Synopsis of Ulysses

A ppendix A Synopsis of Ulysses 1. “Telemachus.” On June 16, 1904, at 8:00 a.m., Stephen Dedalus is residing with his mocking medical student friend Buck Mulligan at a stone tower in Sandycove, on the shore of Dublin Bay about seven miles southeast of the city center. Stephen has passed a diff- ficult night because Haines, Mulligan’s English houseguest, kept him awake “raving all night about a black panther” (1.7). Stephen has also had a dream about his dead mother, who passed away about a year ago. Stephen still wears mourning clothes and is tormented with guilt (“agenbite of inwit” [1.481]) over his refusal to pray at his mother’s deathbed when she asked him to. Mulligan’s insensitivity to Stephen’s feelings is one reason for his imminent departure from the tower; Haines is another: Mulligan wants Stephen to perform for the Englishman for money, but Stephen finds the smug, anti-Semitic Saxon intolerable (“If he stays on here I am off” [1.62–63]). The three breakfast together, with the milkwoman—in Stephen’s mind— playing the symbolic role of Ireland: slighting the artist while giving her attention to the Englishman and the “priest.” Stephen and Haines talk about history as Mulligan swims in the swimming hole known as the Forty Foot, having extracted the key to the tower from Stephen, as well as two pence for a pint. The three plan to meet at a pub later in the day: “The Ship [. .] Half twelve” (1.733). 2. “Nestor.” Stephen is seen here as a schoolmaster teaching at a boys’ school in Dalkey, about a mile southeast of the Sandycove tower. He attempts to teach a history lesson about Pyrrhus’s defense of Tarentum, a Greek colony in lower Italy, against the Romans. He then has a boy “recite” from Milton’s Lycidass, an elegiac poem about a dead friend named Edward King. Stephen dismisses class with a seemingly senseless riddle, then tutors a young pupil in math; the boy, Sargent, reminds Stephen of himself when he was young and of the reality of the love between mother and child. Then, with the boys 186 Appendix A outside playing field hockey, Stephen sits through a lecture on mone- tary prudence by the headmaster Mr. Deasy as he receives his monthly wage. Deasy is a Protestant Irishman who supports the British in Ire- land. He has the sense that Stephen, raised Catholic, is some kind of political rival, which prompts Deasy into a series of often confused remarks about Irish history. Deasy has written a letter on hoof-and- mouth disease and asks Stephen to read it. The schoolmaster seems to attribute British embargoes of Irish goods to Jewish financial manipu- lation rather than British political control. Despite an all but complete disagreement on the nature of history, which throws some doubt on Stephen’s future employment, Deasy asks Stephen to get his letter published. As Stephen leaves the school, Deasy runs after him to tell him an anti-Semitic joke. 3. “Proteus.” Stephen walks north toward Dublin along Sandy- mount Strand and meditates about a variety of things: Aristotle’s metaphysics (especially the relationship of time and space), his expe- riences in Paris in 1903, his mother’s death and the telegram that summoned him home from Paris: “Nother dying come home father” (3.199). After the opening meditation and an “experiment” to test the nature of reality, Stephen opens his eyes to see two women whom he imagines are midwives come to dispose of a misbirth (3.36). This fantasy leads him to think of fatherhood and generation, and thence of his relatives: his aunt Sara and uncle Richie Goulding, his mother’s brother. Stephen is evidently considering either visiting or staying with them for a while and so conjures up a comic scene of a visit (3.70–103). He then remembers elements of his earlier life, first as a Catholic youth who compromised his faith in the face of adolescent sexuality (3.128–34) and then as a pretentious litterateur (3.136–46). Next, through a series of linguistic associations, he recalls a conversation with Patrice Egan, son of the exiled Fenian leader Kevin Egan (a.k.a. Joseph Casey), shortly after Stephen’s return from Paris (3.163–73). Since Patrice is a soldier in the French army, the memory leads to thoughts about Stephen’s brief stay in Paris, includ- ing a visit Stephen made to Kevin Egan himself (3.216–64). After this, Stephen looks south, the direction of the Martello tower, and decides that he will not return there (3.276). Then he notices a dead dog (3.286; symbolic, perhaps, of Stephen’s decision to abandon his role as “dogsbody,” British military slang for drudgee or servant) and a live one, described in highly “Protean” language (3.332–52). The dog belongs to a pair of cocklepickers, who may actually be Gypsies. In any case, Stephen fantasizes about the sex lives of the couple in a mixture of Elizabethan underworld cant and Romany (the language Appendix A 187 of the Gypsies; 3.370–88). Stephen’s “[m]orose delectation” (erotic fantasy) may be prompted by his recall of a fantastic, “oriental” dream he has had more than once (3.365–69). The erotic mood continues as Stephen becomes inspired and writes a poem about a vampire’s kiss (3.397–407), lies back on a rock and daydreams about women (3.424–36), thinks about Mulligan in homosexual terms (3.451; “Wilde’s love that dare not speak its name”), and then possibly mas- turbates or possibly urinates in the water that flows from “Cock lake” (3.453–60). The chapter ends with a fantasy of the drowned man rising to the surface (3.470–83), which leads, in turn, to a preoccupa- tion with the body: Stephen is thirsty, he feels his rotten teeth, and he picks his nose (3.485, 495, 500). Suddenly self-conscious, he feels someone is looking at him, turns around, and sees a “threemaster” riding the incoming tide upstream toward the mouth of the Liffey and into Dublin (3.502–5). 4. “Calypso.” The clock has been set back to 8:00 a.m. and the scene shifted to No. 7 Eccles Street in the northwest quadrant of Dublin. Leopold Bloom is up and about before his wife Molly, pre- paring her breakfast of tea, bread, and butter (4.11). He decides on a pork kidney for his own breakfast and steps out to the butcher to get one (4.46). There he picks up a Zionist leaflet soliciting pledges for a projected colony in Palestine called Agendath Netaim (4.191– 92; Hebrew: “company of planters”). He returns home and picks up the mail that has been delivered in his brief absence: a letter for him, a card for Molly from their daughter Milly at Mullingar, and a letter for “Mrs. Marion Bloom” from Hugh (Blazes) Boylan (4.245, 250, 312). Bloom brings Molly her breakfast; they discuss, briefly, Mol- ly’s upcoming singing tour and a funeral for Paddy Dignam, one of Bloom’s acquaintances (4.312–15), but the central topic is the mean- ing of the word metempsychosiss that Molly has come across in Ruby: The Pride of the Ringg (4.331–77). Bloom runs down to the kitchen to tend to his kidney when Molly smells it burning; he eats it and reads the letter from Milly, which leads to melancholy thoughts of how use- less it is to try to prevent Milly’s loss of virginity and Molly’s adultery (4.447–49). He then goes to the outhouse and reads a newspaper story called “Matcham’s Masterstroke” as he relieves himself (4.502– 17). The bells of St. George’s church chime at 8:45 as the chapter ends with Bloom’s “Poor Dignam” (4.549, 551). 5. “Lotus Eaters.” The time is 10:00 a.m. or so as Bloom walks along the Liffey and heads for Westland Row Post Office, where he presents his fake “Henry Flower” calling card and receives a letter from his epistolary mistress Martha Clifford (5.60–61). When he 188 Appendix A leaves the post office, he runs into C. P. M’Coy, who works in the coroner’s office and is headed to Sandycove with regard to the drown- ing case. They discuss Paddy Dignam’s death and Molly’s upcoming concert tour, but the voyeuristic Bloom is distracted by the sight of an attractive woman (5.82–152). The newspaper ad for Plumtree’s Potted Meat and the allusion to “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” along with M’Coy’s “up” joke, reflect the Blooms’ marital difficulties (5.144– 47, 153, 157–61). M’Coy asks Bloom to put down his name in the registry at the Dignam funeral (5.170–71). He leaves, and Bloom is free to read his letter from Martha (5.241–59). He then sits in on a morning mass at All Hallows Church and thinks about the myster- ies of religion in Bloomian terms (5.322–449). Next, he goes to the chemist Sweeney to have lotion made up for Molly, which he will pick up later. He also buys some soap for his upcoming bath (5.472–516). When he leaves the chemist’s, he runs into the horseplayer Bantam Lyons and gives him an unwitting tip on Throwaway, a long shot in the Gold Cup Race (5.519–41). Bloom then walks toward the baths where he plans to masturbate over Martha’s letter, and the chapter ends with Bloom’s vision of his own body in the bath, with his limp and ironically named penis (“father of thousands”) floating in the water (5.567–72).

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