Topics and Questions on James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) The novel is divided into 18 chapters, traditionally named and grouped according to the divisions of Homer’s epic, The Odyssey. Incorporating those titles and the time of day in which the action of each occurs, the chapters are as follows. I. The Telemachia Telemachus (8 a.m.) 1. What is Stephen Dedalus’ attitude toward Buck Mulligan? toward the Englishman, Haines? How do you account for his attitude toward them? 2. How does Stephen feel about his mother’s death? What irony is found in Mulligan’s view of this event? What is meant by “Agenbite of inwit”? 3. How does the Homeric parallel work in this episode? If Stephen is to be seen as a modern Telemachus, who are the modern suitors? The reference to Hamlet introduces another important source of analogies. In what respects is Stephen like a young Hamlet? Is there a modern Claudius? What about a Gertrude? Who is the “usurper” here? Comment on the significance of the assertion (made by Haines) that “History is to blame.” What decision regarding his immediate future does Stephen make near the end of the episode? Nestor (10 a.m.) 4. Compare and contrast Stephen’s view of history as “a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” and Mr. Deasy’s view that “all human history moves to one great goal, the manifestation of God.” What other references to history are there in this episode? 5. What irony is there in Mr. Deasy’s attitude toward Jews? What is Stephen’s view? Proteus ( 11 a.m.) 6. “Ineluctable modality of the visible” is Stephen’s lofty Aristotelean phrase by which he refers to the unavoidably material form of the visible world of space (the nebeneinander, or “one beside the other”) as contrasted with the internal and subjective world of time (the nacheinander, or “one after the other”) dominated by the ear. What experiment does Stephen conduct concerning the relationship between these aspects of reality and how it is perceived? What are the results of the experiment? 7. What does Stephen mean when he thinks of himself as “made not begotten”? In his case, what is “the divine substance wherein Father and Son are consubstantial”? Why does he imagine himself perhaps “walking to eternity along Sandymount strand”? 8. What is suggested by Stephen’s imagining a visit to his aunt and uncle’s (the Gouldings’) home, and his father’s reaction to such a visit? by his thoughts about “jackpriests” performing the Eucharist all over Dublin at the same time? of having him recall his meeting in Paris with