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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
Newspaper headlines interrupt the text throughout this episode, which begins, “In the Heart of the Hibernian [Irish] Metropolis,” then describes busy tramcars rushing around the city. Under “The Wearer of the Crown,” the novel depicts British royal mail cars unloading letters and packages outside the post office. After the headline “Gentlemen of the Press,” a newspaperman named Red Murray cuts an old Alexander Keyes ad out of the paper for Bloom. A headline names William Brayden, an imposing, Jesus-like bearded man who climbs the stairs and draws Bloom and Red Murray’s attention.
This is the first episode where Joyce starts innovating with his novel’s form—and his innovations only get more radical and complex from here onward. While it’s easy to mistake the newspaper headlines for summaries of discrete sections of the story, they’re not: they’re more like a running commentary on events. Sometimes they just describe things, but often they also offer opinions or sarcastic remarks. And they’re not always located at natural transition points in the text. Through these formal experiments, Joyce challenges the notion that a single coherent point of view must hold a novel together, and he explores the way different genres can give readers access to the same story in different ways. In the Odyssey, Aeolus is the god of wind, and he gives Odysseus a bag of wind to help bring his boat home to Ithaca. But Odysseus’s men foolishly open the bag too soon, blow his ship off its path, and get stranded. Aeolus refuses to help Odysseus a second time. Aeolus loosely corresponds to the newspaper editor Myles Crawford, who blows Bloom’s plans off course. The episode’s tone breaks sharply with the sleepiness of “Lotus Eaters” and reflectiveness of “Hades,” but it also closely alludes to the Odyssey: its rushed prose and references to rhythmic, noisy action in the heart of Dublin resemble blowing wind, or (as Joyce put it) the lungs breathing in and out. The clang of tram cars and thud of unloaded cargo set up this rhythm from the start of the episode.
Themes
Bloom takes the Keyes ad clipping to the office of the Freeman newspaper, but the paper’s manager Nannetti is busy with Hynes, who is filing his story on Dignam’s funeral. While Bloom waits, he notes that Nannetti “never saw his real country” and thinks about all the different sections of a newspaper, while the machines mechanically print out copies in the background. Hynes finishes, and before he runs out, Bloom comments that he should visit the cashier soon—Hynes owes Bloom money.
Bloom’s client, Alexander Keyes, is also a pun on the “keys” that Bloom and Stephen have lost during the day. Bloom’s comment suggests that he identifies with Nannetti, who is also the son of immigrants. However, Nannetti has clearly achieved more status and success than Bloom—in fact, he’s even a Member of Parliament. Even Hynes clearly gets preference before Bloom, even though his reporting at Dignam’s funeral was clearly less than perfect and he owes Bloom money. In a nutshell, Bloom feels that he doesn’t get the respect he deserves in Dublin, and readers may or may not agree with him.
Themes
“We See the Canvasser at Work,” the novel announces. Bloom gives the old Keyes ad to the unspeaking Nannetti and explains that Keyes wants to reprint it, along with a new logo: two crossed keys surrounded by a circle. Bloom explains that this is a reference to the fight for independence in the Isle of Man (which lies in the Irish Sea between England and Ireland). Nannetti says that he needs a copy of the design, but that he can run it if Keyes will renew his ad for three months. Bloom watches the staff work in silence amidst the printing machines’ deafening, rhythmic noise.
By referencing the fight for home rule in the Isle of Man, Keyes’s logo makes a clear political statement—he is linking his business to the popular desire for Irish independence. But since Keyes’s name (and the two keys in his logo) is also a reference to Stephen and Bloom, the logo has a symbolic meaning: like Ireland, Stephen is trying to become free and independent, while Bloom is trying to achieve true “Home Rule” in his family.
Themes
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Nannetti begins spellchecking a set of proofs, and Bloom wonders if he should have said something else in order to capture the man’s attention. He leaves after Nannetti starts arguing with the head typesetter, Monks, about a letter from the archbishop. On his way out, Bloom wonders about Monks’s life and notices him setting type backwards, which makes him think of his father reading Hebrew. He decides to call Keyes—but first, a headline announces, “Only Once More That Soap.” Bloom smells the soap on his handkerchief and moves it to his other pocket. It reminds him of Martha asking about his wife’s perfume in her letter, and he briefly considers visiting Molly at home.
Nannetti pays Bloom very little attention, reinforcing his perception that others don’t take him seriously. But it’s also possible that the newspaper room is simply too loud for the workers to bother having unnecessary conversations. Here, the headline snarkily predicts Bloom’s behavior, which raises the question of what kind of voice is narrating the novel—clearly, it has access to future events, and it appears to be somehow structuring these events so as to control the reader’s perception of them. In fact, setting type backwards is an apt metaphor for this kind of narration, as is the important phrase “retrospective arrangement,” which recurs throughout the novel. In part, this is a play on the fact that Joyce (like any author) did retrospectively rearrange and rewrite large parts of Ulysses in order to make the symbolism from different episodes coincide.
Themes
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Bloom hears Ned Lambert’s voice in the Evening Telegraph office and decides to use the phone inside. He enters to find Ned, Simon Dedalus, and Professor MacHugh mocking an overelaborate speech made by the politician and baker Dan Dawson the previous night. J.J. O’Molloy enters the office, and the headline “Sad” comments on his failed career as a lawyer. O’Molloy asks for the editor Myles Crawford, and Bloom thinks it has something to do with his debts. Lambert, Dedalus, and MacHugh return to mocking Dawson’s speech, focusing on an absurd description of the beautiful Irish countryside. Dedalus calls it “Shite and onions!” and the men laugh. Bloom wonders if the speech was more inspiring in person.
For the second time in two episodes, a group of Dubliners assembles to mock Dan Dawson’s patriotic speech, which seems to have embodied the wrong kind of nationalism. But while they bond over ridiculing Dawson, Bloom feels sympathy for the man, which again shows that he doesn’t particularly fit in with his fellow Dublin professionals, but suggests that this might be a sign of his virtue. And for the second time this episode, a struggling Dublin professional is failing to pay his debts, which gives readers further reason to doubt the virtue of Bloom’s peers.
Themes
The harsh, imposing editor Myles Crawford rushes into the room. He and Professor MacHugh start making fun of each other, and then Ned Lambert and Simon Dedalus leave for a drink, making cryptic references to Irish military history on their way out. Bloom asks Crawford to use the phone, and Crawford ignores him, but he makes the call anyway.
Lambert and Dedalus’s inside jokes again exclude Bloom, and they specifically imply that he isn’t Irish enough to understand. Meanwhile, Crawford refuses to acknowledge his existence. Perhaps fed up with waiting for disrespectful people to finally pay him attention, Bloom takes matters into his own hands.
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After the headline “Spot the Winner,” Lenehan emerges from an office with the paper Sport and says that Sceptre is going to win the Ascot Gold Cup. One of the rowdy paper staff bursts in the door by accident, letting in a draft that shuffles around the paper’s pages. MacHugh kicks the staffer out. Meanwhile, Bloom finishes his phone call and crashes into Lenehan on his way out of the office. When he announces he’s leaving to find Keyes, Crawford jokingly yells at him, “Begone! […] the world is before you.”
When the Ascot Gold Cup horserace gets mentioned yet again, Joyce’s readers should start to ask what it means, both symbolically and for the novel’s plot. It could represent Dubliners’ competition for status and resources, men’s competition for women, or the sheer luck that determines people’s outcomes in society. The draft of wind that shuffles the pages on the floor is another clear reference to the story of Aeolus in the Odyssey, but MacHugh and Crawford reply to it with an equally aggressive energy. Crawford’s blunt reply to Bloom toes the line between humor and insult.
Themes
Lenehan and MacHugh watch through the window as Bloom walks away, and Crawford jingles his keys around and proposes the newsmen go drink with Lambert and Dedalus. O’Molloy, MacHugh, and Crawford light cigarettes and joke about how the British Empire has subjugated Ireland. MacHugh half-seriously declares that the British Empire’s true strength comes from its toilets—just as the Romans conquered the world by building sewers.
When Crawford jingles his keys, he’s combining two important symbols of Bloom’s alienation: the jingling bed that represents Molly’s relationship with Blazes Boylan and the keys that ultimately literally lock Bloom out of his own house. With his toilet humor, MacHugh actually makes an important point about the nature of British colonialism in Ireland: Britain conquered Ireland because of its mindless practicality, or its obsession with amassing raw power and building infrastructure. In other words, MacHugh thinks that the British successfully colonized Ireland (and much of the rest of the world) because they lacked true art, robust culture, and the ability to live in harmony with nature. This idea has interesting implications for Leopold Bloom, who is also essentially practical in his outlook (and, memorably, visited the toilet a few episodes ago).
Themes
Mr. O’Madden Burke and Stephen Dedalus enter the office. Stephen presents Crawford with Mr. Deasy’s letter, which is missing the corner Stephen tore off to write poetry. Crawford remembers how Deasy’s cranky ex-wife once threw her bowl of soup at a waiter, and Stephen suddenly understands Deasy’s misogyny. Professor MacHugh talks about how the Irish are “loyal to lost causes,” because they have lived under the control of more practical rulers (like the Romans and English) but still fight to preserve “the radiance of the intellect,” kind of like Pyrrhus fought to save Greece.
Stephen Dedalus has a second close call with Bloom. Readers might be surprised that he carries through with his promise to help his vile boss, Mr. Deasy, publish his letter about foot and mouth disease. (Of course, it’s deeply ironic that this is the only thing Stephen, an aspiring poet, gets published in the entire novel.) Crawford’s story about Deasy helps Stephen and the reader empathize with him—a skill that Bloom seems to possess naturally. But when evaluating Deasy as a man, it’s also worth comparing him to Martin Cunningham, who also faces a difficult situation with his wife—but handles it in the opposite manner, through sympathy and understanding rather than bitterness. MacHugh clarifies his theory about the British (who are like the practical Romans—or Leopold Bloom) and the Irish (who are like the Greeks—or Stephen Dedalus). This gives legitimacy to Buck Mulligan’s idea that Stephen is on a quest to “Hellenise” Ireland through his art, as he champions the “lost cause” of truth and beauty against the modern world’s oppressive practicality and unimaginativeness.
Themes
Lenehan invents a limerick about MacHugh and makes a bad joke: the title of the English opera The Rose of Castille sounds like a railway line, “rows of cast steel.” The other men generally ignore him. Under the imitation Latin headline “Omnium Gatherum,” the men compliment each other’s talents and note that they’re missing Bloom, who’s skilled in “the gentle art of advertisement,” and his wife, “Dublin’s prime favorite” singer. Lenehan coughs and jokes about coming down with a cold in the park.
Like Bloom, Lenehan gets ignored—but unlike Bloom, he seems to deserve it, because he’s quite obnoxious and insensitive. The men’s celebration of talents is quite ironic to attentive readers, since they’re mostly failures at their respective professions. Crawford is a drunk, O’Molloy is broke, and there’s no evidence that Lenehan has a job at all. The only person they mention who is successful is Molly, and they seem to appreciate her more as a sex object than a singer. (At least, Lenehan does—his joke is a reference to sex.)
Themes
Crawford asks Stephen to try writing something for the paper. He thinks Stephen could “paralyse Europe” with something inventive, like how the journalist Ignatius Gallaher sent encoded information to New York about the 1881 Phoenix Park murders committed by the invincibles (a group of Irish nationalists). The phone rings, and MacHugh answers: it’s Bloom, calling for Crawford. But Crawford asks MacHugh to pass on a message: “Tell him to go to hell.” The newspapermen continue reminiscing about the Phoenix Park case, remembering how a noblewoman accidentally bought a postcard commemorating one of the murderers, right outside a government building. Crawford concludes that Ireland’s reporters are deteriorating as much as its legal system.
Unlike virtually everyone Stephen has met so far, Crawford genuinely believes in him. But since Stephen considers himself an artist, he is more likely to look for fulfillment elsewhere. Of course, readers might find it frustrating that Stephen doesn’t particularly care about journalism, while Crawford clearly doesn’t believe in Bloom, who does. (He fantasized about getting into the paper while reading Titbits in the morning—and, of course, he wants to get Keyes’s ad published.) Thus, Stephen is wanted somewhere he doesn’t belong, and Bloom isn’t wanted where he thinks he belongs. Crawford’s references to hidden and garbled communication—his commentary on Gallagher’s cryptic messages and the noblewoman with the postcard—are obvious references to Joyce’s own method. In particular, they’re commentaries on his propensity to give away important symbols and even plot points through code rather than direct narration, and also on his use of miscommunication for comic and narrative effect. Of course, they’re also concrete examples of how journalism can make a political impact—which is ironic, as the journalists themselves don’t seem to be doing much of anything about the current political situation (except Nannetti, who isn’t even in the room anymore).
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Stephen’s mind drifts to his poetry, and then to some rhyming Italian lines from Dante. O’Molloy insists that Ireland still has excellent jurists, like Seymour Bushe, who defended the accused in the Childs murder case. This case reminds Stephen of the scene in Hamlet when the king’s ghost explains how he was murdered. O’Molloy strikes a match and lights his cigar. (Thinking in retrospect, Stephen remarks that this action—striking the match—was far more important than it initially seemed.) O’Molloy recites Seymour Bushe’s greatest line from the trial, a convoluted explanation of the ancient laws of evidence, then he asks if Stephen likes the line, but Stephen just blushes and takes a cigarette instead. O’Molloy remarks that he chatted with Professor Magennis about Stephen, who apparently asked a visiting American researcher about Madame Blavatsky’s theosophists. Stephen wants to ask what Magennis said, but he knows he shouldn’t.
Seymour Bushe’s defense, the scene with King Hamlet’s ghost, and Stephen’s remark about O’Molloy striking the match all have one important thing in common: they deal with the difference between knowing about the present and knowing retrospectively about the past (when it's possible to understand events better, but no longer possible to change them). Legal defenses are about arranging the events of the past into a persuasive narrative; Hamlet’s ghost mysteriously knows how he was killed (even if Stephen can’t figure out why); and a future Stephen interjects to point out that O’Molloy’s match only became significant far later. In other words, the meaning of events is only ever decided after the fact. Of course, Joyce also follows this rule in his novel—Stephen’s interjection from the future is a clear example of it. Stephen’s response to Bushe’s line suggests that he isn’t actually impressed—and, by extension, that O’Molloy doesn’t have particularly good literary taste. As a result, when O’Molloy immediately starts praising Stephen, it doesn’t count for much to him (he’s far more interested in what Professor Magennis said).
Themes
MacHugh interrupts to declare that John F. Taylor gave the best speech he ever saw in a debate over reviving the Irish language. In fact, MacHugh knows the speech by heart, and he recites it. Taylor compares England’s domination over the Irish to the way the Egyptians tried to force their language, culture, and rule on the Israelites, who managed to escape bondage by following Moses’s lead. But O’Molloy laments that Moses “died without having entered the land of promise.” Similarly, Stephen thinks that Taylor’s speech was ultimately “gone with the wind,” turned into “dead noise” by the course of history.
Keeping with the theme of retrospectively assessing the past, MacHugh adds another historical parallel to his previous argument that England is like Rome and Ireland is like Greece: England is also like Egypt, and Ireland is also like Israel. Patterns from history repeat themselves. Moses, who saved the Israelites from conquest, becomes a metaphor for the kind of spiritual and cultural leader that both Bloom and Stephen imagine being for Ireland. (Joyce’s point is in part that most people wish they could be a hero and save the world.) But Stephen rejects Taylor’s speech because of his despairing view of history as a process of bitter and unforgiving destruction, in which the sterile but powerful win out over the inspired and creative but weak.
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Stephen asks the men if it isn’t time to depart, and the group agrees to go for a drink at Mooney’s pub. As the newsboys run into the office with news from the races, Stephen realizes, “I have much, much to learn.” He starts telling MacHugh about the story he’s hoping to write under the headlines “Dear Dirty Dublin” and “Life on the Raw.” Stephen imagines two elderly virgins who save up their money so that they can see Dublin from atop Nelson’s pillar. They bring 24 plums as a snack, but they’re unprepared for the long walk up the pillar. The women, who are Florence MacCabe and Anne Kearns, struggle to climb the stairs.
Stephen has a rare moment of humility when he realizes that he’s still young and has plenty more to learn in his life, but then he swings back in the other direction by boldly proposing his extremely obscure parable to the newsmen. The women in his story are the midwives from Sandymount Strand in episode three, and by making them into virgins, Stephen turns them from symbols of fertility into symbols of purity. Their climb up Nelson’s pillar (which symbolizes British imperialism) is a quest to capture the right kind of perspective on Ireland—which may be the bird’s eye view that Joyce takes in episode ten, or perhaps the nationalists’ proud, independent view of their country.
Themes
A flurry of activity interrupts Stephen’s story—the newsboys have more updates from the Ascot Gold Cup horseraces. Leopold Bloom also returns to the office. He tells Crawford that Keyes will run his ad for two months, if the Telegraph is willing to publish a paragraph about his business. Crawford matter-of-factly says that Keyes can “kiss [his] arse,” and Bloom replies with confusion and disappointment before Crawford repeats what he said. Crawford also rejects J.J. O’Molloy’s request for a loan.
Notably, this is the first time that Bloom and Stephen are in the same room. The frantic bustle that dominates this episode comes back to interrupt Stephen. Ultimately, Crawford crushes Bloom’s hopes for no clear reason—he seems to have just been acting on a whim. This speaks to the role of fate and frustration in both Ulysses and in epics like the Odyssey: there are certain vitally important things that people simply never can or will control in their lives.
Themes
MacHugh mentions Stephen’s story to Crawford, which gives Stephen a chance to finish telling it. The two elderly virgins hurt their necks looking at the statue of the “onehanded adulterer” Nelson atop the pillar. Then, they eat their plums and spit them out over the edge of the railing. MacHugh compares Stephen to the Greek philosopher Antisthenes, who gave “the palm of beauty […] to poor Penelope.”
The end of Stephen’s story appears to be a metaphor for British oppression. The twenty-four plums are likely a reference to the “four and twenty blackbirds” who fly out of a pie in the nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence.” By spitting out the pits and making them fly down to the street, the women invert the nursery rhyme’s meaning: flight comes to signify failure, not freedom. The reference to Penelope and the palm of beauty is a clear reference to Molly Bloom (whose soliloquy at the end of the novel is called “Penelope”). By linking her to Stephen, MacHugh foreshadows the end of the novel, when both Molly and Leopold Bloom start to imagine Stephen as a kind of sexual mediator for them.
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On their way to the pub, the men pass the busy tram lines next to Nelson’s pillar, but the cars aren’t running because of a short circuit. Crawford admits that he doesn’t understand Stephen’s story, but MacHugh proposes a Latin name for it. Stephen prefers “A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The Parable of the Plums.” O’Molloy looks up at the pillar and smiles at Stephen’s idea that Nelson is a “onehanded adulterer.”
The stalled cars represent another frustrating failure, much like Bloom’s failure to sell the ad or the sexual frustration that ends Stephen’s parable. Indeed, his parable’s titles reference this: a “Pisgah sight” means a vision that will not be achieved. Where the “onehanded adulterer” Nelson was supposed to take the women’s virginity, they end up spitting out plum-stones instead. This contrasts with the other important plum in Ulysses: Plumtree’s Potted Meat. According to its terrible advertisement, Plumtree makes a home complete. Moreover, it’s a proudly Irish-made product, which represents nationalists’ industrial ambitions. And of course, in Joyce’s Ireland, potting the meat was also slang for having sex. Stephen’s plum-stones signify the opposite: an unhappy family, national stagnation, and sexual frustration.
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