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Ulysses
 Joyce
wrote Ulysses when he was troubled by poverty and worsening eyesight.
The diverse literary styles and innovation in the novel form was highly
recommended by his early supporter and Modernist contemporary T. S. Eliot as
a work of genius. The novel is a parody of Homer’s Odyssey, with
parts and episodes roughly corresponding to Homer’s epic. It is set in
Dublin on the day of June 16, 1904 and the protagonist, Leopold Bloom, is a
middle-aged Jew whose job is an advertisement canvasser. There are two other
major characters: Bloom’s wife Molly Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, the
autobiographical character from Joyce's first novel A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man. While Joyce develops the character of the young
student, most of the novel is focused on Bloom.
The first three episodes constitute Part I and centre on
Stephen Dedalus. Stephen is shown living in an old tower above Dublin as the
day begins. He is haunted by the guilty feeling because he refused to pray
at the side of his mother's deathbed despite her pleading for his separation
from the Catholic Church. At 10.00, he is conducting a history lesson to his
pupils at Mr. Deasy’s school and thinks of his own unhappy life in his early
ages. The third episode begins at 11.00. Walking along the beach, Stephen is
carried away by his random thoughts and associated ideas. He thinks about
art, history, philosophy and religion. Here we find typical use of stream of
consciousness.
The opening chapters of Part II begin the day anew with
Leopold Bloom. The first three episodes provide reader with vivid and
realistic description of Bloom. Bloom gets up at 8.00, thinking about his
wife’s affair with her co-worker, Blazes Boylan. Molly is a singer and
Boylan arranges her performance. In "Calypso" the reader learns that Bloom
is a servile husband who prepares breakfast and runs errands on behalf of
his wife Molly. He then takes a bath. At 11.00, he attends the funeral of
his friend, Paddy Dignam, which makes him thinks of his dead son. At noon he
shows up in the office to care for the advertisement. Many visitors come to
the office including Stephen. Bloom crosses the bridge over the Liffey and
walks through the streets. People and objects make him reminisce those happy
days when his daughter is still a baby and his relationship with Molly is
satisfactory. He went to a pub called Davy Byrne’s to have lunch. At 2.00 in
the afternoon, Bloom goes to the national library and discussed Shakespeare
with some librarians. After leaving the library, he wanders through the
Dublin streets. The streets are described in eighteen short scenes, in which
there are all shorts of activities of people of all ages and from all walks
in society. Bloom goes to the Ormond Restaurant to have dinner and knows
that Blazes Boylan in on his way to meet Bloom’s wife. Then Bloom goes to
Barney Kiernan’s, a famous pub in Dublin to look for Martin Cunningham. A
group of drunken men talk about politics and violence there and argues with
Bloom, ending by attacking Bloom. At 8.00 in the evening, Bloom sits on the
seashore rocks, watching girls on the strand. He has a short experience with
one of the girl, Gerty. After the girl walks away with her friend, Bloom’s
mind lapses into reminiscence of his love-making with his wife. Leaving the
beach, he goes to a hospital to inquire Mrs. Purefoy’s “very stiff birth”.
There Bloom meets Stephen Dedalus. At 12.00 Bloom and Dedalus arrive at a
whorehouse. Being drunk, Stephen gets into a fight with two soldiers. Bloom
protects Stephen and brings him to a small pub. Bloom takes care of Stephen
as a father to a son. He takes Stephen to his home at 7 Eccles Street and on
their way to home they talk about many topics together. Stephen leaves and
Bloom lies down, telling Molly the whole day’s adventures. By asking himself
many questions he falls into sleep. The novel ends with forty unpunctuated
pages of Molly Bloom’s “silent monologue” before she gone asleep. In the
final episode of Ulysses, “Penelope”, Molly’s mind roams about,
meditating upon love, marriage, sex and passion.
Ulysses is a modern epic that comes from the ordinary
events of Bloom, “a cultured all-round man”. The hero Ulysses of the ancient
epic becomes “the little man” in the modern novel. So the novel tells the
adventures of a little man in one day, at the same time it can be read as a
universal experience of humankind. Like the hero Ulysses, Bloom is the
embodiment of many conflicting traits, but he never disheartens the reader
despite his weakness. One of the themes of the novel is searching for love.
Ulysses is one of the best-known stream of consciousness novels in the 20th
century, going farther than Virginia woolf in consummating the writing
skill. The following excerpt paragraphs are selected from Part II. It is the
descriptions of lunch time in Dublin in Bloom’s mind. The language style is
typical of Joyce.
“Pineapple rock, lemon
platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl shoveling scoopfuls of creams for a
Christian brother. Some school treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and
comfit manufacture to His Majesty the King. God. Save. Our? Sitting on his
throne sucking red juiubes white.
A somber Y. M. C. A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of
Graham Lemon’s, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr. Bloom.
Heart to heart talks.
Bloo…Me? No.
Blood of the Lamb.
His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved?
All are washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth,
Hymen, martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney
burntoffering, druids’ altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie,
restorer of the church in Zion, is coming.
Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!!
All heartily welcome.
Paying game. Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy.
His wife will put the stopper on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham
firm the luminous crucifix. Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and
see him on the wall, hanging. Pepper’s ghost idea. Iron Nails Ran In.
Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of
codfish for instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went
down to the pantry in the kitchen. Don’t like all the smells in it waiting
to rush out. What was it she wanted? The Malaga in it waiting to rush out.
What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain. Before Rudy
was born. The phorescence, that bluey greeny. Very good for the brain.”
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