Leopold Bloom Joyce s Ulysses-Name: Brave as a lion.FlowerHe is not brave as a lionFlower:His refusal of violence :In ch 12 Bloom contends that persecution perpetuates nationalistic hatred. Nolan and the citizen quiz Bloom about his own nationality. Bloom claims Irish nationality by birth and Jewish allegiance. Nolan suggests that the Jews have not properly stood up for themselves. Bloom responds that love and life are better options than force and hatred. Bloom leaves and The citizen ridicules Blooms call for love.As a result,Blooms pacifism mirrors Odysseus initial reluctance to take part in the Trojan War.At first glance, Leopold Bloom is very different from Odysseus. He is not a king,but a canvasser for advertisments,he is a non practicing jew rather than a pious greek,and unlike Ulysses who kills his wife suitors,Bloom is passive in the face of his wife s adultery with Boylan. That's not to say that he doesn't care or that he isn't extremely disturbed by the fact that his wife is cheating on him. In "Hades," when the other men in the carriage salute Boylan, Bloom simply examines his fingernails and thinks to himself that Boylan is the "worst man in Dublin" (6.89). Later in "Lestrygonians," Bloom sees Boylan again and is terrified of having an encounter with him. He rushes into the National Library to get away from him. Bloom suddenly spots Boylan across the street. Panicked, he ducks into the gates of the National Museum.chapter 8

But Bloom may posesses other characters that link him to Odysseus.First of all,as Joyce insisted,he is a good man. Despite his faults, Bloom does perform such a remarkable number of charitable deeds in the novel that he becomes, in many ways, a modern Christ. He attends Dignam's funeral, for example, despite his knowing that he will not be accepted by the other mourners, and, later, he visits Paddy's widow to help her understand the life insurance policy,he feeds the hungry sea gulls ,he pities the starving Dedalus children. He helps a blind youth cross a street and he watches over Stephen, who he thinks is being covertly made drunk by Mulligan.Also, Bloom certainly merits the first epithet that Homer applies to Odysseu :much wonderinggiven the fact that he wandders all around Dublin.The fundamental theme of the Odyssey ,the wanderings and return of Odysseus,is mirrored in the wanderings around Dublin of leopold Bloom and his return home to 7 Eccles Street.In his absence, Ithaca and Odysseus are usurped by the suitors,as Bloom is usurped by Blaze Boylan.Stephen Daedalus :In the first chapter , Mulligan notes the absurdity of Dedalus's last name, which comes from the Ancient Greek. (Note: according to Greek mythology, Daedalus was the engineer who built the Labyrinth and then built wax wings to allow him and his son, Icarus, to escape from the island of Crete. He warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun or to the sea, flew too close to the sun, melted his wax wings and perished in the sea.Stephen, son of Simon Dedalus, toys with the heights to which his artistic ambition might take him, but also beginning to learn just how far he can fall. it is Stephen Dedalus who is the parallel to Homer's Telemachus,who advised by the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena, decides to head out in search of his father who is rumored to be dead. When we first read the book, we remember that we were putting all our effort into romanticizing these final scenes as a glorious coming together between Stephen and Bloom, as Stephen's transformation. It's not quite that. Stephen, for example, recites an anti-Semitic poem for Bloom and doesn't notice the degree to which it offends him. As Stephen leaves, Bloom senses that he's indifferent and many of their future plans together probably will not come to fruition. .....................................................................Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus inUlyssescould be called spiritual exiles, because they are alienated, alone and exiles within their native culture. Bloom has had many religion conversions. Stephen, on the other hand, struggles to invent a new religion of artStephen Dedalus is one of the most radical symbols of the young modern intellectual/artists who are forced into exile within communities they are living in. Stephen's rejection of all the religious, political, and social official institutions,am,I am a slave to//)(Non Seervi in addition to his theory of self-authorship, derives him to the final destination of exile. His notion of self-authorship equals rejection of every biological father, every Pope, or king, either Irish or British. All of these revolutionary and rebellious notions definitely cause a big conflict and disagreement between Stephen and the society he lives in. Thus, he chooses a hermetic life of an artist outside Ireland, whose art Stephen compares with the "cracked looking glass of a servant. Looking at a broken mirror in "Telemachus," he says, "It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant" (1.65). The idea is that the Irish, living under the oppression of the British, can't but produce broken images of themselves as oppressed peoples. This definition of Irish art he gives shows his deep alienation and detest from his native art and culture. Stephen's spiritual exile is more intensified when one considers his desire to accomplish an artistic career within the restricting environment of Ireland The nonconformist Stephen Dedalus, like Bloom, struggles very hard to retain his individuality and independence. The difference is that Stephen has fervent ambitions to fulfill his artistic ideals, while Bloom does not seem to be demanding of something for his self. Stephen is according to Said ,one of those intellectuals who "will not adjust to domesticity or routine"

ReadingUlyssestoday, it's easy to forget just what a big deal it would have been for an Irish reader that Bloom is Jewish. InUlysses, Joyce has set out to write the great Irish novel (and, coincidentally, the greatest novel of all time), which would have made nationalistic Irishmen exceedingly proud. But then who does Joyce pick as the hero of his novel? He picks someone that most of those same nationalistic Irishmen wouldn't have thought of as a fellow patriot; they would have thought of him as a second-class citizen.But whether Irishmen liked it or not, Bloom was completely a Jew. In "Lotus Eaters," Bloom pokes his head into a Christian church and all of his thoughts are the thoughts of an outsider, one who doesn't quite understand what is going on. He considers confession as "God's little joke," Much of Episode Six is concerned with Blooms relative isolation within a social group. Bloom is positioned as a latecomer, an outsider, and an anomaly in the cab with Dedalus, Cunningham, and Power; in the chapel service; and in the cemetery in relation to Menton and other attendees of Dignams funeral. Blooms exclusion is vaguely implicit: Bloom is invited to step in the cab last, and he is not referred to by his Christian name.Episode 12 inUlyssesis chock-full of allusions to the book above. InUlysses, being one-eyed is a metaphor for being confined to a narrow point of view. The citizen, whose aggressive nationalist thinking can seem "one-eyed", represents Polyphemus. After Bloom complains of the persecution of Jews that's taking place even at this very moment, John Wyse Nolan tells him that he should stand up for himself if he feels so strongly. Bloom suddenly backs off, goes "as limp as a wet rag" (12.422). He says, "But it's no use. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that is really life" (12.423). When Bergan asks him what he means, Bloom says, "Love. I mean the opposite of hatred" ). Persecution, all the history of the world is full of it. Perpetuating national hatred among nations" When asked what a nation is, Bloom says, "A nation is the same people living in the same place" (12.403). What's key here is Bloom's moderation, his willingness to combat the citizen's narrow-minded nationalism. Being a Jew in Ireland, an outsider in an intensely nationalistic land, Bloom has a more flexible concept of what a nation is than the citizen does. Suspended as he is between his Jewishness and his Irishness, Bloom can see all the faults of short-sighed nationalistic thinking and steer clear of them.(12.425). The atmosphere becomes increasingly anti-Semitic. The citizen here represents a particular kind of Irish nationalism that bases itself on an idea of racial purity. The citizen is able to recognize the brutality and moral bankruptcy underlying the British Empire, yet he cannot recognize these same qualities in the Irish societyWhile the citizen mocks the Jewish faith, Bloom shouts back at him, listing off all of the famous Jews in history, and closes by shouting that Jesus was a Jew. The citizen is furious, and (in his role as Polyphemus) rushes inside to find something to throw at Bloom (except here it is a biscuitbox instead of a boulder).

So, who is the citizen? Generally speaking, the citizen is representative of an Irish attitude that was not uncommon in 1904. Strongly (sometimes violently) resistant to English oppression, the attitude was fiercely nationalistic and insular, constantly willing to proclaim the greatness of the Irish people and Irish culture, but impervious to influence from outside the island. Gifford's annotations suggest that the citizen is modeled on a man named Michael Cusack. Cusack founded the Gaelic Athletic Association, a group so focused on Irish pride that they actually denounced people as un-Irish if they watched English games like football (soccer) or rugbyFor Bloom, it seems that his Jewishness is more of a cultural position than a religious position, and more so that it's something that is imposed on him from outside. When other people in the novel look at Bloom, they think of him as a Jew. The result is that his race becomes a defining aspect of his personality regardless of whether or not he thinks of it that way.

InUlysses, we have a sharp contrast drawn between the aspiring artist Stephen and the content ad man Leopold Bloom. Stephen, in his search for a sense of 'vocation,' couldn't conceive of selling ads. Bloom occasionally indulges fantasies of writing stories for a local pennyweekly, but for the most part he seems pretty satisfied with what he's doing. But, despite this difference, both men have remarkably creative minds in their own way.Stevan artistic highly intelligent whilw blooms are rather amusing and incentiveIn an episode like "Proteus," we see that Stephen can get so lost in his own thoughts that he almost forgets that he is a person in the world. Stephen tries to think of everything in spiritual and artistic terms, but the result is that he is cut off. Often, we speak of Stephen as being isolated at an interpersonal level, lacking friends and a close connection with his family, but Stephen is even isolated in the sense that he is disconnected from his own body. Stephen thinks about different theories of vision, Aristotle's in particular. He also considers Bishop Berkeley's theory that there is no such thing as matter, and how Aristotle refuted it (same way Samuel Johnson did, by hitting something made up of matter. In other words, he appealed to common sense.).

He invokes a scene in which Shakespeare goes to his own play and plays the part of Hamlet's father the ghost. He suggests that Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, who died prematurely, actually corresponds to the part of Hamlet. Quoting some of Shakespeare's early plays, Stephen then suggests that Ann Hathaway corresponds to the guilty queen who betrayed king Hamlet. Eglinton suggests that Shakespeares father corresponds to the ghost of Hamlets father. Stephen forcefully denies this supposition, insisting that the ghost of Hamlets father is not Shakespeares father, but Shakespeare himself, who was old and greying at the time the play was written. Fathers, Stephen digresses, are inconsequential. Paternity is unprovable and therefore insubstantialfathers are linked to their children only by a brief sexual act.

On the other hand, As Bloom's mind wanders at Dignam's funeral in the "Hades" episode, we see his imagination take flight. Thinking of why people are buried long-ways instead of straight up and down, he thinks, "More room if they buried them standing. Sitting or kneeling you couldn't. Standing? His head might come up some day above ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed the ground must: oblong cells" (6.330). We're not saying that Bloom has the mind of a literary genius, but the idea of the world as one great big honeycomb on account of up and down graves is pretty amusing. Similarly, in "Aeolus," he enters the newspaper office and hears the clacking of the machines. He thinks to himself, "Everything speaks in its own way" (7.83). Much of what sustains us through the long passages of Bloom's stream-of-consciousness is his child-like curiosity and his extremely amusing mind. Stephen is depicted as above most of the action of the novel. He exists mainly within his own world of ideas.In the final scenes, Stephen attempts to become intellectually and artistically independent through his rejection of priest and king and Ireland (Old Gummy Granny). Yet he is mainly depicted as having been abandoned: by his mother, by his father, by Buck and Haines (who have taken Stephens key and ditched him), and by Lynch (Judas). When Stephen is left knocked unconscious at the end of the episode, with his belongings scattered around him, it is Bloom who is there to act as symbolic father and pragmatic caretaker. This preliminary culmination of the father-son union has the tone not of a cosmic convergence but a wish-fulfillment for Bloom, a fact underscored by Blooms final hallucination of his dead son, Rudy.

The error-ridden and banal narrative is the main device by which this climactic meeting of Bloom and Stephen is rendered anticlimactic. Their fated father-son coming-together, which in another book would perhaps be rendered as a perfect union of consciousnesses and souls, is here as boring as the narrative that describes it. Stephen is still drunk and dazed and remains silent for most of the opening of Episode Sixteen. Bloom, far from being the idealized father figure that Stephen needs, appears hypocritical and naggingly overprotective. Their personal histories are compared, as well as their temperamentsStephens is artistic, while Blooms tends toward applied science through his interest in invention and advertising.the form of the episode, with its itemized narrative style, also highlights Blooms and Stephens differences even more succinctly, and the union cannot be said to be a practical success. Though Stephen has begun to sober up and become more personable, the perceived gap between them is reinforced by Stephens blatantly anti-Semitic story, inexplicably offered after a heartwarming exchange of the Irish and Hebrew languages, in which the two men feel the similarity of their races. There is evidence that Stephen does not mean for the story to be an aggressive gesturehe seems to use it, as he has many things today, as a kind of parable, indeed, a parable in which both himself and Bloom can be figured as victims and receive redemption.