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Episode 10: Wandering Rocks
Themes
and Colors
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
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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.
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