Telemachus, or, Meet Stephen Dedalus
“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.”
And so it begins, my third re-read of Ulysses.
This chapter introduces us to Stephen Dedalus, one of the three major characters in the novel. Ulysses loosely follows The Odyssey, and in this chapter, Stephen/Telemachus goes off in search of his father, so to speak. He feels he is being pushed out of his home by Buck Mulligan, who literally takes his key from him, and Haines, an Englishman roommate.
The chapter starts in the early morning of June 16, 1904. Buck Mulligan performs a sort of mock mass, saying, “Introibo ad altare dei” (Latin for “now I will go to the altar of god”) and blessing the proceedings of the morning. Many references to Greece and the sea abound in the chapter. Joyce playfully uses the Greek epithet form to describe the sea:
The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.
The reader learns of Stephen’s mother’s death and his refusal to pray with her at her deathbed (Stephen is a nonbeliever).
Some fun language:
Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide
He proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father.” (More on this later in the book)
Though most of the chapter is in third person, we start to enter Stephen’s head and read his thoughts. Watch how he describes walking by the sea. Notice that he is describing sounds and things he notices right at his feet:
He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his side. Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels.
The reason for this will come clear later. The chapter ends with the word “Usurper,” referring to the unwelcome suitors of Penelope in The Odyssey.
Stephen Dedalus from the magnificent Ulysses Seen project.
Reading James Joyce 