Ulysses
It’s the story of Bloom and his friend's Dedalus (Joyce projection,
often used in his books) wandering, through Dublin on June 16th,
1904, projected against the background of the journey of Ulysses. Ulysses
represents the prototype of the complete man: son, father and husband. Bloom is
an anti-hero, like Eliot said, used by Joyce as a constant reminder of the
decadence of our modern age. Other people say that Bloom is a hero, with
positive qualities, such as sympathy, generosity and faith in human progress.
Joyce shows us Bloom’s life from many angles, from the interior monologue to a
"mini-drama".
Bloom day is projected against the story of Ulysses, and each scene in the book
is related to a specific episode of the Odyssey. In the first part of the book
Dedalus, come back home from Paris, set off to find his friend and
"spiritual father" Bloom, who is in search of a "spiritual son".
When the two friends meet, Bloom "adopt" Dedalus and offers to take
him home and give him shelter. At home Molly Bloom waits for them, like
Penelope, thinking of her past and present life, with a mental, interior
monologue. This "river of words" called "stream of consciousness"
ends with the words "yes", like a total, non-judgemental, acceptance
of life.
Ulysses caused a great scandal when it was published in Paris for his technical
innovations and for his explicit language. It was banned for a long time in
England and in the U.S. The sexual frankness of Leopold Bloom, an unsuccessful
middle-aged married man, and of his wife Molly, is a necessary part in the
complete rendering of their mental life.
Joyce has shown all human history in one day, one set of events, past and
present, significant and insignificant, trivial and heroic, familiar and exotic;
it’s just a matter of points of view, and author has none and all of them.