Notes on James Joyce's Ulysses

Ulysses, by James Joyce, is structured by three main chapters, according to Stuart Gilbert's framework (which was devised in collaboration with Joyce) in James Joyce's Ulysses (1930). This framework points out that there are eighteen episodes which are loosely based on Homer's The Odyssey. These episodes are accepted by literary critics when referring to sections of the novel, although, again, first time readers must remember that Ulysses is essentially divided into three main chapters.

Ulysses is set in Dublin, and the events unfold over 24 hours, beginning on the morning of Thursday 16th June 1904. Some of the events chronicled in the narrative correspond to actual episodes and occurrences in Joyce's life; most of them don't Despite its diverse styles and fantastic representations, Ulysses is a deeply, even 'magically' naturalistic work. Many of the 'real' things and topical events that the narrative presents (historical references, newspaper reports, descriptions of environments, places and objects) were meticulously researched by Joyce; indeed, he is reported to have desired to "give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book". However, there is also a plethora of misrepresented facts and red-herrings in the narrative which, if you live long enough to research them, are very funny. The work has 18 chapters which correspond, often approximately and strangely, to episodes in The Odyssey of Homer. Although the chapters of Ulysses which were published serially in The Little Review between 1918 and 1920 (when the editors were charged with publishing obscene material) carried 'Homeric' titles, the final novel omitted them. Joyce himself continued to use them, however, and included them in the various 'schema' he gave to friends and critics. Readers now use these chapter titles as a matter of course, and they are listed below: 1. Telemachs; 2. Nestor; 3.Proteus; 4.Calypso; 5. Lotus Eaters; 6.Hades; 7.Aeolus; 8.Lestrygonians; 9. Scylla and Charibdis; 10.Wandering Rocks; 11.Sirens; 12.Cyclops; 13. Nausicaa; 14. Oxen of the sun; 15.Circe; 16. Eumaeus; 17.Ithaca; 18.Penelope.

The first three episodes of Ulysses are sometimes referred to as the Telemachiad (Telemachus was the son of Odysseus/Ulysses) and concern themselves with Stephen Dedalus, a problematically autobiographical character that Joyce had first introduced into his published work through A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The next twelve chapters are considered to comprise the Odyssey or wanderings of Ulysses, and the final three are sometimes characterised as the Nostos, or Ulysses' homecoming to Ithaca, and treat the hero's return, his slaying of the treacherous suitors of his faithful wife Penelope, and his joyful reunion with her. Quite how 'legitimate' these correspondences, parallels and echoes are, and quite how much they are posed only to be re-accented, subverted, skewed or frustrated, is part of the intellectual and emotional adventure of Joyce's modern epic. There is a huge amount of interpretation that Ulysses seems to demand: one of the things that the novel is about is the human obsession with, and need for, interpretation and meaning The 'schemas' of the episodes are presented, followed by a summary of the parallel events in The Odyssey. A synopsis of the narrative's development follows this, and finally some stylistic comments and analysis. Much of the background information here is drawn from Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated (Berkeley & London: Uni. of California Press, 1988), and Coles Ulysses Notes (Toronto: Coles Publishing, 1981). The symbols, correspondences, etc, are taken from the Gorman-Gilbert and Linati schemas (the Linati elements are given in brackets) which Joyce promoted through friends and critics as an 'accompaniment' to the novel. These schemas are reproduced in various places, for example in Richard Ellmann's Ulysses on the Liffey (London: Faber & Faber, 1972), and Sydney Bolt's A Preface to James Joyce (London & New York: Longman, 1981). The more discursive and critical commentaries here are our own.

1. TELEMACHUS

TIME: 8.oo am.

SCENE: A Martello tower (erected by the British to repel French invasion during the Napoleonic wars) at Sandycove on the shore of Dublin Bay, 7 miles southeast of Dublin.

ORGAN: None

ART: Theology

COLOURS: White, gold

SYMBOL: Heir

TECHNIQUE: Narrative (young)

CORRESPONDENCES: Telemachus, Hamlet-Stephen; Antinous-Mulligan; Mentor-the milk woman. (Hamlet, Ireland and Stephen, Mentor, Pallas [Athena], the suitors and Penelope. Sense: Dispossessed son in struggle).

Homeric Parallels: In the council of the gods which opens Homer's Odyssey, Zeus decides that it is time for Odysseus to return home. In Ithaca, Telemachus, son of Odysseus and Penelope, is disgusted with the behaviour of the suitors toward his mother in his father's absence (the suitors are led by the arrogant Antinous, and they mock the threatening omens sent by Zeus), and he seeks counsel from the gods. Pallas Athena, goddess of the arts of war and peace, domestic economy, wit and intuition, is revealed as Odysseus' patron. She advises Telemachus to travel in search of his father.