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.
Bloom and Stephen have both lost their keys, which represents the way their houses have been usurped (by Boylan and Buck Mulligan). So whereas Boylan entered Bloom’s house through the front door, Bloom has to break in during his attempt to reclaim his rightful ownership. Stephen reflects about his past during the lighting of the “lucifer match” (which refers to his own atheistic rebellion against God). Notably, he did the same thing when matches were lit in “Aeolus” and “Circe.” By comparing Bloom to other guardians who have lit fires for him, Stephen briefly accepts the metaphor that Bloom keeps repeating: Stephen as son and Bloom as father. So even though he doesn’t say it out loud, Stephen does feel quite well cared for in the Bloom household, and he does briefly see Bloom as a father figure.
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.
The catechism form often turns the text into a list of intricate but mostly irrelevant details, like this lengthy explanation of Dublin’s water infrastructure. Still, this water is symbolically important. It’s at once particular (because it comes from a specific spot) and universal (because of its chemical properties and importance around the world, as Bloom points out). Similarly, the catechism’s story is both extremely particular, because it’s full of specific details, and extremely general, because it’s told from a God-like, all-seeing perspective. This illustrates how the catechism actually tries to integrate opposites (like particular and universal, personal and objective, and Stephen and Bloom). Stephen likely fears water because it represents baptism, but Bloom is kind enough to give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to his genius. Essentially, Bloom decides that Stephen’s filth is part of his art. This well-intentioned interpretation shows how, even while the catechism is integrating their perspectives in this episode, Bloom and Stephen actually don’t understand each other.
Themes
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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.
Bloom’s thoughts about saving recall Buck Mulligan’s shaving scene from the beginning of the novel. (In both cases, Stephen watches the ritual from the sidelines, as a nonparticipant and nonbeliever in the other man’s worldview.) Meanwhile, the race tickets are probably Boylan’s. When Bloom remembers throwing away the newspaper, he seems to suddenly understand how he accidentally picked the winner against Boylan. His comments about the retrospective importance of such events are a clear sign to the reader: Throwaway’s victory in the race represents Bloom’s victory in life. (It’s just not yet clear what he won, or how he won it.)
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.
Bloom’s generosity is obvious and admirable. But his attitude toward literature isn’t—he doesn’t understand Shakespeare, no matter how much he wants to. He seems to think that exposure to brilliant ideas will make him smarter, and this will solve all of his problems. Stephen’s misery proves that this isn’t true. And this comment is another reminder of how superficially Bloom understands Stephen’s life and interests.
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.
Bloom and Stephen’s age ratios and tenuous connections in the past might seem like important details to the catechism, which is supposedly trying to give a complete and objective picture of Stephen and Bloom’s meeting. However, these topics don’t bring the men closer or add much to the reader’s understanding of them. Actually, the fact that they resort to such small talk suggests that they haven’t connected on much of anything yet.
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.
The distinction between scientific and artistic temperaments neatly captures the divide between Bloom and Stephen. They cannot bridge this gap (but it’s possible that the novel and the reader can, by integrating their worldviews). Bloom’s personal and educational history doesn’t make for a particularly interesting conversation, but it does add lots of important context to the rest of the novel for attentive readers. Joyce is playing a bit of a joke by saving these details until so late in the novel: he’s forcing the reader to go back, re-read, and re-evaluate earlier sections in light of this new information. As Bloom pointed out when considering the horserace results, this is exactly what people do when remembering the past and making sense of their own lives.
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.”
Stephen and Bloom finally start to open up a bit. Advertising is Bloom’s true area of expertise, and it appears that his show-cart idea finally does impress Stephen. The “Queen’s Hotel” connection is mysterious. Bloom’s decision not to mention his father’s suicide shows that this is still a source of shame for the family. His father’s death also represents his tragically broken paternal bloodline, which is what his relationship with Stephen is supposed to symbolically restore. It’s difficult to say what Stephen’s parable means without having access to his thoughts. And although the reader could likely understand many of the references in “The Parable of the Plums” in “Aeolus,” it’s just as incomprehensible to Bloom as the “Queen’s Hotel” story now. In response to Stephen’s parable, Bloom just comments on his intelligence—which suggests that he doesn’t understand the story. Plus, he’s more interested in Stephen as a financial opportunity than as a thinker.
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.
While he is interested in social issues and women’s lives, he seems to think that their main problem is idleness—and not, as Joyce hints throughout the novel, a society that forces them to stay at home all day. Bloom’s absurd, sexist solutions to this problem show how he struggles to break out of his own completely practical mindset. For instance, he thinks that the best part about buying Molly her hat is that she will now agree to use an umbrella to save it from the rain—but he thinks nothing of the fact that she may enjoy the hat because it’s beautiful. (This may also be an allusion to the scene in “Oxen of the Sun” when an umbrella is a metaphor for a condom.) His inability to recognize the value in beauty is also the central sticking point in his relationship with Stephen. Furthermore, he imagines himself as Molly’s rightful educator, even though his conversation with Stephen should make it clear that he is far from well-educated. In fact, these thoughts may be a response to his insecurity about how he compares to the better-educated Stephen.
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.
Bloom keeps trying to show off his knowledge to Stephen, but his flimsy knowledge of Jewish traditions makes him look like a fool. In particular, the people he names are leaders who fit Stephen’s value system: they sought the truth above all else. Clearly, Bloom is starting to understand Stephen’s perspective and trying to empathize with it. Joyce also uses this passage to make fun of people who base their identities on dead languages and ancient traditions from the past, like the Irish nationalists. Of course, he might also be making fun of himself for doing this, because the novel is full of lines in Latin and references to the Odyssey.
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.
On its surface, Stephen is just calling Bloom old and Bloom is just calling Stephen young. But the theological imagery in this passage clearly depicts both of them as messianic figures. Moreover, St. John of Damascus famously argued that the members of the Trinity are all co-present in one another. This means that Stephen and Bloom (the son and the father) are two aspects of one being. After failing to get along for a episode and a half, they are finally starting to merge into the holy family that they have been fantasizing about during the entire book. (Unfortunately, this is just a fleeting moment: their symbolic merger won’t last.)
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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).
It takes a while for Bloom to realize that Stephen’s song is vile and anti-Semitic. This song is Stephen’s way of telling Bloom that he’s being overbearing and asking for unreasonable sacrifices. So just as soon as Bloom and Stephen symbolically merge, Stephen forces them apart. In short, if Bloom becomes a father figure to Stephen, like he wants, then Stephen will lose his independence. And the last thing he wants is to go back to being a child. But Bloom doesn’t fully get the message—instead, he starts thinking about his daughter Milly.
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.
Stephen’s song and Bloom’s sense of fatherly affection for Stephen lead Bloom to his memories of Milly. Bloom echoes Stephen’s comments from “Scylla and Charybdis” about the difficulty of knowing if one is truly the father—but while Stephen saw this as a promising way to sever his connections with his father, Bloom worries about losing his connection with his daughter. Otherwise, Bloom and Milly’s relationship is like Bloom and the cat’s: affectionate and relatively uncomplicated. Bloom feels nostalgic for Milly’s youth, when the family was happy and harmonious. But now, with Milly out of the house and Bloom and Molly increasingly distant, everyone in the family is isolated and lonely. Of course, Rudy’s death is the other major factor that has torn the Bloom family apart. By yearning for Milly’s childhood, Bloom is also hoping he can return to the time when Rudy’s death was not constantly weighing on his conscience.
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.
Bloom’s offer has the potential to solve both his and Stephen’s greatest problem: it will give him companionship and a son to look after, and it will give Stephen stability and a place to stay. Bloom’s references to all the people he and Stephen know in common are just ways of suggesting that their families are close enough in Dublin society that it wouldn’t be socially unacceptable for Stephen to move in. Of course, Stephen doesn’t care about their families or social status—but he also doesn’t want to stay with Bloom. He turns down the generous offer. The reader never learns exactly why he makes this decision, but Stephen’s need for independence and autonomy as an artist is clearly an important part. This moment could have provided a broad resolution in the novel by dissolving both protagonists’ problems and merging them into one family. But it doesn’t happen: Joyce doesn’t resolve the conflicts. Instead, he will show that Bloom and Stephen’s meeting actually helps them achieve their goals independently.
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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.
Bloom sees that Stephen is rejecting him, like so many of the other people he knows in Dublin. The clown saying “papa” references Bloom realizing that his symbolic relationship with Stephen is just a short-lived joke. In turn, the coin that never returns is an obvious metaphor for Bloom concluding that fate will not bring Stephen back to him.
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.
In addition to explaining which feelings drive their major life decisions, Bloom and Stephen’s thoughts reflect their reactions to Stephen’s decision not to stay the night. Bloom thinks of this decision as a fateful imperfection that he cannot change, so must accept. But Stephen views it as an expression of his autonomy and rationality, even if it does make his life more difficult. Therefore, Bloom ends up protesting the limits of the human will against fate, while Stephen ends up celebrating the achievements of the human will in an uncertain world.
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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.”
The religious imagery in this passage unmistakably associates Stephen’s departure from Bloom’s house with the Exodus (the Israelites’ liberation from Egypt). The Exodus explains the foundation of Judaism, and in Christianity, it predicted humankind’s salvation by Jesus. Therefore, Stephen’s departure with his ashplant suggests that he is gaining his freedom and going on to redeem the world (presumably through his art).
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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.
By contemplating the endlessness of the universe and the complexity of the world, Bloom recognizes his own insignificance. He zooms in and out to gain a sense of perspective. Later in the episode, this perspective will help him cope with fear and anxiety. Of course, this is totally the opposite of what Stephen sees: Stephen views the stars as evidence of his own greatness, or even proof that he’s the Messiah.
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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.
As usual, Bloom is skeptical of any explanation that doesn’t seem scientific enough—unless it’s about women. In that case, he’s perfectly happy to accept pseudoscientific ideas like astrology. Thus, even while he claims to be a rational man of science, he has his limits (which are the realm of emotions: love and sex). Meanwhile, Stephen views “the unknown” in much the same way as Bloom views women: as a guiding star to seek after. Therefore, in this scene, Bloom gets a peek at Stephen’s perspective and Stephen gets a peek at Bloom’s. When they pee side-by-side and look towards Molly’s window, this is the closest they get to fulfilling the love triangle that Bloom was fantasizing about. In other words, for Bloom, it’s their brief moment of fulfilment as a symbolic family.
Themes
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.
“Leo” implies “Leopold,” so the star shooting towards Leo seems to be a hint that the universe is acting in Bloom’s favor. After all, Bloom has taken back the key that represents his power over his house and sense of belonging in his family. And Joyce’s sexualized description of the key entering the lock suggests that Bloom is finally going to resume his sex life with Molly. When Bloom and Stephen part, the church bells ring, and they both think of death. In other words, Stephen’s departure is a symbolic death. He is gone and does not appear in the novel again. In contrast, the rising sun represents rebirth and creation. Bloom’s decision to go to bed rather than wait for the sunrise could mean that he has accepted his own death, or the death of his relationship with Stephen (who won’t be returning for a visit).
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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.
Molly moved her furniture during her afternoon with Boylan, without consulting Bloom. This hints that he’s losing his role as the family patriarch. But the “Love’s Old Sweet Song” sheet music implies the opposite: that true love and the lasting commitment of marriage ultimately win out over time. The Blooms’ wedding gifts have all been unnaturally frozen in time, which could support either theory. This could mean that the Blooms’ marriage is holding them back and preventing them from growing, or it could mean that they’ve held onto their love as it was in the past.
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.
It’s no surprise that Bloom looks in the mirror right before contemplating the books on his shelves, because Joyce consistently associates mirrors with literature. Specifically, he uses mirrors to represent the relationship between art and life. Examples include Buck’s cracked mirror in the novel’s opening scene and the moment when Bloom and Stephen see Shakespeare in the mirror during the brothel scene in “Circe.” When Bloom looks in the mirror and sees his books, then, the novel is showing what role literature plays in his life and identity. It seems that he mostly collects books to satisfy his eclectic curiosity, seem intelligent, and impress others. The upside-down books are even more evidence that Molly’s relationship with Boylan is disrupting Bloom’s place in his home. And Bloom’s sexist comments about women’s literature are contradictory and ironic for a few reasons. First, Molly is constantly reading novels, while Bloom can scarcely get through a newspaper article. Secondly, Bloom is the one who chooses Molly’s novels, and he also enjoys them. And finally, it’s obvious to anyone reading Ulysses that Stephen Dedalus is the only character with truly good taste in literature. So by claiming that he can appreciate literature, but women can’t, Bloom actually just shows off his pretentiousness and vanity.
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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.
The statue of Narcissus is an obvious symbol of Bloom’s vanity. It foreshadows him immediately examining his body and clothes. While Bloom thinks of his budget as a comprehensive summary of his day, it’s actually incomplete—he leaves out his payments to Bella Cohen. Whether Bloom (and Joyce) intended this or not, this omission ironically undermines the whole purpose of this episode. He isn’t just giving the reader a seemingly comprehensive list of objective facts about Bloom’s life: he’s also showing that it’s dangerous to think of one’s ideas as comprehensive or objective. This suggests that trying to be perfectly accurate and meticulously detailed can actually be more dangerous than recognizing and acknowledging one’s biases. In turn, this supports Joyce’s overarching strategy of offering numerous different (“parallax”) perspectives on the same event.
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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.
The extended fantasy scene about Bloom’s dream house also reflects how literary form shapes the reader’s perception. In Bloom’s mind, it probably feels exactly like the fantasies in “Circe.” But in the reader’s mind, it looks completely different, because it’s narrated in an opposite way. In “Circe,” characters popped out of the fog to act out Bloom’s fantasies in exaggerated, grotesque ways. But in “Ithaca,” the catechistic narration presents Bloom’s fantasy in a totally dry, matter of fact way. But Joyce’s extreme attention to detail in “Ithaca” reveals just as much about Bloom’s personality as the caricatures in “Circe.” The dream house is a manifestation of Bloom’s deep desire for a happy life and family—it’s his conventional, middle-class equivalent to Stephen’s artistic fantasy of publishing a poem that changes history by capturing the beauty of the human spirit.
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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.
Bloom’s fantasy expands out from himself to the community. This reinforces the idea that Bloom represents the 20th century’s forward-looking liberalism: he thinks that living a great life means being responsible, working hard, telling the truth, and serving one’s community. But it’s worth asking whether Bloom really believes in his progressive political views or is only sticking to them because it’s fashionable to be tolerant and modern in early 20th century Dublin. In other words, Bloom’s interest in politics might actually be self-promotion disguised as selflessness.
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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.
Bloom’s clever but improbable get-rich-quick schemes show that he really does see money as the basic principle behind the functioning of the whole world. Similarly, when he realizes that he needs funding, this shows that he doesn’t think ideas are enough to change the world (unlike Stephen, who only cares about ideas). Like his politics, all of his schemes are forward-looking: they’re based on technology and innovation. This shows that he’s is modern and plugged into the times.
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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.
Bloom finds another practical justification for his fantasies. Clearly, he needs such a justification in order to feel like daydreaming isn’t a waste of his time. But to the reader, these fantasies reveal Bloom’s values. Despite his suspicion of religion, he’s still quite superstitious, and his fear of hurting someone else is further evidence of his sympathy and care for others.
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.
Bloom’s souvenirs and letters are the physical evidence of his emotional life. Whereas the whole novel has focused on his feelings and relationships on the day of June 16, this passage again zooms out to show the broader arc of his life. Besides his letters to Martha Clifford, he doesn’t seem to have sought out other women since he married Molly. And since his relationship with Molly is pretty stale, it’s clear that Bloom really is profoundly lonely. His sex life happens mostly in his head, but his interactions with Breen, Callan, and Gerty are his way of reminding himself that he could really attract a woman if he wanted to.
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.
Bloom keeps his father’s things in his drawer for serious documents, not his drawer for keepsakes and letters. He feels like he never truly got closure after his father’s sudden death and regrets not making an effort to be closer to him. This is connected to his desire to be a better husband and father to his own family. Notably, “Virag” is Hungarian for “flower,” a loose translation of “Bloom.” Bloom’s father’s name change implies that he wanted to integrate into Dublin life, which is no surprise given the amount of anti-Semitism that Bloom faced during the day.
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.
Bloom’s feelings about his father’s death are remarkably similar to Stephen’s feelings about his mother’s (only much less intense). It appears that Bloom also rebelled against religion in his youth and refused to take his family’s traditional beliefs seriously. But now, he views Judaism more as a cultural identity and family tradition than a set of religious beliefs. Stephen never successfully makes this shift: even after his vision in Bella Cohen’s brothel during “Circe,” Stephen continues to reject Christianity specifically because of its theological doctrines.
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.
Bloom is clearly aware of how he’s benefited from his family’s support. It appears that he inherited not only his father’s money, but also his prudent attitude towards it. This also distinguishes him from Stephen, whose family refuses to provide for him and who has no idea how to manage money. Perhaps Joyce is suggesting that people decide to be individualistic or collectivistic in part based on whether they have gained or lost from their relationships with other people.
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.
Bloom’s taste for the exotic and exciting brings him back to travel fantasies. Like his dream house, these fantasies promise total freedom and perfect fulfillment. They’re also a reference to his wandering throughout the novel and the trope of the “Wandering Jew,” a mythical immortal who roams around the world, waiting for the Messiah. “Everyman or Noman” is an insightful description of Bloom as a character. He’s the 20th century everyman—a middle-class liberal businessman. But because he’s such a normal guy, he’s a nobody when viewed in terms of the broader perspective of society as a whole, or the vast, empty universe. Where other epic heroes like Odysseus are exceptional because they are special and superior to other people, Bloom is an exceptional hero simply because he is an ordinary man described in extraordinary detail. Similarly, Bloom makes a remarkably insightful point about the nature of regret: people regret things only because time only flows in one direction and we can’t turn back the clock. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Space, unlike time, is reversible: someone can always turn around and go back to where they came from. In fact, the spatial equivalent of turning back the clock is returning to one’s origins, or homecoming—which is the central theme of the Odyssey, this episode, and arguably the novel as a whole. Rather than being unable to travel or being forced to abandon home in order to wander forever, Bloom gets both: he has gone on an exciting voyage during the novel, without losing the comforts of home. (If, that is, he can prevent Blazes Boylan from usurping it.)
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.
Bloom’s analysis of his day is also an opportunity for the reader to look back on the events of the novel, armed with the new information they’ve gained from Bloom’s meeting with Stephen and the detailed, realistic descriptions in this episode. Joyce pokes fun at the reader by mentioning the man in the macintosh, a mystery which he deliberately designed to be unsolvable. He also reminds the reader that, even though his day was particularly rich and interesting, Bloom didn’t accomplish many of his goals. Joyce indicates that it’s possible for people to have perfectly meaningful lives—or even be epic heroes—despite failing at the goals they set for themselves.
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.
The story jumps to the bedroom: Molly is sleeping and Bloom is watching her while he gets ready for bed. Her piled-up underwear suggests that she hasn’t cleaned up after Blazes Boylan’s visit.
Themes
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.
The “imprint” and potted meat (which is a reference to sex) are more clear evidence of Boylan’s visit. But Bloom doesn’t seem to be too bothered: he clearly knows how to separate his love for Molly from other people having sex with her. This list of men is a subtle reference to the suitors in the Odyssey. It also gives the reader important context for understanding other characters’ rumors and feelings about Molly throughout the novel.
Themes
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.”
Although he was a nervous wreck all day while thinking about Molly’s affair, now, Bloom manages to control his jealousy and frustration. He lists the practical reasons not to get angry and reminds himself that, all in all, his life is stable and comfortable. He knows that society looks down on cuckolded husbands, but the universe’s “apathy” means that Moly’s affair is really only a problem if Bloom lets it become one. In short, Bloom focuses on the bigger picture and puts reason before emotion. Of course, this is similar to the way this episode functions within the novel as a whole: it gives the reader a broader, zoomed-out, more holistic picture of Bloom’s life than the stream of consciousness method.
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.
Bloom returns to an idea that gets repeated over and over again throughout the novel: the link between land, women, fruit, and fertility. All of these create and sustain human life. Arguably, Bloom only truly completes his homecoming in the moment when he kisses Molly’s rump, which is a symbolic affirmation of life and creation. Molly’s “catechetical interrogation” is a clever joke on the structure of this episode. But like Odysseus, Murphy the sailor, and the novel itself, Bloom carefully omits some of the most significant parts of his day. He also embellishes Stephen Dedalus’s credentials (which makes his admiration clear).
Themes
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.
Joyce waits until the last possible moment to give the reader some of the most important details about Bloom and Molly’s marital problems. In light of these events, Bloom’s constant concern for Molly during the day suggests that he loves her much more than he shows. It’s unclear what exactly their opposite positions on the bed symbolize. This could suggest that they are irreconcilably different, or that they are complementary and balance one another out. Bloom’s fetal position implies vulnerability and suggests that Molly is a mother figure to him, as well as a wife. And the reference to Sinbad the Sailor at the very end of the episode points to the overarching motif of homecoming after Bloom’s journey in the novel (and Odysseus’s in the Odyssey). It also evokes Murphy the sailor from “Eumaeus,” who also told exaggerated stories about his past, just like Bloom did to Molly. Notably, different versions of Ulysses end this episode differently: while some leave the question “Where?” unanswered, others insist that Joyce really meant to have an enormous period at the end of the episode, which would mark the answer to “Where?”
Themes
