Ulysses Outline!!

**Joyce’s novel is about the humanity that exists behind the common events of daily existence. EPISODE ONE: TELEMECHUS Pg. 3 ~ “Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror & a razor lay crossed...He held the bowl aloft and intoned... The plump shadowed face & sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips. “ Mulligan’s Mock Mass  Profain vs. the Sacred • Buck is making fun of religion, being blasphemos, insistant on it o Despite his disrespect by adopting position of priest it suggests that even one as brash as Buck, a liberated med student, is un able to fully shed his religious training o Tho Steph doesn’t believe in traditional Catholicism he is unable to tolerate Mulligan’s blaspheming lifestyle, although in many ways it is attractive to him.  “Steph. displeased and sleepy…”  J.J. isn’t necessarily endorsing Buck’s behavior  since the narrative is aligned with Steph’s thoughts as a reader we are more likely to be sympathetic to Steph’s distaste for Buck •

Mulligan has taken the role of a high priest and thus he places Steph in the inferior position of the acolyte (who has to walk up a few steps in beginning of service) o Alludes to the relationship that is later revealed in which Mulligan acts as a superior, & is treated as one mostly b/c of status as a med student, & is continually abusive and deprecating towards Steph, treating him as an inferior

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Razor & Mirror  form cross … also maybe rep physical/personal vanity Buck performs communion/catholic mass o Turns self into a cheap magician; “For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns…Shut Your eyes, gents, One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles….switch of the current, will you?”  Turns self into a cheap magician – needing an electrical current to turn water into wine “Cryostomos” – Steph’s thoughts  shows he is intellectual & observant (means gold mouth, just noticed Buck’s crowns)

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PG. 5 ~ “Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently in a dream she had come to him after her death….a bowl of white china had stood beside her deathbead holding the green sluggish bile which she had torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomit” PG. 9 ~ “Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace for the stairhead seaward where he gazed….Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide….she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe & pity….For those words, Stephen: love’s bitter mystery. Where now?” Pg. 10 ~ “Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his brooding brain….her breath bent over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes” - … “No mother. Let me be & let me live” o haunted by mother o line both a ref to Telemachus in Book I & to Hamlet in Act I, Scene 2, ln 69 - “his brooding brain”  also allusion to hamlet’s brooding - “Her shapely fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from children’s shirts” o Conveys the family’s poverty  a sorce of Steph’s shame for them ALL PASSAGES (PGS 5,9,10) CONVEY : - Steph’s guilt & anxiety over his mother’s death

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his refusal to kneel & pray at her request – somehow feels that it is his fault she died

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Stephen is mired in the past, chained to memories of his mother’s death.--> paralyzed

Sacred (beautiful) vs. the profaine o

details of Mary Dedalus’s death (in S’s dream and in actuality) are indeed horrible & naturalistic, but they are balanced against delicate pics as Stephen’s singing Willim Butler Yeats’s “Who Goes with Fergus?” (9) to his mother on her deathbed & also w/his memory of how much his mother enjoyed, long ago, the Dublin version of Turko the Terrible’s pantomime. (10)

ugly, painful vision of a dying person when normally people try to idealize & respect such a person, give them some final dignity  Steph doesn’t follow convention tho, refusal to pray at his mother’s death bead (JJ did this to) Steph’s fertile, poetic imagination o Pg 9 – alliteration w/W’s (wavewhite wedded words) o Epithets  repeated poetic descriptions in Homeric type poetry that are used to help orators remember the poem (“her gravecloths giving off the odour of wax and rosewood…her breath bent upon him, a faint odour of wetted ashes” (5, 10)) o Nealogisms  analogies repeatedly used, similar effect as above, sometimes turn into made up words  (ex: Homer – “rosey-fingered dawn” & “Wine dark sea” … Joyce – “sea, great sweet mother” & “scrotemtighteningsea”) o

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Pg 7 ~ “Helenise it” – gotta help culturize Ireland, help it be less provincial/unsophisticated  contrasts to other nationalists’ … men at pub (citizen) & their close-minded attitude  simply makes the situation worse ~ “omphalos” = belly button = Delphi, source of poetic inspiration Pg. 16-17 ~ “They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit. Conscience. Yet here’s a spot” - Another reminder that Steph is feeling very guilty about mother’s death o Remorse has a paralyzing effect on Steph o “here’s a spot” – allusion to Macbeth, Lady MacB’s guilt over husband’s murder - “Agenbite of Inwit” = The Remorse of Conscience o The theme of remorse runs thru novel to address feelings assoc w/modern breaks w/family & tradition  JJ juxtaposes characters who experience remorse w/characters who don’t • (Buck (calls S’s mother beastly dead) with Steph) o Remorse/guilt is Vaugly positive  self-conscious awareness of the past, understanding of what u’ve done wrong & feeling bad for it  helps to est you as a as moral human being o Bloom’s Guilt: feels guilty about his father b/c he no longer observes certain traditions (keeping koser) … also this ties to the breakdown of his family line (father commited suicide, son died) o Pg. 20 ~ “I am the Servant of two masters…an English and an Italian…and a third, there is who wants me for odd jobs” - 1st England, 2nd Roman Catholic church  stand in way of his free thinking 3rd – Ireland  addition of a third master—Ireland—is a somewhat proud attempt to set himself apart from the Irish masses, who take their own nationalism as a given. T o theme of Stephen’s perception of self as a servant will persist throughout.  fluctuations btw perceptive regontion of & pridful resistence to various authorites will define rest of day (like w/Heins) Pg. 23 ~ “Usurper”

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Steph feels he is being used by buck in a # of ways  Usurper refers to Buck’s acquisition of his keys & money as related to Hamlet’s silent resentment of Claudius (his uncle who married his wife) & Telemechus’s resentment of Antonious (& the other suitors) attempts to marry Penelope o Steph is a bit egotistic – sees these parallels btw heroic tales & his daily, mundane annoyances o

and Stephen is now both symbolically and literally homeless. He has been victimized by the tyrant Mulligan, just as his country has been spiritually “usurped” and plundered by England (Haines).

Sinn Fein – Irish movement for independence from England - Belief in irish autonomism, nationalist instinct - Steph is rebellious – not patriotic – has certain distatest for Irish nationalism o Refers to self as “server of a servant”  relationship to Ireland, a country which is itself a servant to two foreign tyrants, England and Rome

Buck Mulligan Vs. Stephen - Immediately a contrast is set up contrast - cynic vs. idealist, the scientist vs. the artist, & robust extrovert vs. the contemplative introvert. o Buck offers Stephen the temptation of an enjoyably physical but conventional existence, but Stephen tempted by such a life and its opposite, a life ofself-doubt, self-examination, and unhappiness. EPISODE 2: NESTOR Pg. 24 ~ Describes Stephen’s poor teaching “You Armstrong. Do you know anythinga bout Pyrrhus?....Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench whispered. Yes. They Knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent. All. With envy he watched their faces…”  Poor Teacher – aloof, lost in own thoughts – Aristotelian metaphysics o seems to feel superior to students  makes jokes that he knows they won’t understand Kingstown pier being a “disappointed bridge” – playing on Irelands sense of isolation from Europe & its disconnectedness class is unruly & blatently cheat but S doesn’t really care 

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 Steph even has to cheat, must look up date & location in text book  *possibly an effect of his troubled state of mind o plagued by guilt  can’t enjoy life, even his own joke knows pun about the pier is clever but only thinks how if he repeates it Haines will place it among his collection of S’s “bright” sayings  in service of the “English tyrant” who desn’t even recognize his serious/intellectual/artistic side “They Know”  know about sex…aren’t innocent…original sin…. 

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Pg. 27 ~ Describes Steph’s thoughts as he tutors Sergent, an ugly, kinda dumb kid (didn’t go over in class)  Stephen thinks about a mother’s unconditional love ~ “Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. But for hear the race of the world would have trampled him underfoot” o makes him think about his mother’s absence ~ “She was no more…an odour of rosewood & wetted ashes” o **Thoughts allow for a moment of compassion which allows Steph to effectively teach

Sargent  (otherwise Steph is distracted & cryptic) *Pg. 30 ~ Mr. Deasy: “Money is Power, when you have lived as long as I have. I know…But what does Shakespeare say? Put but money in thy purse.”  Deasy is pompus & self-righteous o launches into lecture assuming Steph is Fenian in attempt to assert authority (not to educate)  Anti-Semetic & Pro-British o criticizes “mercantile” jews for bringing decay to England (33)  Irony: Deasy possess the very qualities for which he condemns Jews (materialism, greed) o he is associated with money and the brightness of coins “on his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins”  conveys Deasy’s lack of substance - wealth w/o spirituality • (his brightness contrasts to the darkness of Stephen & later bloom – mourning clothes)  Didactic, but ineffectually o attempts to distribute pearls of wisdom but a lot of times he makes mistakes 

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ex. above he quotes Iago to support pint but he’s one of sakespear’s worst villans

**Pg. 34 ~ Steph attempts to challenge Deasy’s anti-Semitism  J.J. attempts to refute antisemetism with book  speaking thru Steph o JJ is a fundamental humanist, egalitarian o Bloom, the Hero of the book is Jewish  “That is God…A shout in the Street” – Steph, also a humanist, suggesting that God is not just one nation, race or religion, but that all of humanity is God, that God exists thorought all aspects of our lives o philosophical, departure from Deasy’s aggressive style of debate  confuses him 

(S dislikes violence  but his general passivity is prob just unwillingness to participate in a political argument on D’s tearms)

Pg. 31 ~ D: “We are all Irish, all Kings’ sons.” / “Alas,” Stephen said.  conveys apathetic, unpatriotic nature o frustrated with the Irish Condition  Does NOT support Irish Nationalism o Just wants to be a member of the human race *Pg. 34 ~ “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”  Steph is doomed to relive the past, the nightmare of his history, which always leads back to his mother & her death  plagued by guilt & sorrow, effects his daily life & interactions with people o ex. while tutoring Sargent he is inevitably brought to thoughts of his mother, her love for him, and her final days w/the smell of “rosewood & wetted ashes”  also reflects his fear of his inability to rise above his family’s poverty  also a challenge to Deasy’s & Hein’s conceptions of history

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H  history is impersonal & cut off prom past “it seems history is to blame”  doesn’t take responsibility for the injustices which England has imposed on so many other countries S  history of countries/nations, esp Irish, is filled with violence, persicution & sorrow  is frustrated w/Irish condition & their inability to escape their servitude to England • further frustrated by Irish citizen’s response to Eng (nationalism) o these & so much thru history has only served to divide us, but all S wants is for us to live harmoniously as one equal group of humans D  blames the problems/sins throughout history on Women & Jews 

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woman brought sin into world, jews sinned against the light selectively chooses to exlude certain groups of people from his summary of the crimes innacted throughout history (namely the British & Xtians/Catholics) EPISODE 3: PROTEUS

Pg. 38 ~ “A misbirth with a trailing navelcord, hushed in ruddy wool. The cords of all link back…Gaze in your omphalos. Hellow. Kinch here. Put me on to Edenville Alepha, alpha: nought, nought, one…Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon…Eve. She had no navel. Gaze. Belly without blemish…standing everlasting to everlasting. Womb of Sin”  imagines an umbilical cord as a telephone line, running back thru history & extending from Eve, thru which he could place a call to “edenville” o “belly without blemish”  descriptive of Eve, didn’t have a navel  also suggestive of Immaculate Conception of “Second Eve” (mary) who didn’t have the blemish of sex or her purity o “Alepha, alpha: nought, nought, one”  creation from nothing (as only God can do) gloomy thought of miscarrige soon followed by a variety of witty associations as S’s emotions rapidly flucuate o  Episode parallel’s Telemachus’s encounger w/Proteus, who could change shapes at will  Steph’s thoughts are always shifting, ever-fluctuating, just like the “protean” nature of reality •  reveals changes beginnig to take place in Steph  indicates S’s love/longing/guilt over mother & distatest, removal from father Pg. 40 ~ Indicate the beginnig of Steph’s maturation; ability to make fun of self   ability to be critical of his younger self  “Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint….You were awfull holy, weren’t you?...Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror….Hurray for the Goddamned idiot!”  starts to realize that he must acknowledge & interact w/world around him inorder to mature as an artist  he must learn to become mature or be drowned by life, to balance the conflicting foces that define him o however change & maturation are also frightening ideas  when he was young, tho he was 

poor, he was filed with hope & dreams, he accepted his faith, he was confident in his ability to write poetry  after returning from paris tho he is more lonely, impoverished, embittered…more skeptical & experienced loss of faith – himself feels lost & cut off from old beliefes yet unable adopt Buck’s utter irreverence & cynicism -Pg. 49 – Urinates - profain vs. the sacred

EPISODE 4: CALYPSO Pg. 56 ~ Theme of Infidelity  Molly = Penelope  Molly’s bead is weak & flimsy – it creaks and shakes when she moves in it o reflection of her moral weaknes, her infidelity  In contrast to Penelope’s bed  Odysseus built it out of a great tree so that it was practically immovable o strength of bed reflects strength of chracter, her fidelity Pg. 59 ~ Objectifying Male Gaze  Bloom is thinking/looking at this girl like a piece of meet, wants to walk behinder to watch “her moving hams” o ironic this is going on all while they’re at a butchers  J.J is slightly critical of this behavior, but recognizes that it is human  Perhapse, inappropriate, voyurism is a result of his issues & anxieties over his son’s death o is afraid to have another kid so he hasn’t had a healthy sex relation w/M for 11 years  Molly is forced to look outside the marriage for release as well  Relates to Bloom’s overt physicality o scientific curiousity  contrasts to Steph, who seems to be lacking in a sexual drive – celibate, inexperienced **Pg. 64 ~ Metempsychosis  a crucial concept – metaphore for what J.J. is doing  Bloom is reincarnation of Odysseus o parallel: homecoming (with help of “son”) for B its not his physica homecoming as much as his returning & being able to fufill duties as a husband, father, and “householder?” Tho B does not seem like the typical hero, he is an outsider, quiet, passive, ridiculed & condemned Tremendous capacity for compassion, it is this aspect of his personality – his ability to identify/empethize with all forms of life, human and animal – which endows him with the heroism of a character such as Ulysses is reincarnation of telemechus “dispossessed son in struggle” 

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 Steph o o

Telem  faces loss of inheritance; S  faces danger that he wont mature fully as an artist (especially not under oppression of ppl like Buck, Hains, & Simon)  search for his birthright as an artist = search for tru father, someone who will support & understand him

EPISODE 5: LOTUS EATERS Pg 71-73 ~ Ciggs, Tea, Opium… = INTOXICATED ESCAPISM

 parallel’s Odssyuss’s visit to lotus eaters (cause men to be complacent & forget trip)  motiff ties together most of his thoughts & observations o sets mood for an ep where not much happens & B is mostly alone  Marth & Bloom’s fake name  serve as Bloom’s escape from the painful reality of Molly’s infidelity Pg 79 – 81 ~ Church as stupefying…”Wonder how they explain it to the heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium”  Bloom thinks that religious missionaries have to compete with a lazy narcotic lifestyle to win over a native pop  Karl Marx ~ “Religion is the Opiate of the Masses o “Latin stupefies them first. Hospice for the Dying.” o “Waters of oblivion… Blind faith. Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain.” o *religion keeps the public complacient, helps them remain oblivious to the tragedy of life & the inevitability of death & all the problems goin on in the world o also illustrates Bloom’s thoughtfulness & curiousity  even though he is outside the religion he is naturally contemplating it EPISODE 6: HADES Pg. 88 - simon is a hypocritical drunk Pg. 100-103 – “Paltry funeral, Its all the same ….All for a shadow….Makes them feel more impt to be prayed over in Latin”  destroying validity of funeral rights  bloom is critical of religion b/c of way it romanticizes death, a natural part of life that happens eveary day  rituals are empty and inane, existing more for the benefit of the living than for the deceased  rituals are construced in order to obscure the gritty reality of death and to suppress people’s fears of death & the question of what comes after  “opiate of the masses” Pg. 105 ~ “Your Heart perhapse…Seat of the affections. Broken heart. Apump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day…Once you are dead you are dead..”  convey his pragmatic mind & scientific curiousity  materialization of the body  not entirely pessimistic, realist unsentimentalized view of world allows for him to move forward and to embrace unqiue, practical, and positive solutions and possibilities o ex. thinks about how our decomposed bodies fertilize soil and help flowers grow and add beauty to the world & in a way live forever EPISODE 8: LESTRYGONIAS Pg. 169 ~ “See the animals feed” ~ (also 165-66)  Food, Cannibalism  Bloom is repulsed by the way men are eating meat o Examination of Dublin Society its Catholicism & lack of personal restraint  anamalistic, unrefined & threatening Bloom is portrayed as more fully Human than other men *** 

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awarness of the grotesquness & distinction btw his consumption & others

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he is a wanderer in Dublin threatened by the canabalistic nature of the men (citizen) • eventually escapes rough streets by going to the refined realm of the Museum

Pg. 151 ~ “Blood of Lamb”  Food & Religion o themes manifested in the ritualistic “blood” sacrifice of the catholic communion **distinguishes Bloom as a wandering Jew, set apart from ritualized blood ceremonies of church • but Bloom’s concern goes beyond the mere tenets and rituals of religion  more concerned about the well being of members (catholic increase & multiply  no contreption  too many children too feed)  Bloom cast as christ –figure o mistakenly reads his name in the eveangelist pamhlet that says blood of lamp o Presented as a Martyr thru Humanitarian Actions 

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sympathy for undernourished Dilly Dedalus Feeds thankless seagulls helps blind man across intersection Concern for Mrs. Purefoy’s labor men of Dublin  exercize power over B thru gossip & ridicule

PG. 154 ~ PARALLAX & METEMSYCOOSIS  juxtaposition of JJ’s key concepts that he uses to write the novel  Parallax  use multiple postions/view points (steph, bloom, molly) to observe an obj in sky (Dublin = obj) & then combine  JJ uses 3 main characters & numerous narrative techniques all combined to give us a better, more objective understanding of this Day in Dublin  most constantly re-evaluate perspective as you read Pg. 175 ~ “Glowing wine on his palate linqered swallowed…Seems to a secret touch telling me memory. Touched his sens moistened remembered…Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed…Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life…Me. And me Now.”  very nostalgic, somewhat sad, moment for Bloom as he reflects on how he used to be with molly, in love & happy, compared to how he is now  TEMPORAL PARALLAX (obj not Dublin, its himself) Pg. 180-81 ~ Helps blind man across street…”Poor young fellow! How on earth did he know that van was there? Must have felt it…Queer idea of Dublin he must have, tapping his way around by the stones.”  illustrates Bloom’s empathy, compassion  also a brief moment of Blooms unconscious regognition of the parallax of which he is a part  Blind man’s perception of Dublin day EPISODE 12: CYCLOPS Parodies, Impt. Points

1) mock rote, unthinking, unreflective adherence to cultural norms 2) they enact the floating free of the signifiers from their signifieds (words  noise, loose meaning, pure medium) 3) Paradoxically, they also take great pleasure in the sound of language for its own sake (abstract, sensual) 4) They are funny for humors sake Pg. 331 ~ JJ’s Politics …”A nation? A nation is the same people living in the same place”  Bloom seems to be the voice of Joyce in this part o nationality is a self-selected category  reflect’s his compassionate humanism espc in contrast to the violent essentialsim of the citizen & others  Singlemindedness of Citizen. Men = Cyclopse – One-eye o can’t understand how Bloom can be a diff eethnicity/religion & still be irish 

(Bloom says he is a Jew but he is Irish)

Pg. 333 ~ “Life is Love… the opposite of hatred”  pascifist message, like jeus Pg. 342 ~ “Your God was a Jew. Christ was a Jew like me.”  B’S FINALLY ASSERTIVE !!! (yayyyyy)  b4 he was all passive but he realized that these men are particularly ignorant, crude, & uneducated takes a stand b/c their just so wrong & the maliciousness has been so blatant  bllom starts off week but becomes more heroic throughout  this marks rise of heroism  (Analogy – Irish persecuted by Brits like Jews were persecuted  men just don’t see the connection, cant empethize)