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Episode 16: Eumaeus
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 consists of a series of questions and answers, a format resembling a catechism (a theological manual explaining the church’s official beliefs). It asks about Bloom and Stephen’s “parallel courses” through Dublin, from the cabman’s shelter to Bloom’s home. It describes their conversation topics, which ranged from music and literature to women and the church. They both enjoy music, continental Europe, sex, and challenging political and religious orthodoxy. But Stephen rejects Bloom’s self-help advice, while Bloom rejects Stephen’s belief in “the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature.” Bloom attributes Stephen’s collapse to alcohol and hunger, while Stephen blames the passing cloud that they both saw in the sky that morning.
At the end of the Odyssey, Odysseus and his son Telemachus unite to slaughter the numerous suitors who have assembled in the hopes of marrying Odysseus’s wife Penelope. In this episode, the novel’s symbolic father and son, Bloom and Stephen, also go to the father’s palace (Bloom’s house). But they don’t kill anyone. In fact, they also don’t really get along or accomplish anything. Instead, they travel in “parallel courses”—they go together, without intersecting. As this opening passage makes clear, their worldviews are based on opposite principles. Bloom’s life is rooted in the rationality of modern science and business, while Stephen’s life is rooted in faith—no longer faith in God, but now in art. By presenting their journey home as a catechism, Joyce suggests that this episode will introduce his readers to some unified doctrine or worldview. But it doesn’t. However, it does show how Stephen’s visit allows Bloom to find a new sense of clarity and security in his home. It also shows how Bloom’s analytic, scientific mindset can be the basis for a new kind of literature that satisfies Stephen’s need to affirm the human spirit. In other words, this episode does give the reader the materials they need to integrate Bloom and Stephen into something unified, even if the men don’t manage to do it themselves. In particular, this episode also gives numerous relevant details that shed light on earlier events in the novel. It’s full of extremely precise information about Bloom’s evening, home, and life. At the same time, it also mostly ignores his and Stephen’s feelings, hopes, and fears because of its seemingly objective perspective. Even if their individual voices are missing, however, it’s usually possible to figure out what they’re thinking by interpretation.
Themes
Bloom and Stephen also discuss whether the street lights harm tree growth, something Bloom also mentioned on late-night walks with other men between 1884 and 1893. Bloom reflects that people lose friends as they age—while they’re born as “one” among “many” and live “as any with any,” they become “none” when they die.
Although these questions and answers just give the reader a hyper-specific list of details about Bloom’s past and thoughts, their point is to show that Bloom is deeply lonely. He hasn’t had a late-night walk with a friend in over a decade, and he feels his individual identity disappearing over the years, as he gradually fades away into the crowd. This age difference may explain the contrast between Bloom’s collectivism and Stephen’s individualism.
Themes
When they arrive at Bloom’s house, Bloom realizes that he doesn’t have his keys. Rather than waking up Molly, he climbs over the railing, endures a fall, and enters the house through the basement. In the kitchen, he lights the gas and a candle, and then he lets Stephen in from the inside. He sets up chairs in the kitchen, strikes a “lucifer match,” and lights a fire on the hearth, which leads Stephen to reflect on other people who have lit fires for him—like his father, his aunt Sara, his mother, and various people at his school and college. He also sees laundry drying on the wall.
Themes
Bloom fills the kettle with water. The novel describes in detail how this water flows down from Roundwood Reservoir through Dublin’s water system. Similarly, it explains Bloom’s wonder at water’s “universality” and remarkable chemical and geographical properties. He sets the kettle on the flame and washes his hands with the soap he bought earlier that day. Stephen, who is afraid of water and hasn’t bathed in almost a year, refuses to wash his hands. Instead of advising Stephen on his hygiene and diet, Bloom chalks it up to his “erratic originality of genius” and marvels at his self-confidence. The novel explains in detail how water boils in a kettle.
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Bloom is planning to shave, and the novel explains his various reasons for preferring to shave at night and notes that, with his steady hand, the lack of light is no issue. The novel provides an exhaustive catalogue of the tableware and provisions in Bloom’s kitchen cabinet. Bloom sees two old betting tickets on the dresser, remembers the day’s unusual Ascot Gold Cup, and thinks about how he threw away the pamphlet about Elijah in the morning just before Bantam Lyons asked him for a tip about the races. While this seems like a kind of prophetic prediction, Bloom notes that such events really start to look significant in retrospect, like thunder following lightning. More importantly, he didn’t lose any money.
Themes
Bloom makes cocoa for himself and Stephen, generously giving Stephen some of the cream he usually reserves for Molly’s breakfast. Stephen drinks in silence, and Bloom thinks about helping him out by repairing a hole in his jacket and offering him a handkerchief. Wrongly imagining that Stephen is writing poetry in his head, Bloom remembers trying to solve his life problems by reading Shakespeare. (It didn’t work.) Bloom considers his own unsuccessful attempts to write poems, anagrams, and songs.
Themes
The novel calculates the ratios between the past and future ages of the 38-year-old Bloom and the 22-year-old Stephen. It notes that Bloom and Stephen met twice during Stephen’s childhood. They also both know the elderly Mrs. Riordan, who lived with Stephen’s family for three years, and then moved to the City Arms Hotel, where Bloom and Molly were living. Bloom considers whether he could rejuvenate his body and mind by taking up exercise again.
Themes
Bloom and Stephen both know about their different national and religious backgrounds, but they don’t bring up the topic in conversation. The novel traces back their ancestry, their baptisms (Bloom’s three, Stephen’s one), and their schooling. Bloom didn’t go to university and often claims that he attended “the university of life,” but he avoids this comment because he thinks he might have already said it to Stephen. The novel declares that Bloom represents a “scientific” temperament and Stephen an “artistic” one. Specifically, Bloom prefers applied science: he imagines inventing educational toys for children, and he’s always looking to make a respectable profit.
Themes
Bloom thinks about advertising’s “infinite possibilities” to attract attention and convince people to buy products. He remembers examples of effective and ineffective ads. But to show Stephen that originality isn’t always the key to success, he discusses his own failed plan to advertise Hely’s stationery shop by hiring a show-cart with attractive girls. When he hears this, Stephen thinks of a young man and woman meeting in a gloomy mountain hotel. The young woman would write “Queen’s Hotel” on a piece of paper. This reminds Bloom of the Queen’s Hotel, where his father committed suicide, but he doesn’t tell Stephen. Stephen tells Bloom about his story, “A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the Plums,” and Bloom muses that Stephen’s gifts could bring them both “financial, social, personal and sexual success.”
Themes
Bloom wonders what society should have housewives do all day, and he offers a number of proposals like parlor games, music, secretarial work, regulated male brothels, and education. He considers Molly undereducated, as she can’t tell Greek from Hebrew, knows very little about politics, and is bad at mental math. Bloom has tried to educate her by leaving books around the house or ridiculing other people around her. When he tried to teach her directly, she simply feigned interest and later repeated the same mistakes. He’s made progress through “indirect suggestion,” like by buying her a hat she liked so that she would use an umbrella.
Themes
In response to Stephen’s parable, Bloom discusses a series of great Jewish thinkers. He praises Moses, Moses Maimonides, and Moses Mendelssohn, then starts talking about Aristotle (who, Stephen points out, is not Jewish). He and Stephen compare ancient Hebrew with ancient Irish, although they don’t know much of either, and Bloom starts chanting in Hebrew, but quickly forgets the words.
Themes
Stephen sees “the accumulation of the past” in Bloom, who looks to him like Jesus, according to important theologians like St. John of Damascus. Bloom sees “the predestination of a future” in Stephen, who seems to represent “the ecstasy of catastrophe.” Bloom reflects on his old dreams of success working in the church, law, or on stage.
Stephen sings an anti-Semitic song about a little Jewish girl killing a boy who visits her house. The novel prints the song in full musical notation. Bloom enjoys the tune but also thinks of his own daughter Milly dressed in green. Stephen interprets this song as a metaphor for his own situation, symbolically sacrificing himself at an unknown Jewish man’s house. Bloom thinks about the anti-Semitic trope of ritual murder, and then about the unusual psychological states that can cause people to commit murder, like hypnosis and sleepwalking (each of which he’s suffered once).
Themes
Bloom remembers Milly’s childhood nightmares, then thinks about other moments from her childhood, like when she cried and shook her money-box. Milly’s blond hair made Bloom question his paternity, but she shared his nose, which reassured him. He thinks about her teenage years and boyfriends, and he reflects that he misses her “less than he had imagined, more than he had hoped.” Bloom remembers how the cat left around the same time as Milly, then considers the similarities between his cat and daughter. (For instance, Milly lets Bloom ribbon her hair, like the cat lets him pet it.) He remembers gifting Milly an owl and a clock to help her learn about science. In turn, Milly once gifted Bloom a mug with a moustache design. She also tends to think of her father’s needs and admire his knowledge.
Themes
Bloom offers Stephen his guest room, hoping Stephen will be able to get some rest but also enlighten Bloom and help improve Molly’s Italian pronunciation. He imagines that Stephen and Milly could make a good couple, and he asks Stephen if he knew Mrs. Sinico, who died last year. (Stephen says no.) Bloom explains why he didn’t attend Stephen’s mother’s funeral, which fell on the anniversary of his young son Rudy’s death. Stephen declines the guest room, and Bloom returns Stephen’s money, which he was safekeeping.
Themes
Bloom proposes other ways for the two men to meet: Stephen could give Molly Italian lessons, Molly could give Stephen voice lessons, or Stephen and Bloom could meet around Dublin for philosophical conversations. But Bloom has little hope for these plans to work. He reflects on how a circus clown once jokingly called him “papa” and how he once marked a coin in the vain hope of seeing it again in the future.
Themes
Bloom thinks about the frustrating conflicts and social inequalities in the world, and he contemplates all the natural imperfections that make it impossible for humans to overcome these problems (like death, pain, and natural disasters). Meanwhile, Stephen argues that people are significant because they are “conscious rational animal[s]” who can gradually explore and come to understand the unknown.
Themes
In what the novel describes as a ritualistic “exodus from the house of bondage to the wilderness,” Stephen takes his ashplant and says the 113th psalm under his breath while Bloom lets him out of the house by candlelight. Outside in the garden, they look up to see “the heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.”
Themes
Bloom contemplates the distance to nearby stars and the incredible size of the galaxy, then starts thinking about Earth’s long geological history and the amazing variety of molecules and cells that make up all living beings. He marvels at mathematicians’ ability to calculate a number so large that it would fill thousands of pages, and he speculates about whether there might be life on other planets. He remembers the properties of different constellations and thinks about the stars that shone during his, Stephen’s, his son Rudy’s, and Shakespeare’s births.
Themes
Bloom concludes that heaven is just a utopian idea invented by dreamers and poets, since there is no way to get from “the known to the unknown.” He isn’t sure whether he believes that the stars really affect events on Earth, but he certainly sees how women are like the moon in many ways (they pass through phases, they are beautiful, and so on). In fact, he notes that the lamp is on in his bedroom, meaning that Molly is probably awake. Bloom and Stephen gaze at each other in recognition, then start to pee together in the garden while looking ahead at Molly’s windowshade. Bloom thinks about the physiology of men’s genitals while Stephen thinks about the theological importance of Jesus’s circumcision.
Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus note a star shooting towards the Leo constellation, and then Bloom sticks his “male key in the hole of an unstable female lock” and opens the gate for Stephen to take his leave. While the men say goodbye and shake hands, the bells chime at St. George’s church. Stephen thinks about the Latin prayer for the dead, while Bloom starts to think about Dignam’s funeral. Stephen walks away, and Bloom thinks about the freezing temperatures of outer space, the coming morning, and his friends who have died. He considers staying up for the sunrise, which he has only done once, after a party in 1887.
Themes
Instead of staying up for the sunrise, Bloom goes back inside his house and promptly bumps his head into a sideboard. (Molly moved the furniture around during the day.) The novel describes Bloom’s furniture and piano, which has Molly’s gloves and an ashtray on top. The sheet music for “Love’s Old Sweet Song” is on the music stand. Bloom flinches at the pain from bumping his head and then lights an incense cone. He looks at the wedding gifts next to it on the mantelpiece: a stopped clock, a stunted tree, and a taxidermied owl.
Themes
Bloom looks at himself in the mirror and contemplates his family: he has no siblings, and as a boy he looked like his mother, but he now looks like his father. He notices the reflection of his books in the mirror. The novel lists them all: they are works of nonfiction on subjects ranging from philosophy and religion to Irish history and astronomy. Molly has left many of them upside-down, so Bloom reorganizes them while reflecting on the importance of order and women’s “deficient appreciation of literature.” He also remembers how Major Tweedy’s name appears in his longest book, History of the Russo-Turkish War.
Themes
Bloom sits at the table and admires the statue of Narcissus that stands on it. He takes off his collar and tie, unbuttons all his clothes, and scratches the scar from a bee sting he suffered two weeks ago. He runs through his budget for the day. He removes his tight boots and wet socks, then pulls off a hanging piece of toenail and smells it. He enjoys this because it reminds him of his childhood.
Themes
Bloom starts thinking about his dream house, a two-story bungalow on a few acres of pasture in the Dublin suburbs (but close enough for an easy commute by tram). He has all the details planned, from the color of the front door to the appliances, wall art, and cook’s salary. He wants to build a vibrant garden at his estate (to be called “Bloom Cottage,” “Saint Leopold’s,” or “Flowerville”). And he wants to reserve ample time for intellectual, artistic, and athletic hobbies like photography, stargazing, cycling, hiking, and home repairs.
Themes
Bloom decides that, once he’s living in his dream house, he should take up farming or try to become a judge. He thinks that this would finally let him fight social inequalities and animosities while continuing to promote truth and justice, as he has always done since his boyhood. For instance, he honestly told his schoolmaster that he didn’t believe in Christianity, and throughout his life he has publicly supported progressive policies and leaders.
Themes
Bloom calculates the mortgage on his dream home, then imagines schemes that would allow him to instantly buy the whole property in cash. He could set up a telegraph to receive horserace results from London before betting closes in Dublin, or he could discover a forgotten treasure. He could reclaim waste soil, invest in hydroelectric power plants, build a resort town on an island near Dublin, create a network of riverboats for tourists, or build new tramlines to help transport livestock from the Dublin Cattle Market. To fund these plans, he would need lots of funding—or, better yet, he could find an enormous seam of gold.
Themes
The novel asks why Bloom focuses on such long-shot schemes and, in response, explains that he views it as a relaxation technique before bed. In fact, he’s incredibly afraid of accidentally committing murder or suicide while asleep. Before falling asleep, Bloom generally imagines an innovative advertisement, which persuades through simplicity and boldness.
Themes
The novel starts giving an extensive list of everything in Bloom’s drawers. The first drawer contains numerous books, cards, and letters, as well as random possessions like his mother’s brooch and his father’s scarfpin. Particularly noteworthy are three letters from Martha Clifford, two pornographic postcards, and a pamphlet advertising rectal suppositories. Bloom adds his newest Martha Clifford letter to the drawer and reflects on how lucky he was to meet Josie Breen, Nurse Callan, and Gerty MacDowell today. He imagines himself as a powerful, respectable man entertaining a beautiful courtesan.
Themes
Bloom’s second drawer is filled with important documents and keepsakes that remind him of his father. It contains Bloom’s birth certificate, life insurance policy, and bank statements. There’s also the official announcement Bloom’s father made in the newspaper when he changed his last name from “Virag” to “Bloom.” Bloom’s father’s photographs, his Haggadah (a Jewish religious book), and his glasses are also inside. Finally, Bloom notices his father’s postcard from the Queen’s Hotel, where he died, and a letter he wrote to his son just before committing suicide.
Themes
Bloom remembers his elderly father in bed, in pain from the nerve disorder neuralgia. Bloom regrets disrespecting his father’s religious beliefs, as he now thinks that Judaism is just as irrational as other religions. Bloom considers his earliest memory of his father, an account of a long series of “migrations and settlements” all throughout Europe. However, his father lost this memory due to the drugs he was taking for his nerve condition. He also developed unusual idiosyncrasies, like eating with his hat on and miscounting coins.
Themes
On the other hand, Bloom’s father also left him a sizable inheritance, which protected him from ever having to risk the dangers that so many other Dubliners have to face: poverty, bankruptcy, and dishonor. In these conditions, the best solution is for people to simply leave town. But Bloom couldn’t just leave if he encountered financial problems: he has a family tying him down in Dublin.
Themes
Bloom fantasizes about all the places he would go if he could, ranging from the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland to the Dead Sea. He imagines running away and navigating by the stars, while people back in Dublin take out newspaper ads announcing his disappearance. He would become “Everyman or Noman,” wandering through the farthest reaches of the galaxy, only to return “after incalculable eons” and with incalculable wealth. Then again, Bloom remembers that time can’t be reversed (unlike space), and he notices that it’s already quite late, so he decides he ought to go to bed. He remembers that he enjoys sleeping next to Molly, who warms the bed and gives him human contact.
Themes
Bloom surveys the events of his day, which have led him up to his present exhaustion. He thinks of them in terms of different Jewish rituals. Then, the table makes a loud cracking noise, and he realizes he never figured out who the man in the brown macintosh was. He thinks about the day’s other failures and “imperfections”—he didn’t sell Keyes’s ad, he didn’t buy tea from Tom Kernan, he didn’t figure out if the statues of Greek goddesses have genitals, and he didn’t get a ticket to Leah.
Themes
Bloom sees Molly’s face and is reminded of her father, Major Tweedy, departing from the train station. He notices Molly’s underclothes piled on a trunk bearing her father’s initials and her hat sitting on the dresser. He undresses, changes into a white nightshirt, and lays on the bed carefully, so as not to disturb her.
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Bloom appreciates the clean sheets but notices another man’s “imprint” and some flakes of Plumtree’s Potted Meat on the bed. He thinks about how men like to imagine that they are the only person a woman has ever slept with, when in reality they are “neither first nor last nor only nor alone.” He lists the more than twenty men who have had some kind of relationship with Molly in the past—including Lieutenant Mulvey, Professor Goodwin, John Henry Menton, Lenehan, Simon Dedalus, multiple priests and politicians, and of course Blazes Boylan.
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Bloom contemplates Blazes Boylan’s energy, attractiveness, business success, and self-aggrandizement. Although Bloom envies Boylan’s famous sexual ability and youthful spirit, he tolerates these feelings because Boylan is a respectable acquaintance and will be helping Molly with her lucrative music tour. Plus, Bloom thinks, adultery is relatively natural and normal—he lists many crimes that would be far worse. He has no intention of retaliating against Boylan or divorcing Molly, but he thinks he could try to sue or publicly expose them in the future. He thinks of plenty of good reasons to simply let Molly and Boylan continue their affair, ranging from the difficulty of stopping them to “the apathy of the stars.”
Themes
As he starts to fall asleep, Bloom thinks about the vastness of the world’s two hemispheres. He compares the world to the “female hemispheres,” the breasts and buttocks, which he considers full of warmth and abundance. He becomes aroused and then kisses “the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of [Molly’s] rump.” Molly starts to stir, and then begins a “catechetical interrogation” about her husband’s day. Bloom skips over his letters to Martha Clifford, his fight at Barney Kiernan’s bar, and his voyeuristic encounter with Gerty MacDowell. He mentions the current production of Leah and the novel Sweets of Sin. He especially focuses on how the “professor and author” Stephen Dedalus fell while doing gymnastics after dinner.
The novel points out that both Molly and Bloom are fully aware that they haven’t had sex in more than ten years, since December of 1893. They also haven’t had “complete mental intercourse” since Milly started puberty nine months and one day ago. During these nine months, Molly and Milly have constantly annoyed Bloom by asking him about his whereabouts and plans. The novel notes that Bloom and Molly lie opposite each other, because Bloom’s head is at the foot of the bed. They are both being carried forward by the earth’s constant rotation. Bloom is in the fetal position, weary after a long day’s travels. The novel clarifies that he was traveling with the fictional epic voyager Sinbad the Sailor, then finishes by asking, “Where?,” but there is no answer.
Themes
