Ulysses

Stephen and Bloom are both alienated individuals who find solace in each other’s company. Their resolution is predicated on another important theme in the novel: fathers and sons. Ulysses is based on Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. Bloom plays the role of Odysseus while Stephen takes on the role of Odysseus’s son, Telemachus. In The Odyssey, Odysseus tries to return home after the Trojan War while Telemachus searches for his son. In this broad analogy, both Bloom and Stephen are searching for each other without actually knowing what they are searching for. Stephen feels detached from his own father, who he feels to be a father in name only, and Bloom is caught between two tragedies, the suicide of his father and the death of his son. Neither of them has a complete understanding of the paternal relationship because theirs has become, in some way, fractured.

Stephen acknowledges his quest for a father figure. He speaks explicitly about Hamlet, a character who loses his father and swears revenge against the father figure who replaces him. He speaks further about Shakespeare’s own relationship with fatherhood, illustrating the time that he has devoted to a subject that is so close to his personal struggles. His crisis of faith is also expressed through a paternal lens, as he reflects on the nature of the Holy Trinity and the bond between the Father and the Son (God and Jesus Christ). Stephen’s chaotic understanding of fatherhood is also colored by the loss of his mother and his refusal to return home. He blames himself for his mother’s death and feels unable to properly grieve her. Even though he does not want to return to the tower he shares with Buck Mulligan and is convinced that he will soon quit his job, he refuses to return to his father’s house. His father is struggling financially, and Stephen cannot even look his impoverished little sister in the eye. Instead, he strikes out to find a new father figure to replace the man whose presence reminds him of his greatest pain. Simon must be replaced because Simon is too closely associated with Stephen’s mother. Stephen’s search is not for an actual father but someone who will provide him with an understanding of the world he inhabits. Stephen seeks guidance and comfort, someone to tell him that he is not at fault. In literature (Shakespeare), in religion (the Father and Son), and at home (the memory of his mother), he cannot find such a figure. Instead, he finds Bloom.

Bloom’s understanding of paternity is colored by tragedy on either side. His father died by suicide while his infant son died after just a few days. There are two vacant holes in Bloom’s life, the fear of which has caused the breakdown of his marriage and the intensification of his sense of alienation. Bloom cannot help but think about Rudy, imagining how he would be “would be eleven now if he had lived” (64). The “if” (64) in the thought is too painful for Bloom, too full of the promise of the father he might have been. Rudy’s death denies Bloom the opportunity to make up for his father’s mistakes. He would have relished the opportunity to raise a son without the self-loathing that his own father foisted upon him and without the sudden tragic departure that has caused Bloom so much confusion and pain. In Stephen, he finds not just a son-like figure but an opportunity for catharsis and to provide catharsis himself. He can comfort Stephen, he can play the role of father, and—in doing so—he can capture some of what he has lost. Stephen suddenly means so much to Bloom because he fills a void, even if only fleetingly, and allows Bloom to glimpse the man he might have become. Bloom can become the father he always wanted to be to the son that left him so suddenly and so soon.