boylan’s affair with Molly turns Bloom into a lonely failure. Kennedy’s response to Lenehan is not only a clever rebuke to a gossipy liar—it’s also a comment on Bloom’s struggle to manage his own curiosity in this episode. (He’s just curious enough to follow Boylan into the bar, but he knows that he has to keep a distance in order to protect his own feelings.)
Themes
Blazes Boylan marches into the bar and Lenehan greets him as “the conquering hero.” Meanwhile, Leopold Bloom, an “unconquered hero,” passes by and sees Boylan’s car. Confused, he realizes that he can enter the bar under the pretense of meeting Richie Goulding, who’s also inside. Miss Douce “outsmile[s]” Miss Kennedy to win Boylan’s attention and take his drink order. Across the pub, Bloom strikes up a conversation with Goulding. While Miss Douce pours Boylan’s drink order, Boylan and Lenehan gawk at her chest.
At first glance, it seems like the contrast between Lenehan’s description of Boylan and the novel’s description of Leopold Bloom refers to the fact that Boylan will sleep with (“conquer”) Molly, and Bloom will not. However, a closer look reveals that Bloom isn’t “unconquering,” but rather “unconquered.” This suggests that Bloom doesn’t really want to seduce anyone—he wants to be seduced or dominated. (This foreshadows an interesting sexual fantasy scene in “Circe.”) The attention that Boylan receives from Kennedy and Douce suggests that he’s popular and attractive, unlike his friend Lenehan and his rival Leopold Bloom.
Themes
The clock strikes four o’clock, which means it’s time for the Ascot Gold Cup results. Lenehan is eagerly hoping for the horse Sceptre to win. Bloom sits near the door with Goulding and his buddies, wondering if Boylan has forgotten his four o’clock appointment—or is just trying to “whet [the] appetite.” Lenehan repeatedly pleads with Miss Douce to do something, and she eventually obliges: she stretches out her elastic garter and lets it snap back against her bare thigh. Lenehan is thrilled, but Miss Douce calls him “the essence of vulgarity.” She smiles at Boylan instead. However, Boylan quickly downs his drink, gazes at her, and says he’s leaving.
It’s significant that the Ascot Gold Cup results come out at four, the exact time of Boylan’s appointment with Molly Bloom. This further cements the analogy between the horserace and the race for Molly’s heart between Bloom and Boylan. Sceptre represents Boylan, the favorite, while Throwaway represents Bloom, the underdog. Lenehan, the vulgar lowlife, falls for Douce’s siren song—but Boylan resists it and goes off to meet Molly. All things considered, there wasn’t much for Bloom to see here.
Themes
On their way out, Boylan and Lenehan run into Ben Dollard and Father Cowley. Simon Dedalus comes over to chat with Dollard, who encourages Simon to keep singing. A jingling sound means that Boylan’s car is leaving. Bloom and Douce both watch, and they’re both disappointed, although for very different reasons. Cowley, Simon Dedalus, and Dollard remember one night when Professor Goodwin sang horribly at the piano, then Dollard showed up without formal clothes. He managed to rent some from Molly, who (according to Simon) “has left off clothes of all descriptions.” Bloom remembers his conversation with Molly from the morning while the other men comment on her “buxom” beauty.
The jingling sound that represents Boylan and Molly’s affair first appeared in “Calypso,” when Bloom thought about repairing the jingling quoits (brass rings) on his and Molly’s bed. In this episode, the jingling is associated with Boylan’s car, which is taking him to Bloom’s house. This sound recurs periodically, suggesting that Bloom knows in the back of his mind what is happening. The other men’s comments about Molly suggest that they don’t notice Bloom at the table by the corner. Clearly, her looks—and perhaps her promiscuity—have made her famous in Dublin. Thus, Bloom feels like he’s the only one around who isn’t somehow sexually engaged with her.
Themes
Pat serves the food, and everyone at Bloom and Goulding’s table eats silently. Dollard sings love songs in his “booming” voice. Bloom again remembers Dollard borrowing his extremely tight pants. Miss Douce greets the solicitor George Lidwell as he enters the bar. Meanwhile, Bloom continues listening to the piano, thinking of Molly, and remembering the “jiggedy jingle jaunty jaunty” of concert music.
Dollard’s love-songs make it hard for Bloom to avoid thinking about Molly and Boylan’s affair. In fact, the songs provide an ideal environment for self-pity and regret. In an ironic twist of fate, then, Bloom first wandered in after Boylan because he hoped Boylan wouldn’t go to visit Molly. Then he ordered dinner, and now he’s stuck listening to love songs while Boylan is with Molly.
Themes
Father Cowley convinces Simon Dedalus to sing the aria “M’appari” from the opera Martha, then offers to accompany him on the piano. Richie Goulding says that his favorite opera is Bellini’s La Sonnambula, and he claims to remember seeing an excellent performance of it. Bloom notices that Goulding is sick from alcoholism and judges that he’s probably making up this story. Richie hums the aria “All Is Lost Now,” which reminds Bloom of the scene in Sonnambula when a woman sleepwalks to the man she desires—and, in turn, of Blazes Boylan’s “jingle jaunty.”
“M'appari,” a love song expressing a man’s hope that the title character of Martha will return to him, appears to refer to Bloom’s desire for the absent Martha Clifford. But this is actually a bit of a red herring, because even though he’s just bought paper to write Martha back, Bloom clearly doesn’t care much about her: all he can think about is Molly. So “M’appari” and the scene from La Sonnambula both represent Bloom’s hope that Molly will give up on Boylan and return to him. Meanwhile, the titles “All Is Lost Now” and La Sonnambula (“The Sleepwalker”) are both apt jokes about Goulding’s ill health. Of course, he’s only one of perhaps a dozen men in this novel who ruin their lives by drinking. Joyce is clearly trying to show that this was a significant social problem in Dublin.
Themes
Dollard and Cowley cheer Simon Dedalus on, and he begins to sing in a beautiful, sweeping voice that fills Bloom with a sense of peace and wonder. Fiddling with a rubber band in his pocket, Bloom thinks about how women love good singers, and imagines Blazes Boylan meeting Molly at his house. Bloom laments the fact that Simon didn’t make singing into his career, then recognizes the funny coincidence that he’s singing from an opera named Martha (just like his pen pal). He remembers the night he first met Molly: they played musical chairs, and then she sang to him. Simon Dedalus gets to the aria’s desperate and lonely climax, and Bloom feels “consumed” by the music. The audience applauds lavishly.
Simon Dedalus is a complex character, because even though he’s deeply cruel and irresponsible as a father, he’s also incredibly soulful and emotionally complex as an artist. In particular, since it’s a ballad to a departed woman, “M’appari” almost certainly also represents Simon Dedalus’s grief for his dead wife. Through Simon’s performance, then, Joyce asks whether art can make up for someone’s personal failings. He also asks this question of Stephen. (Of course, since Stephen and Simon represent Joyce and his father, Joyce was probably grappling with this question himself, too.) Bloom realizes the connection between the song and the message he’s about to write to his pen pal “Martha,” but his thoughts return to Molly, so it again becomes clear that his true loyalties lie with his wife.
Themes
The narration briefly cuts to Blazes Boylan, who is slowly making his way across town in his jingling carriage. Then it returns to the bar, where the men continue drinking and enjoying the music. Richie starts babbling incoherently about a time Simon sang the song “’Twas Rank and Fame,” and Bloom thinks about the tragic rift between Simon and Richie (who are brothers-in-law). He reflects on death, Dignam, and the fragility of human life.
Whenever the novel describes Boylan jingling across Dublin, it’s not clear whether it’s actually giving a faithful description of where he’s headed, or if it’s just describing how Bloom imagines his journey. But is there a difference? Boylan’s jingly jaunt is significant because of its psychological effect on Bloom, who is thinking about it in real time while it’s happening. There’s no question that Boylan will arrive, have sex with Molly, and symbolically usurp Bloom’s place in the home. The description of the journey serves primarily to highlight Bloom’s feeling of impending doom. So do his reflections on death and fate.
Themes
Miss Lydia Douce and Miss Mina Kennedy ward off men’s advances, and Bloom decides to start his letter to Martha on the spot, so he asks Pat for a pen and ink. He thinks about “musemathematics,” or how music is essentially just based on the mathematical relationships among sounds. Listening to Father Cowley improvise, Bloom feels like he’s being taken through an obstacle course. He reflects sympathetically on Milly’s lack of musical talent.
“Musemathematics” is an apt description of how music really works (since it’s reducible to mathematical intervals and sound waves), but it’s also a kind of literary commentary on the way that listening to music feels rhythmic and cyclical. It also arguably describes the way that Joyce has carefully structured this episode to read like music. Notably, Bloom’s rational, mathematical view of music is the opposite of Stephen’s artistic and philosophical approach to it.
Themes
When Pat brings the pen and ink, Bloom starts writing his letter secretly, inside the Freeman newspaper, so that the other men don’t see what he’s doing. He mostly writes a boring and conventional letter, but he also encloses some money and claims to be excited to meet Martha. But he starts to question why he’s writing to her in the first place. At the same moment, Blazes Boylan is jingling his way past Dlugacz’s butcher shop.
Bloom treats responding to Martha as a kind of chore—he’s going through the motions of seducing her, but his heart isn’t in it. It’s as though he were trying to compensate for Molly’s adultery through an affair of his own. At the end of the day, though—whether romantically or tragically—Bloom truly seems to love Molly and nobody else.
Themes
Richie Goulding notices Bloom writing and asks if it’s related to his advertising business. Bloom says yes, then finishes off the letter with a P.S. (“How will you […] punish me?”) and a P.P.S (“I feel so sad today”). He questions whether the P.P.S. is “too poetical,” just a result of the music, but he decides to send the letter anyway. He has to visit Barney Kiernan’s, so he can drop the letter off on his way. He tries to call Pat the waiter, but Pat doesn’t hear.
In this scene, as throughout this episode, Richie Goulding’s blissful ignorance about absolutely everything serves as a foil for Bloom’s tragic knowledge of Molly’s affair. Although Bloom keeps up the playful sexual teasing with his “P.S.,” the “P.P.S.” reveals his underlying sense of alienation and despair about his relationship with Molly, which is his actual motive for seeking out other women. In other words, the “P.S.” is based on the reason he claims to be contacting Martha (sex) and the “P.P.S.” is actually based on the real reason (a lack of love from Molly—which Martha can’t truly fix).
Themes
The clearly-intoxicated Bloom notices Lydia Douce telling the solicitor George Lidwell about her vacation and holding a seashell to his ear. Bloom thinks about Blazes Boylan’s “seaside girls” song and Lydia’s sunburn. Father Cowley plays a “light bright tinkling” song, and Bloom asks himself if there’s really a difference between noise and music. He realizes that Cowley is playing a dance from Don Giovanni, and he thinks about women’s voices and the way chamber music takes advantage of acoustics. Meanwhile, Blazes Boylan is finally reaching Bloom’s house and knocking on the door.
Don Giovanni, the story of Don Juan the seducer, is a blatant stand-in for Boylan. Meanwhile, Douce’s seashell and beach vacation are slightly more subtle references to the Sirens from the Odyssey. Like his musings on “musemathematics,” Bloom’s question about the difference between noise and music reveals that he primarily views the world in a scientific, rational way—which means that music could just be a certain kind of noise, if they’re both defined scientifically as a sequence of sound waves. But this question would likely never occur to Stephen Dedalus, for whom there’s no comparison because music is defined by its artistry, not its physical sound waves..
Themes
At Tom Kernan and Simon Dedalus’s request, Ben Dollard sings “The Croppy Boy,” an old Irish ballad about a young soldier betrayed by a British spy posing as a priest. Bloom knows he has to leave, so he calls out for Pat. A “Tap” sound breaks into the narrative every so often. Meanwhile, Ben Dollard reaches the part of the song where the croppy boy confesses to his sins—especially his failure to pray for his dead mother. After the sound of a cock crowing, Bloom thinks about all the effects music can have on people. He remembers going to the opera with Molly, talking to her about the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and realizing that all the men were looking at her instead of the stage.
“The Croppy Boy” has very important resonances with several of the main plots in Ulysses. Its central theme is betrayal, which clearly alludes to Molly’s betrayal of Bloom. The soldier’s sin is the same as Stephen Dedalus’s—failing to pray for his mother—and his death at the hands of a British spy also foreshadows Stephen’s fight with a British soldier during the climax of the novel in “Circe.” The song also foreshadows the political themes and conflicts that come to the fore in the next episode. The crowing cock during the song represents Blazes Boylan having sex with Molly.
Themes
As Dollard approaches the end of “The Croppy Boy,” Bloom realizes that he—like the character in the song—is the “last of his name and race,” because he doesn’t have a son. He wonders if it would be possible to have another, but he feels that he’s too old. He looks lustily at Lydia Douce and imagines playing her “three holes” like an instrument. He decides that Blazes Boylan’s audacity is responsible for his success with women. He watches Lydia’s beautiful eyes and “heaving bosom,” and he notices that she moves her hand up and down on the beerpull, as though masturbating it. The cock crows again, and the tapping sound returns.
Bloom explicitly associates his own disrupted bloodline with the croppy boy. He more subtly ties his bloodline to Ireland, the disposed nation that the boy was defending. And careful readers will know that Bloom’s quest to pass on his “name and race” and Ireland’s quest for autonomy are also parallels with Stephen Dedalus’s quest to create art. Meanwhile, all the sexual imagery in this section points to what Bloom has to do to rebuild his bloodline. The barmaids start to draw him in and distract him, just like the mythical sirens.
Themes
“The Croppy Boy” is about to end, and Bloom wants to get out of the bar before everyone else. He rushes his goodbyes and hears the closing verse from the hallway as he remembers his own loneliness. All the other men celebrate Dollard’s singing and invite him for a drink. (Richie Goulding is the exception: he sits alone at his table.) Outside, Bloom starts feeling gassy from all the cider, and he reflects on how music serves as a form of self-expression for the people around him.
Bloom’s thoughts return to the core feeling that haunts him throughout the entire day: alienation. (Ironically, he’s the one who decided to leave the bar alone instead of socializing.) When everybody celebrates Dollard’s singing, music starts to stand in for the sense of community and family that Bloom seeks—but he can’t fully participate in the festivities because music is so closely connected to Molly in his mind.
Themes
Lydia realizes that the approaching “Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.” sound may be the blind piano tuner coming to retrieve his lost tuning fork. Bloom’s thoughts start taking on the rhythmic quality of a drum, as he starts to think of everyone as a musician, working their own instruments on their own rhythm. As he lets out his gas, Bloom runs into “the whore of the lane,” a woman he’s met once before, who also previously knew Molly. He looks into an antiques shop window while she passes by. While the bar patrons continue to drink and celebrate, the lonely Bloom reads from the national hero Robert Emmet’s final words and lets out his ample accumulated gas.
The tapping sound, which has been steadily building throughout the second half of this episode, is associated with the uncontrollable march of fate (kind of like Boylan’s jingling car). Just as the blind piano tuner returns for something he has forgotten, Bloom refuses to look at a woman he had all but forgotten. (She appears to be Bridie Kelly, as the novel suggests in “Circe.”) Bloom’s commentary on everyone’s ability to create music fits neatly with Joyce’s attempt to find the deeper meanings and patterns hidden within everyday life. Surely enough, he ends this episode by making a musical contribution of his own.
Themes
