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
Stephen quizzes his classroom full of students about the Greek king Pyrrhus and thinks about the meaning of human history and memory. One of his students, Armstrong, thinks Stephen is talking about “a pier,” which Stephen jokes is just “a disappointed bridge.” But the students don’t get it, and Stephen thinks he’ll save the quip for Haines, like a court jester writing jokes for his master. He decides that it’s a tragedy that, in the course of history, so many possibilities never get realized.
The second episode is set on the same morning as the first, but some time has clearly passed, as Stephen has come from the Martello tower to the school. In the Odyssey, Nestor is the wise old king of Pylos. Telemachus visits Nestor to seek information about his long-lost father Odysseus, but Nestor knows nothing. In this episode, the opinionated old buffoon Mr. Deasy represents a kind of parody of Nestor: he gives advice that is neither asked for nor correct. Stephen clearly isn’t well suited for teaching—he doesn’t find his students intelligent or stimulating enough, and his internal monologue is far more interesting than his lesson. Still, his thought about Haines shows that he recognizes that he needs an audience for his genius and is ultimately dependent on other people. His commentary on the unrealized possibilities in history is a reference to William Blake. It is also a reflection of his fear that he will not reach his potential because of the circumstances he’s forced to live in—like having to teach instead of being able to write, or having nobody’s attention but Haines’s.
Themes
Next, Stephen leads his students through John Milton’s poem “Lycidas.” He remembers spending his evenings in a Paris library reading Aristotle, who argued that the mind is the highest form of existence, but he also remembers Jesus telling the Pharisees, “To Caesar what is Caesar’s, to God what is God’s.”
Milton wrote “Lycidas” to memorialize a dear friend, an intelligent clergyman who died in a shipwreck. This imagery recalls the report of a drowning man from the previous episode, and the motif of young potential being wasted refers back to Stephen. In fact, his months in the library in Paris were the one time he tasted his dream of complete intellectual freedom. Meanwhile, Jesus’s line to the Pharisees is a reference to the importance of separating one’s obligations to the state from one’s duties to God. This is especially significant for Ireland, which is caught between two dominant external powers: the British Empire and the Roman Catholic Church.
Themes
It’s 10:00 AM, time for hockey, so the students pack their things. They ask Stephen to give them a riddle, and he gives them an unanswerable rhyme about “the fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush.”
Stephen’s riddle is clearly a reflection of his own shame over his mother’s death. Its incomprehensibility again shows that Stephen’s intellect alienates him from the people around him—including his students, whom he baffles instead of educating.
Themes
A struggling, shy student named Cyril Sargent approaches Stephen for help with some math problems. Stephen imagines Cyril’s mother loving and nurturing her “ugly and futile” son. Then, he thinks of his own mother’s skeleton in her grave (from his dream) and the fox burying his grandmother (from his riddle). Stephen helps Cyril work out the problem and sees a reflection of his own childhood “gracelessness” in the boy. Then, Cyril joins his classmates to play hockey.
Stephen’s interactions with Cyril call back significant associations from his own childhood, as Joyce narrated in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Reflecting on the seemingly unlovable Cyril, Stephen starts to view unconditional motherly love as a kind of miracle: it’s inexplicable and irrational, but it holds families and communities together. But since his own mother is dead, Stephen views himself as disgraced and helpless.
Themes
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Mr. Deasy, the schoolmaster, sorts out an argument about the hockey teams and then meets Stephen in his office, with his wage of three pounds and twelve shillings. Deasy shows off the little box where he keeps his money and suggests that Stephen get one, but Stephen points out that he doesn’t have money to put in it. Misquoting Shakespeare’s Iago, Deasy complains that young people are no good at saving, unlike the English, who manage their money well and don’t amass debts. Stephen remembers his own sizeable debts to ten different people.
Deasy is a frustrating foil for Stephen, because (like Stephen) he’s convinced of his moral and intellectual superiority, but (unlike Stephen) he’s actually a fool and traitor to the Irish. Deasy’s cliched commentary about the English is a thin excuse for English colonialism, which portrays England’s power as the result of its people’s moral superiority (when it’s really the result of power and conquest). Although it might not be clear to modern readers, Stephen is drowning in debt. His wage of £3,12s would be a several hundred pounds or dollars today, while his debts would be several thousand.
Themes
Mr. Deasy looks at a portrait of King Edward VII hanging above the mantlepiece, then starts talking about the old days of the Irish Nationalist movement, in an attempt to win Stephen’s sympathy. But this doesn’t work. Stephen remembers how the English subjugated Ireland and stays silent.
In the early 20th century, independence (or Home Rule) was the central question in Irish politics. Deasy belongs to the minority that believed Ireland should remain under British rule. His attempts to win Stephen’s respect are foolish and misplaced, which attests to the foolishness of his position: he prefers for his people to be subservient because he believes in the platitudes of the English.
Themes
Mr. Deasy asks Stephen to bring a letter to his “literary friends” and sits down to finish typing it up. Meanwhile, Stephen looks around at the paintings of champion racehorses that cover the walls, and he remembers going to the races with his friend Cranly. He listens to the boys playing outside and imagines their hockey match turning into a bloody battle.
Deasy’s peculiar obsession with horses foreshadows the Ascot Gold Cup race that later plays a major role in the plot. When he imagines the boys’ hockey match as a battle, Stephen is not just being dramatic. He is also commenting on the history of violence and injustice that has shaped Ireland, creating a troubled society that people have come to accept as normal in their everyday lives.
Themes
Mr. Deasy comes over with his letter, which is about how his cousin has learned to treat the foot and mouth disease that afflicts Irish cattle and threatens Irish exports. He hopes that his letter can win attention, and he blames Jewish merchants for conspiring against him. In fact, he thinks that they are destroying England, and he thinks they are immoral for sinning against God. But Stephen says that everyone sins. He remembers seeing Jewish merchants in Paris and decides that, in time, all wealth will be scattered.
Deasy usurps Stephen’s writing, just as Buck has usurped his home at the Martello tower and Haines has usurped his history as an Irishman. Not only does Stephen lose his independence and autonomy if he becomes a vessel for the writing of a man he hates: he also has to publish a dry letter about practical concerns, even while he struggles to publish his own poetry and fiction. Like Haines, Deasy makes anti-Semitic remarks that later become far more significant, when the reader learns that the novel’s main protagonist, Leopold Bloom, is Jewish. Meanwhile, Stephen clearly sees through Deasy’s prejudiced tirade. Stephen is more accepting and less judgmental: like any respectable artist, he views people as individuals rather than making blanket judgments about groups.
Themes
Stephen tells Deasy that he’s “trying to awake” from the nightmare of history, but Deasy argues that human history is a constant motion towards unity with God. Stephen points to the children playing hockey outside and says, “that is God,” meaning “a shout in the street.” Undeterred, Deasy rants about all the sinful women who have betrayed their men. He also tells Stephen he’s not suited for teaching and probably won’t last long in the school.
While Deasy coasts on naïve beliefs about life, history, and God, Stephen confronts the reality of the human condition: people pursue freedom by making significant decisions with uncertain outcomes in response to an unforgiving history. Many people around Stephen likely share Deasy’s worldview, which helps explain Stephen’s sense of alienation and despair. In his famous line about history, Stephen is referring to both his personal history and Ireland’s national history. He’s trying to overcome his family’s poverty, his mother’s death, and his failed move to Paris. Meanwhile, British colonialism in Irish history is responsible for Ireland’s political, economic, and creative marginalization in Europe. While Deasy’s faith in God leads him to think that the world will always get better and human effort is essentially irrelevant, Stephen sees this worldview as a naïve fantasy. Instead, Stephen thinks that humans are responsible for history—both making it and responding to it. Thus, history constrains him, and he hopes to improve history through art that breaks free of the past. When Stephen says that God is “a shout in the street,” his main point is that salvation is random and unpredictable, and not at all a certain outcome of a predetermined process.
Themes
Stephen promises to try to publish Deasy’s letter, and he leaves and goes out the school gate. But Deasy runs after him: he has one more thing to say. Unlike every other country, Deasy says, Ireland hasn’t persecuted Jewish people, because it never welcomed them to begin with. He repeats his joke and laughs on his way back into the schoolhouse.
Deasy literally adds insult to injury by punctuating a morning full of ignorance with one last, cruel anti-Semitic joke. Of course, his joke is not only offensive—as Leopold Bloom will soon prove, it’s also simply wrong. Although he generally tries to avoid taking clear political positions, Joyce is absolutely clear about rejecting prejudice in all its forms.
Themes
