Ulysses

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1922

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Episodes 1-3

Episodes 4-6

Episodes 7-9

Episodes 10-12

Episodes 13-15

Episodes 16-18

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Pints and Pubs

As Bloom and Stephen move through Dublin, they find themselves in various drinking establishments. Whether leaving newspaper offices or celebrating the successful birth of a child, or even just searching for something to eat, they visit numerous pubs throughout the day and imbibe large quantities of alcohol. Pubs are so ever-present in the city and in the lives of the characters that Bloom catches himself wondering how so many pubs can sustain themselves in the city and sets himself the challenge of crossing “Dublin without passing a pub” (56). The pubs, the pints, and the patrons congeal, sketching an image of social life in Dublin in the early 1900s. Pubs are a meeting place and a venue for the airing of ideas, whereas pints of beer function as a form of social lubrication. Even the alienated Bloom and the introverted Stephen reveal themselves within the pubs. Stephen tries to stay away, avoiding his appointment with Buck Mulligan at the Ship Inn. Nevertheless, he cannot deny himself this social venture. The pub is a cornerstone of daily life and the pints of beer make social interaction all the livelier. Between them, pints and pubs represent a form of contemporary Irish culture that is acknowledged by the characters themselves.

The question of alcohol as part of Irish identity is explored by the characters. Alcohol is a constant presence in the novel, to the point where the characters’ inebriety is reflected in the prose itself. The more Bloom and Stephen drink, the less the novel resembles an actual novel. At the peak of their drunkenness, the prose switches into a hallucinatory play as Bloom’s drunken consciousness interrogates itself. Dialogue and stage directions are all that remain. Furthermore, the prose of the novel frequently extols Irish alcohol and uses these beverages as points of reference. As “winedark” (314) is an epithet for water borrowed from Homer’s The Odyssey, Joyce updates the reference to pints of Guinness and porter. Guinness is an important geographical reference point, as the beverage company’s barges and factories litter the descriptions of Dublin and allow Bloom to locate himself using a famously Irish alcohol as a marker for his existence. Added to this, “the brewery of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company (Limited)” (318) is included among on the list of “much treasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish facecloth” (318). Through sheer ubiquity, alcohol—and especially Irish-made alcohol—becomes a point of identity.

Not everyone in Ulysses is pleased by the ever-present nature of pints and pubs in Irish society. A temperance movement is referenced frequently by the drinkers in pubs, often in disparaging terms. The “antitreating league” (298) was a movement that sought to criticize the practice of buying rounds of drinks in pubs, something the characters frequently do (and criticize Bloom for not doing). Characters like Doran are looked down on for their alcoholism. Bob Doran is seen “snoring drunk” (286) during one of his annual drinking “binges.” He is treated more as an annoyance by the men who—like him—are spending most of their day in a bar, drinking pints. The criticism of Irish drinking culture and the fine line between alcoholism and social interaction illustrates a key point of Ulysses. There is no single narrative or truth. Instead, like the complexity of daily life in the city, everything is impossibly nuanced yet deeply felt on a personal level.

The Irish Sea

The Irish Sea is the body of water that separates mainland Great Britain from the island of Ireland. Dublin Bay is situated on the Ireland sea and, as they look out across the sea toward Wales, Buck Mulligan opens the novel by referring to the Irish Sea as “a great sweet mother” (5). The sea forms a cornerstone of Irish identity, particularly during a period of British colonial rule. The sea is a physical barrier between the colonized Ireland and the colonizing Britain, a vast indicator of the separation of the two nations and two cultures, but also a formidable defense that has been breached. The sea defines Irish culture to the extent that everyone in Dublin is reminded of its presence every day. It is the mother of Irish republicanism, reminding every citizen that they are under colonial control of people from across the water. Ireland is physically separated from Britain yet ruled from afar and the sea is a permanent reminder of the injustice of this arrangement. Dublin as a city stares across the sea at the colonial ruler, just as Stephen stares across the bay and feels himself trapped by his circumstances. The sea is a symbol of Irish identity and, as Stephen searches for symbols in his life, a sympathetic reminder of his own alienation.

The idea of a “winedark sea” (47) is referenced numerous times throughout Ulysses. The “wine-dark sea” is a Homeric epithet, taken from The Odyssey and famous for its nuance and difficulty to translate. Rather than simply a sea of a dark, reddish color, the concept of the wine dark sea implies a roughness or a storminess. The development of the concept and the evolution of the term’s meaning has a particular symbolism in Ulysses. Not only does the wine-dark nature of the Irish sea tie together Bloom, Stephen, and the Homeric hero Odysseus, but the way in which the meaning of the phrase has evolved represents the evolution in prose styles and literature that have occurred since the two texts were written. Bloom’s story is a repetition and an evolution of Odysseus’s story; they are caught in similar cycles, bound by the recurrence of the universe. The wine-dark sea is an ever-present, but one whose meaning grows and metastasizes across time. The wine-dark Irish Sea symbolizes both Bloom’s connection to and his differences from Homer’s hero.

The characters in Ulysses move toward and away from the sea. Stephen begins the novel by taking a swim in the water, while Bloom visits the same beach later and stares at a woman while masturbating. The sea is a physical symbol in such moments, a contrast to the vibrant and chaotic city. Stephen bathes in the water to wash himself of his concerns, baptizing himself in a moment of reassurance as he becomes certain that he will leave behind the “usurper” (23) Mulligan. For Bloom, the venture to the seaside is a moment of anxious release. Staring at Gerty MacDowell frees him from his anxious thoughts about his wife’s affair and his early attendance of Paddy Dignam’s funeral. The vastness of the sea represents a depth of humanity, a demonstration that a limitless void exists beneath the visible waves. The depths of Stephen’s disaffection and Bloom’s anxiety are represented by the waves, which provide a physical symbol of the unknowability of the mind. Characters seek to escape from their anxieties, so they visit the sea, escaping briefly into the vast symbol of their own consciousness. The Irish Sea symbolizes the depths of the mind, from Irish identity to the links to a literary past to the anxious modernist mindset. The sea, like the human mind, has immense and incalculable depths.

Keys

Keys appear as a motif throughout Ulysses. From a narrative point of view, keys unite and differentiate Bloom and Stephen. The two protagonists are narratively bound together, shown to be similar and different at the same time. Their relationship to their keys represents this: Bloom begins the day by forgetting his house key while Stephen is all too keenly aware of his key’s presence in his pocket, as he is annoyed that Buck Mulligan has invited Haines into his house. Bloom has a secure home but no key with which to access it, while Stephen’s home feels tainted though he keeps a close grip on the means by which he accesses it. By the end of the story, Mulligan has taken Stephen’s key, but Stephen is welcomed into Bloom’s home by Bloom, who leaps over his garden wall and slips into his house without his key. Ironically, the man without a key brings both men into his home while the character who left home with his key promises to himself that he will never return. Bloom is Odysseus and Stephen is his symbolic son, Telemachus. They are united by their proximal and narrative relationship to the means of entering a house, one which eventually brings them symbolically together.

The recurring motif of the crossed keys also symbolically unites Bloom and Stephen. They are united in the ways in which their homes have been tainted by “usurpers” (618). Stephen loathes Mulligan, while Bloom spends the day fretting that Boylan will visit Molly. The crossed keys symbolize the paths of Stephen and Bloom crossing; they find each other in Dublin at a difficult time. Though they have met before, they have never really talked. The wandering Odysseus is united with his lost son Telemachus, resulting in the crossing of the keys as Bloom brings Stephen into his home and they have a long discussion on many topics. The conversation is a cathartic moment for the two alienated individuals, a moment of unity during a time when they feel betrayed and tainted. Their houses may have been usurped but their individual identities—symbolized by the crossed keys—have been unified in a narrative denouement.