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
This episode is written in the complicated and imprecise style of someone who is trying too hard to sound sophisticated. It opens with Bloom helping Stephen stand up. Stephen asks for something to drink, and Bloom suggests that “they might hit upon some drinkables” at the cabman’s shelter near Butt Bridge. They fail to hire a taxi and decide to walk, although Bloom is uncomfortable with his missing trouser button.
In the Odyssey, when Odysseus returns home to Ithaca, he visits the swineherd Eumaeus in disguise as a beggar. He invents an elaborate lie to explain who he is, and he waits at Eumaeus’s hut to reunite with his son Telemachus. This episode marks the beginning of the final section of the novel, which is focused on Bloom’s homecoming. The cabman Skin-the-Goat represents Eumaeus, and the episode is full of mistaken identities and tall tales that represent Odysseus’s disguise and invented backstory. Bloom’s meeting with Stephen also corresponds to Odysseus’s meeting with Telemachus. The episode is written in a version of Leopold Bloom’s voice. Its dreary, leisurely style reflects the fact that Bloom and Stephen are extremely tired. And its numerous clichés and clumsy turns of phrase indicate how Bloom might write if he finally got around to composing some short stories for the newspaper, like he’s always wanted to.
Themes
As they walk through Dublin, Bloom notes the passing scenery—the railway station, morgue, police station, and bakery—while Stephen thinks about Ibsen, the Norwegian playwright. Stephen is still very drunk, but Bloom is “in fact disgustingly sober.” Bloom lectures Stephen on the dangers of nighttown, drinking, and trusting the police. He points out that all but one of Stephen’s friends abandoned him, and Stephen comments that his one loyal friend, Lynch, ended up being “Judas.”
Because of their different priorities and worldviews, Bloom and Stephen think about totally different things while they walk through Dublin. It’s almost as if they were in two different worlds. Bloom is giving Stephen well-intentioned fatherly advice, which he hopes will both help the young man and fulfill his own need to feel important and helpful to others. But Stephen doesn’t seem to even understand that Bloom is going out of his way to help care for him.
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Stephen passes Gumley, a watchman who knows his father, and hides to avoid having to greet him. Then, Stephen runs into his friend Corley, who is broke and unemployed. Stephen suggests that Corley take over his job at Mr. Deasy’s school, but Corley explains that he was a terrible student. Stephen admits that he doesn’t have a place to sleep, and Corley recommends a boarding-house.
Corley’s situation clearly resembles Stephen’s, but without all the poetic and philosophical baggage. Stephen is a starving artist, but Corley is just starving. He clearly doesn’t see that Stephen’s situation is similar, and he’s just as shameless as Stephen about asking for money and favors.
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Corley asks Stephen for money, and Stephen sticks his hand in his pocket and realizes that his money is missing. He finds some coins in his other pocket and lends one to Corley, thinking it’s a penny. (It’s actually two and a half shillings.) Corley vaguely promises to pay Stephen back, comments that he’s seen Bloom before, and asks if Stephen can put a word in with Bloom about an advertising job with Boylan for the Hely’s sandwichboards.
Corley thinks that Stephen is much better off than he really is, and his promise to pay Stephen back is obviously unreliable. Like when he paid Bella Cohen the wrong amount at the brothel, Stephen is careless and absurdly generous. His kindness resembles Bloom’s, but unlike Bloom, he’s not prudent or intelligent about what he gives away—so he lets others take advantage of him. It’s no wonder that all his friends (especially Buck Mulligan) mooch off of him and usurp his house.
Themes
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Bloom watches Corley and Stephen’s conversation from a distance, glancing critically at Corley’s poor attire. After Corley leaves, Stephen walks over to Bloom and mentions the advertising job, but Bloom avoids the topic. Instead, he asks how much Stephen lent Corley and where Stephen plans to sleep, since the Martello tower in Sandycove is too far. Bloom asks why Stephen moved out of his father Simon Dedalus’s house, and Stephen says it was “to seek misfortune.” Bloom praises Simon and suggests that he would be happy to have Stephen return.
Bloom connects the dots between Stephen’s imprudence with Corley, his relationship with Buck Mulligan and Haines, and his loss of the Martello tower. He’s clearly aware of Stephen’s dilemma and looking for a serious solution to it, as Stephen still doesn’t have any sort of plan. But Stephen just responds to Bloom with sarcastic comments. Bloom doesn’t understand Stephen’s difficult relationship with his father, and Stephen isn’t interested in Bloom’s advice. In a way, Bloom is trying to help Stephen find a new home, and Stephen is refusing to cooperate.
Themes
Bloom remembers how Buck Mulligan and Haines left Stephen behind at the train station. Meanwhile Stephen remembers having breakfast at home with his siblings. Bloom comments that Stephen shouldn’t trust Buck Mulligan, who is clearly taking advantage of him. Bloom doesn’t know what to make of Stephen’s “morose expression.”
The novel repeatedly hints that Bloom watched Stephen get into a fight with Buck and Haines in the train station between the end of “Oxen of the Sun” and the beginning of "Circe.” Again, fully understanding what’s going on in this novel requires filling in a lot of blanks. Bloom and Stephen continue to talk past each other. Stephen has a “morose expression” because he’s thinking about his family and confronting his conflicting feelings about home. But Bloom has already moved onto the topic of Buck and Haines, and he has no idea what Stephen is thinking.
Themes
Bloom and Stephen pass a group of Italian men arguing by an ice cream cart, then they reach the modest wooden cabman’s shelter, which is supposedly run by the famous Invincible Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris. Bloom and Stephen order food while the other patrons stare at them. Bloom comments on the beauty of the Italian language, but Stephen points out that the Italians outside were arguing about money. The shelter-keeper brings their coffee and bun, and Stephen declares that sounds and names are meaningless.
The Cabman’s shelter represents Eumaeus’s hut, where Odysseus first rested and hid out upon his return home to Ithaca. Joyce plays a bit of a trick on the reader by making Bloom and Stephen’s conversation totally boring and anticlimactic. In other words, the book has been structured to make the reader eagerly await Bloom and Stephen’s meeting, which brings the novel’s main storylines together and symbolically gives both men the family figures they secretly desire (son and father). The coffee and bun clearly represent the eucharist—or the communion between father and son. But Stephen and Bloom are totally oblivious to the profound importance of this meeting, and their conversation is almost comically inharmonious. Bloom tries to show off his intelligence, but Stephen easily upstages him. Meanwhile, Stephen is still thinking about art and existential questions, and he just doesn’t care what Bloom has to say. Perhaps Joyce is suggesting that people often don’t even understand the deeper significance of their lives, which are often far more meaningful than they realize.
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A drunken red-haired sailor asks for Stephen’s name, and when Stephen says “Dedalus,” he asks if Stephen knows Simon Dedalus. Stephen says he’s “heard of him.” The sailor declares that Simon Dedalus is a true Irishman and acts out a story about him shooting eggs off bottles while performing for the circus in Stockholm. The man introduces himself as Murphy and says that he lives by the harbor. He reports that his wife is there, but he hasn’t seen her in seven years because he’s been sailing. Bloom imagines Murphy returning to find her with a new husband and family.
Red-haired Murphy is an obvious Odysseus figure: he’s a sailor, he’s been gone for several years, and he’s full of wild stories that seem like elaborate lies. Just like Odysseus returns to his home in Ithaca long before visiting Penelope, Murphy has inexplicably decided to come hang out at the cabman’s shelter rather than seeing his wife. Of course, Bloom (the other Odysseus) imagines Murphy’s wife meeting the same fate as Molly. (This scene is based on the Tennyson poem Enoch Arden.) Unlike Odysseus’s wife Penelope, Molly and Murphy’s wife (in Bloom’s imagination) do let the suitors into their beds. And like most of the other adults in the novel, Murphy immediately views Stephen as Simon Dedalus’s son, which shows that Stephen still has a long way to go if he truly wants to forge an independent identity as an artist.
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Murphy explains that he came in on the three-mast ship Rosevan with bricks that morning. He talks about sailing all over the world and shows a picture of native people he met in Bolivia. Bloom sees that this picture is really a postcard from Chile. Bloom starts fantasizing about his plan to take a trip to London, perhaps in combination with a future concert tour of Molly’s. He also muses that opening more travel routes between England and Ireland would be a great business opportunity, and that it’s a shame that common people can’t afford to travel. He thinks of the great tourist spots in Ireland and wonders if tourist traffic leads to new travel routes, or new routes create tourist traffic.
Murphy’s ship seems to be the same one that Stephen saw on the horizon at the very end of “Proteus.” Bloom is both immediately suspicious of Murphy’s elaborate stories and also clearly inspired by them. Characteristically, Bloom sees travel as an opportunity to both build a business and impress Molly—but the reader should be used to these two main obsessions by now. Of course, by having his hero fantasize about visiting London after hearing Murphy’s tall tales, Joyce is also playing a joke on the reader: Bloom has already been on an epic odyssey of his own during the day.
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Murphy continues telling his stories, recounting a stabbing he witnessed in Italy and pulling out a knife to re-enact it. He comments on the Invincibles’ Phoenix Park murders, and Bloom and Stephen are glad to see that Skin-the-Goat doesn’t notice what Murphy is saying. Bloom asks Murphy if he’s “seen the rock of Gibraltar,” but he can’t figure out what Murphy’s grimacing expression means. He asks what year, but Murphy says he’s “tired of all them rocks in the sea” and stops talking. Meanwhile, Bloom ponders the vastness of the ocean, wonders why people seek it out, decides there probably isn’t any good reason, and concludes that sailors and harbor-masters perform a great public service.
The Phoenix Park murders are a tactless conversation topic because Skin-the-Goat was (allegedly) involved in them. Bloom’s reference to Gibraltar is another indirect comment about Molly. (She grew up in Gibraltar.) Bloom’s mind always seems to wander back to her, no matter what—which is arguably the most sincere possible expression of his love. Murphy’s response is bizarre. The Strait of Gibraltar is one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, so if Murphy has never heard of Gibraltar, it’s unlikely that he’s really sailed around the world. Like his monologue at the end of “Nausicaa,” Bloom’s tired thoughts blur into one another and don’t reach any clear conclusion. Instead, they remind the reader of his major interests and concerns in life: science, the public good, and the strangeness of people’s behavior when viewed from a distance.
Themes
Murphy comments that one of his colleagues gave up sailing to be a valet, while his teenaged son Danny just left a stable job to become a sailor. The sailor scratches at the tattoo of an anchor on his chest and complains of lice. He shows off his other tattoos: the number sixteen and the profile of a Greek man named Antonio. He pulls on his skin to make Antonio smile, which the other men find amusing, then reports that Antonio got eaten by sharks.
Murphy points out that the grass is always greener on the other side: sailors dream of moving back home, while young men like his son dream of the open seas. This indirectly comments on Bloom and Stephen’s situation: they dream of both home and travel. Bloom dreams of building a happy home with Molly and taking her to England, while Stephen urgently needs to find a place to stay and would do anything to return to Paris. It’s unclear what (if anything) Murphy’s tattoos mean. But nothing about the man is certain, anyways. When it comes to Murphy, everything is up for interpretation.
Themes
A raggedy prostitute passes the cabman’s shelter, and Bloom anxiously hides his face behind a newspaper because he realizes that he knows her. (She’s the woman he saw outside the Ormond Hotel, after the concert in the “Sirens” episode.) Bloom tells Stephen that he can’t believe how any reasonable man would sleep with “a wretched creature like that,” but Stephen comments that people also do far worse in Ireland by buying and selling souls. Bloom comments that the government should license and regulate prostitutes.
Seeing the prostitute launches Bloom into the past. She reminds him of his shameful actions in the past and the shame he felt after leaving the Ormond Hotel (when Molly was with Boylan). Of course, she is also clearly a reference to Bloom and Stephen’s visit to the brothel in nighttown just a few minutes ago. Bloom’s comment suggests that he’s ashamed of having gone to nighttown, and he’s still repressing all the demons he confronted during “Circe.” Stephen also brings up one of the key metaphors in “Circe”—that the church and government in Ireland prostitute its people and resources to the British
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Bloom asks Stephen what he believes about the soul. Bloom himself believes in the physical “brainpower” that scientists have discovered, while Stephen recites the Church’s official definition of the soul as an immortal, incorruptible simple substance. Bloom protests that people aren’t “simple” and says that there’s an obvious difference between humans’ great material achievements and the work of an immaterial, supernatural God. Stephen nonchalantly claims that the Bible has proven God’s existence, while Bloom proclaims that the Bible was probably put together by a bunch different people, perhaps like the so-called works of Shakespeare.
This conversation is full of dramatic irony, because the reader already knows that Stephen doesn’t believe any of what he’s telling Bloom. Stephen has abandoned religion and started to form his own ideas about the soul, the universe, and the meaning of life. So when he recites the church’s formal definitions, he’s just being polite. Likely, he learned these definitions as a child by studying catechisms in school. Of course, this exchange also foreshadows the novel’s next episode, which is written in the form of a secular catechism. Throughout this conversation, Bloom also dramatically misunderstands Stephen’s arguments, which reveals his superficial understanding of religion. For instance, when Stephen says that the soul is a “simple” substance, he’s referring to the idea that the soul can’t be broken down into anything smaller or more elemental. But Bloom mistakenly thinks that Stephen is arguing that people are simple (in the sense of uncomplicated or straightforward). On the flipside, Bloom’s faith in science is so great that it’s practically religious: for instance, he believes in the nonsense idea that “brainpower,” the physical version of the soul, is a real and measurable substance.
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Stirring the horrible coffee, Bloom muses that the cabman’s shelter does a great social service by providing working-class Dubliners with sober entertainment. But he also resents how little they once paid Molly to play the piano there, and he decides that the shelter needs a sanitation inspection. Bloom gives Stephen the coffee and urges him to eat better, and Stephen tells Bloom to put away a knife that “reminds [him] of Roman history.”
In his sleepy stream of consciousness, Bloom returns to some of his typical eclectic concerns: social responsibility, sanitation, and Molly. This episode’s narrator is so closely attached to Bloom’s perspective that the reader has no idea what Stephen is thinking or doing. For the first time, then, the reader sees Stephen as his friends and acquaintances might. When he mentions Roman history, for instance, this seems totally random and obscure. It’s not clear what he’s thinking about or referring to. Of course, it would be possible to narrate this whole scene from Stephen’s perspective, too—and that would make Bloom’s advice and declarations look just as strange and pointless as Stephen’s do here. Through this technique, Joyce is again reminding his readers that everyone’s perspective is totally filtered through their own rich interior life, and a story can entirely change depending on the perspective of the person who tells it.
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Bloom asks whether Stephen thinks Murphy’s stories are true, and he points out that the man could just as well be a convict or a liar as a sailor. At the same time, Bloom comments, he’s seen enough in his time to know that the stories certainly could be true. He points out that Italians and Spaniards are especially passionate, and he starts talking about Molly (who, he argues, is basically Spanish). Stephen starts rambling about Italian artists, and Bloom argues that the Mediterranean sun is responsible for Italian and Spanish people’s remarkable temperament—and their women’s figures, he adds, remembering the statues at the Kildare Street museum.
The problem with Murphy’s stories isn’t that they’re lies: it’s that nobody can tell if they’re true or not. Kind of like Ulysses, Murphy’s tales are entirely up to interpretation. Their meaning depends on the questions and perspectives that each listener (or reader) brings to them. Bloom’s comment about passionate Italians is a reference to Murphy’s story about a stabbing in Italy. Of course, it also recalls the Italian men at the ice cream cart earlier in this episode—Bloom thought they were chattering passionately, but Stephen speaks Italian, and he pointed out that they were actually arguing about money. These opposite conclusions illustrate Joyce’s point about the way perspective affects interpretation. In this section, something similar happens: Bloom starts fantasizing about Mediterranean women (namely Molly, who’s always on his mind) while Stephen thinks about Mediterranean artists.
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The other men in the shelter chat about shipwrecks, and then the sailor Murphy walks out to the street, drinks from one of the bottles he’s concealing in his back pocket, and starts urinating. This disturbs the sentry Gumley—a hopeless alcoholic who falls right back asleep. Meanwhile, the men discuss Ireland’s struggling shipping industry, and Skin-the-Goat suggests that a certain shipwreck in Galway was really an English plot to stop a development project in Galway Bay. Murphy returns inside and sings a vulgar limerick.
Murphy’s drinking is pretty ironic, because Bloom was just thinking about how the cabman’s shelter does a great public service by giving Dubliners an alcohol-free hangout. But even the sober cabbies pass their time listening to the one drunk man among them. Gumley accentuates this irony by falling asleep drunk on the job—he’s just as guilty of endangering the public as Murphy. Perhaps this is a metaphor for the British soiling the streets of Ireland, while the Irish are too distracted to protect themselves. Similarly, while Skin-the-Goat spins serious conspiracy theories about the English sabotaging Irish ships, the actual Irish sailor in their midst, Murphy, is too drunk to get the point.
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Skin-the-Goat praises Ireland’s rich natural resources and fertile soil, then warns that England’s “day of reckoning” is coming soon. He proclaims that Ireland will bring England down and tells his compatriots to stay in their country and work for its common benefit. Murphy proclaims that Ireland’s sailors and soldiers are the British Empire’s “backbone,” but Skin-the-Goat argues that no Irishman should serve the British.
Skin-the-Goat’s rhetoric is similar to the citizen’s ideas about Ireland in Barney Kiernan’s. Murphy’s point about Irish sailors in the British Empire might be the best praise that he can offer his country when he’s overseas. But in Skin-the-Goat’s shelter, this kind of talk doesn’t fly. After the citizen’s fight with Bloom and the English soldiers’ fight with Stephen, readers might expect a similar brawl to break out between Murphy and Skin-the-Goat. But luckily, it’s late and everyone’s really tired, so they just move on.
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Meanwhile, Bloom thinks that the British are much stronger than they let on. But he doesn’t want to get involved in the conversation. Bloom remembers that Skin-the-Goat is a known criminal—although, Bloom admits, his political courage is admirable. That said, Skin-the-Goat only drove the getaway car, and he’s long past his prime. Bloom tells Stephen about his fight with the citizen and repeats his punchline: that Christ was Jewish. Stephen expresses his agreement in Latin. Bloom argues that countries should cooperate on the basis of equality and proclaims that he “resent[s] violence and intolerance in any shape or form,” which are always counterproductive. All these disputes over honor and power are really about money, he continues.
Bloom’s train of thought reveals the central differences between the citizen and Skin-the-Goat: the citizen’s politics are all talk, but Skin-the-Goat actually takes action. As Bloom again lays out his political views, readers should ask which side he falls on. He’s certainly happy to talk, but is he willing to act on behalf of his values? These values are tolerance, equality, and peaceful deliberation. He imagines a modern, liberal, capitalist society, in which everyone is equal and contributes to the common good. While this view became normal in the 20th century, it certainly wasn’t in the 19th. So when Bloom repeats his point that Christ was Jewish, he is also indirectly referring to his own political vision.
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Bloom tells Stephen that Jews have enriched Europe, not corrupted it, because of their practical spirit. He thinks that Catholicism makes people weak by telling them to focus on going to heaven, rather than living better lives on Earth. He believes that the truly important goal is for everyone to have a decent income, regardless of their identities or beliefs, as long as they’re willing to work. “Count me out,” Stephen replies when Bloom mentions working. Bloom clarifies that “literary labour” counts too, and he says that Stephen should be able to make a good salary with all his education. Stephen jokes that he doesn’t belong to Ireland: Ireland belongs to him. Bloom doesn’t understand, and Stephen proposes changing the subject.
Bloom’s political vision is also specifically secular: he thinks people’s lives should revolve around money. Of course, this is incomprehensible to Stephen, who thinks life should revolve around creativity and art. So when Stephen comments “count me out,” he isn’t just opting out of work: he’s also rejecting Bloom’s entire worldview. He doesn’t want his art to be a job like anyone else’s. This is why he says that Ireland belongs to him: he thinks that he should assert his power over the world through his art. He wants to conquer, not just make a good salary and contribute to his community.
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Bloom is confused at Stephen’s response, and he starts to wonder what’s responsible for the young man’s bad mood: the night’s revelries or a poor upbringing. He thinks about other brilliant young people who let themselves fall into “premature decay,” like the eccentric O’Callaghan, who started walking around in a paper suit and then got in trouble with the law. Even royals and other nobility behave scandalously and immorally from time to time—perhaps, Bloom hypothesizes, this could be because society forces people to dress differently depending on gender.
Throughout most of the novel, Joyce heavily implied that what Bloom and Stephen most needed was, basically, each other. But in this episode, as Bloom tries and fails to save Stephen, it becomes clear that they’re like oil and water. Stephen doesn’t want to be helped, and the men’s worldviews are opposite. Stephen is stubborn and egotistical, while Bloom is sympathetic and tolerant (even during his assessment of Stephen in this passage). Bloom views Stephen’s hierarchical, self-centered value system as a personality flaw, because it will cause him to fall out of line with society. But Stephen basically thinks that it’s not his problem if society doesn’t accept him.
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Regardless, Bloom concludes that befriending Stephen was a good investment: the boy might get rich on his wits, the intellectual stimulation was enjoyable, and the men shared an interesting adventure. Bloom considers trying to write about what he saw and hopes he can make money for it. He scans the Telegraph headlines and reads Hynes’s obituary of Dignam. He points out that, in the list of mourners, his name was misspelled “Boom,” while “Stephen Dedalus B.A.” was erroneously listed as present. Stephen asks if Deasy’s letter is in the paper, but he turns it into an elaborate Biblical joke. Bloom gives Stephen the corresponding section and then skims through the horserace results.
Bloom justifies his relationship with Stephen in the practical terms that are most familiar to him: money and curiosity. The novel hints that the story Bloom considers writing is actually this episode, which is written in his voice. This creates some satisfying irony. Stephen repeatedly tried to get his ideas, poems, and conversations published during the day. But instead, the only things he really got published were Deasy’s letter and this poorly-written episode by Bloom. This implies that his individualistic mindset isn’t well suited to get him an audience. Similarly, the horserace results seem to support Bloom’s view of the world, because they show the underdog Throwaway (who represents Bloom) winning in a last-minute surprise. On the other hand, Hynes’s obituarymakes Stephen, the individualist, stand out because of his degree—even though he didn’t actually go to the funeral. Meanwhile, Hynes misspelled “Bloom,” even though Bloom attended the funeral and gave Hynes a list of names as a service to the community.
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The cabmen chat about whether Parnell will return to Ireland. Bloom thinks that this rumor is bogus: Parnell is dead and people aren’t willing to accept it. He remembers once helping Parnell pick up his hat. Then, he starts thinking about a famous case when an impostor falsely claimed to be a lost nobleman.
The Irish nationalist political leader Charles Stewart Parnell died in 1891, thirteen years before the events of Ulysses. The cabmen’s wishful conspiracy theory shows that they’re hoping to free Ireland from English rule through a kind of divine intervention: they want a second coming for the messiah Parnell. This connects to Bloom and Stephen’s central quests in the novel. Like the Irish nationalists, Bloom wants to achieve “Home Rule” (he wants to win Molly back and become the patriarch of his family). Stephen also wants to become independent, but in the sense of breaking from his family and the past. They have two options: they can act, or they can wait for divine intervention (like the cabmen waiting for Parnell to rise from the dead, like Christ).
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The cabmen chat derisively about Kitty O’Shea, the woman who ruined Parnell’s political career, then break out into laughter. Meanwhile, Bloom thinks about Parnell and O’Shea’s love letters and the bombastic trial that took them down. He thinks that O’Shea’s husband was simply inadequate, leading her to fall for the “real man,” Parnell, who forgot his own wife in the process. Bloom asks if married couples can truly love each other, and he laments the way Parnell’s allies turned against him. He reflects on how Dublin has changed with the times, and he says that O’Shea was half-Spanish, just like Molly.
Parnell fell into public disgrace when his years-long affair with the noblewoman Kitty O’Shea went public. Many Irish people blamed this affair for delaying Ireland’s independence by several decades. This brings the novel back to one of its central metaphors: adultery is like betraying one’s country. This association was all too literal in the Odyssey, Hamlet, and Parnell’s career. Political power and intimate life were completely intertwined. Of course, Bloom views Parnell’s affair with Kitty O’Shea through the lens of Molly’s affair with Boylan. Thus, he puts himself in the position of O’Shea’s husband and Boylan in the place of Parnell, the “real man.”
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Bloom tells Stephen about the resemblance between Molly and Kitty O’Shea. Stephen responds with a typically incomprehensible rant about the Spanish. Bloom shows Stephen a picture of Molly standing at a piano and asks if she looks Spanish. Stephen stares at Molly’s chest, and Bloom thinks about how a different outfit could have better accentuated her curves. Bloom considers letting Stephen keep looking at the photo for a few minutes, because he feels an urge to go into the street to “satisfy a possible need.” But he decides against it. Bloom feels a sense of appreciation for Stephen’s presence, then starts thinking about affairs and love triangles.
As always, Bloom finds a way to bring the conversation back to Molly. (He’s kind of like the moth who constantly circles the light in Bella Cohen’s brothel during “Circe.”) He obviously loves showing off his beautiful wife to other people. He even appears to imagine that Stephen would enjoy Molly’s company. When he references love triangles, it becomes absolutely clear that he’s thinking about replacing Boylan with another “real man”—Stephen. In other words, not only is Stephen a symbolic son figure for Bloom, but Bloom is also thinking about how to set Stephen up with Molly. Unfortunately, there’s no indication of what Stephen thinks about Molly, or whether he understands Bloom’s preposterous idea.
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Bloom’s mind returns to Parnell, “Erin’s uncrowned king,” and the way he shaped his public image after his affair became public. Again, Bloom returns to his memory of helping Parnell pick up his hat. Bloom feels offended when the cabmen laugh about Parnell, acting as if they knew the whole story. In reality, Bloom thinks adultery is a private matter—except when the husband is alright with it. For instance, sometimes they approve when their wives get tired of marriage and engage in “polite debauchery” with younger men.
Bloom’s thoughts about Parnell help explain his motives for imagining a love triangle with Molly and Stephen. He seems to think Molly could have an affair with Stephen without threatening Bloom’s role as the “uncrowned king” of their home. In other words, Stephen would sexually satisfy Molly, thereby fixing the problem in their home, without usurping Bloom’s power over that home like Boylan. Now, Bloom’s memory of helping Parnell with his hat resembles his fantasy of serving as a hat-rack for Blazes Boylan during “Circe.” Bloom thinks that he can’t be the masculine hero who saves his family (or Ireland). But he can be the obliging husband who facilitates the hero’s journey by inviting him into his home. Ironically, of course, Joyce has written this novel the other way around: Bloom is its hero, and in these final episodes Stephen is merely a device to help Bloom get home and reconnect with Molly.
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Bloom regrets the fact that Stephen prefers to sleep with prostitutes, rather than looking for “Miss Right.” Feeling protective, Bloom asks when Stephen last had a meal, and he’s “literally astounded” when Stephen says that he hasn’t eaten since yesterday. Bloom sympathizes with Stephen, who reminds him of his own idealistic flirtation with politics as a young man.
Despite Bloom’s fantasies about bringing Stephen into his home, the differences between the men keep multiplying. (Bloom believes in love and Stephen doesn’t; Bloom is obsessed with food and Stephen doesn’t eat.) Bloom keeps offering his fatherly advice and concern, but Stephen keeps turning him down. So Bloom continues looking for another angle that he can use to get through to Stephen.
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It’s nearly one o’clock, and Bloom thinks it’s time to head home. He worries that Molly will react badly if he takes Stephen with him (like the time he brought a dog home). But Stephen also clearly can’t make it home to Sandycove on his own. Bloom wonders if he can invite Stephen over and help him out financially without offending him. Meanwhile, Bloom thinks that the sailor Murphy is more likely headed to the brothel than to his wife at home. Bloom laughs to himself about his great realization that God is Jewish. Pocketing the photo of Molly, he asks if Stephen wants to come “talk things over” at his home and have some cocoa. Stephen doesn’t respond.
Although the reader doesn’t have access to Stephen’s inner monologue during this episode of the novel, it’s still clear that he has nowhere to spend the night. Unsurprisingly, practical Bloom is better suited to solve this problem. He offers to have Stephen over out of fatherly concern, although careful readers will remember that he and Molly are also trying to rent out a room. (The hint is the “Unfinished Apartments” flyer in “Wandering Rocks.”) Stephen’s lack of response seems to be an improvement: at least he isn’t pushing Bloom away.
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Bloom imagines “all kinds of Utopian plans” for what Stephen can achieve as a writer and singer. The cabdriver reads out news about the cabdrivers’ association, then passes the newspaper over to Murphy the sailor, who puts on thick green goggles and reads articles about sports. Bloom gets up, pays the bill, and leads Stephen out to the street.
Bloom is trying to develop a vision for Stephen’s life, but he also probably wants to profit off of Stephen. Although he wants to be a father figure, he may be going too far and imposing these ideas on Stephen, when Stephen’s greatest wish is to be independent and autonomous, an artist beholden to nothing but the truth.
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On the way out of the cabbies’ shelter, Stephen asks Bloom why cafes leave the chairs on top of the tables at night. Bloom explains that it’s for cleaning in the mornings. Bloom holds Stephen’s arm to help him walk, and the men pass Gumley’s shelter.
When Stephen asks Bloom this question and they walk arm-in-arm, this shows that Stephen is finally opening up to Bloom and might even be taking his advice seriously. The men are starting to enter each other’s worlds, even if only a tiny bit. The answer to Stephen’s question about the tables and chairs is banal and obvious to Bloom—Stephen just doesn’t know much about everyday matters like cleaning a café. But this works the other way around, too: Bloom’s thoughts and questions about religion seemed just as ridiculous to Stephen.
Themes
Stephen and Bloom start talking about music. Bloom finds Wagner “too heavy” but likes the composers Mercadante, Meyerbeer, and Mozart. He also prefers Catholic sacred music to Protestant hymns. He praises Molly’s talent singing Rossini and Don Giovanni, and he comments on Simon Dedalus’s excellent rendition of “M’appari” earlier that night. Stephen, on the other hand, talks about older composers who were contemporaries with Shakespeare.
Having opened up to one another, Stephen and Bloom naturally touch on the one interest they genuinely do share in common: music. Still, their specific tastes differ. Bloom likes digestible, lighthearted music, and to Stephen he probably looks unsophisticated. Meanwhile, Stephen’s tastes reflect his seriousness and intellectualism—he apparently listens to music to be impressed by artistic genius, not to enjoy himself. Bloom’s repetition of composers whose names start with “M” is a nod to the person he’s always really thinking about when he talks about music: Molly.
Themes
Bloom and Stephen pass a brutish old horse, which is dragging a street-sweeping brush behind it. Bloom pities the animal. He comments that Molly will be glad to meet Stephen, as they’re both passionate about music, and Stephen starts singing a German song about sirens calling out to men from across the sea. Bloom compliments Stephen’s voice and points out that he could build a successful career as a singer and still dedicate his spare time to literature. But Bloom suggests that Stephen distance himself from his nasty friend (Buck Mulligan). Just then, the horse raises its tail and drops three round turds on the street. Then, Stephen finishes his song. The horse driver watches him and Bloom from a distance.
The old horse is a reference to Argos, Odysseus’s dog. When Odysseus returns from the Trojan War, he finds Argos on top of a pile of cow manure, looking old and sick. Thus, Odysseus’s meeting with Argos shows how his duty to fight in the war has tragically prevented him from taking care of the people most loyal to him. Arguably, this is similar to the relationship between Bloom (who loyally takes care of Stephen) and Stephen (who ignores Bloom because he’s focused on his artistic calling). Of course, this horse is also a reference to the Ascot Gold Cup horserace, which Bloom’s alter ego Throwaway managed to win at the last moment. Besides referring to the “Sirens” episode, Stephen’s song is also a metaphor for Bloom’s distance from Molly, the lure of the exotic, and the temptation of selling out to become a commercial artist. The defecating horse is typical Joyce. Ironically, it’s cleaning and dirtying the streets at the same time. Its three turds might represent the triad of Stephen, Molly, and Bloom, or the unholy trinity of Buck Mulligan, Haines, and Stephen. This may also be a metaphor for Stephen’s feelings about Bloom’s proposal that he should sing commercially.
Themes
