Stephen's father tells him a bedtime story about a moocow meeting a young boy named tuckoo.

A student named Wells shoves Stephen into a cesspool during a bullying incident at Clongowes Wood College.

The Dedalus family erupts into a fierce argument at Christmas dinner over the political legacy of Charles Parnell.

Stephen complains to the school rector about an unjust beating in class, and the rector accepts his complaint.

Simon Dedalus's financial failures force the entire Dedalus family to relocate to the city of Dublin.

Stephen performs the lead role in a Whitsuntide play at Belvedere College to an audience that includes his father.

Stephen accompanies his father on a trip to Cork, watching him drink heavily and romanticize his lost past.

Stephen meets a sex worker dressed in a pink gown and loses his virginity for the first time.

Father Arnall delivers terrifying sermons about the horrors of hell and eternal damnation during a school religious retreat.

Stephen wanders Dublin at night, finds a chapel, and confesses his sins of impurity to a priest who grants absolution.

The school director tells Stephen he should consider joining the Jesuit order and becoming a priest.

Stephen rejects the idea of becoming a Jesuit priest and resolves to pursue a university education instead.

Stephen spots a girl wading in the sea waves and is overwhelmingly captivated by her beauty, like a seabird.

Stephen explains his theory of art and aesthetics, covering integrity, consonance, and radiance, to his friend Lynch.

Stephen writes a final diary entry addressing Daedalus, the Greek mythical craftsman, and praying for his protection.

Stephen Dedalus grows up in a Catholic Irish family, experiencing his first encounters with bullying and injustice at Clongowes Wood College before a famous dinner-table argument over Charles Parnell signals the political tensions that will shape his world. His family's financial collapse forces a move to Dublin, where Stephen develops as an actor and writer at Belvedere College, though a humbling trip to Cork with his father deepens his sense of alienation. His sexual awakening leads to mounting guilt and spiritual crisis, and terrifying sermons about hell drive him to confession and a brief period of intense religious devotion. Offered a future as a Jesuit priest, Stephen chooses instead to pursue university, only to find academia equally unsatisfying and confining. A vision of a girl wading in the sea inspires him artistically and confirms that his true calling is art rather than any institution. He ultimately rejects religion, nationality, and family alike, closing his story with a prayer to the mythical craftsman Daedalus as he prepares to leave Ireland forever.

Stephen Dedalus's journey from Catholic boyhood to artistic exile.

The young Stephen announces he wants to marry Protestant neighbor Eileen Vance, horrifying his Catholic family.

While recovering in the infirmary, Stephen overhears Brother Michael announce the death of Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell.

Several Clongowes students are caught engaging in gay activities, and the priests introduce harsher corporal punishment for all boys.

Stephen spends the summer in Blackrock with Uncle Charles and becomes absorbed in reading The Count of Monte Cristo.

Stephen meets a girl named Emma Clery at a party and shares a tram ride home without kissing her.

Stephen argues fiercely with his friend Heron and another boy about whether Lord Byron is the greatest poet.

Stephen wins a literary competition prize and spends all the money on presents and meals for his family.

Stephen continues to visit sex workers in Dublin but grows increasingly terrified that he is risking eternal damnation.

Stephen receives a religious award at school and tries to convince himself he can keep sinning while following the church.

Following his confession, Stephen adopts a rigidly devout lifestyle, rubbing rosary beads and mortifying his senses daily.

Stephen learns that his family's poverty has worsened and that they are about to be evicted from their home.

A student named MacCann pressures Stephen to sign a petition for universal peace and calls him antisocial for refusing.

Stephen watches from afar as Emma warmly acknowledges Cranly but appears to ignore Stephen entirely, which hurts him deeply.

Stephen's friend Davin challenges him for skipping Irish language classes and accuses him of being too proud to be Irish.

Stephen meets Emma on Grafton Street and excitedly tells her he has dropped out of university to write poetry.

From his childhood crush on Protestant neighbor Eileen Vance to his first distant encounter with Emma Clery, Stephen's emotional life is defined by longing from a safe remove, as he consistently fails to act on his feelings for real people. He absorbs literature voraciously during the summers and wins a literary prize at Belvedere, though both the prize money and his attempts to unite his family ultimately come to nothing. His secret visits to sex workers accumulate alongside mounting religious terror, even as his teachers praise him publicly for his piety and award him for devotion he does not feel. After confession brings temporary relief, Stephen adopts an exhaustingly rigid piety before losing faith once more as his family sinks into deeper poverty. His classmates push back against his detachment — MacCann calling him antisocial, Emma apparently preferring Cranly's company — and yet by the novel's end, a chance meeting on Grafton Street allows Stephen to finally declare his artistic ambitions to the woman who inspired so many of his poems.

The people, moments, and pressures that shaped Stephen's inner world.

Stephen arrives at Clongowes Wood College feeling like an outsider, standing apart while other boys play and bully him.

Stephen develops a fever in the school infirmary and befriends a boy named Athy who challenges him with riddles.

A prefect beats Stephen in class after refusing to believe his excuse that his eyeglasses are broken.

Stephen's classmates cheer for him and carry him on their shoulders after his successful challenge to the prefect's punishment.

Stephen is not sent back to Clongowes after summer ends, and his friendship with a boy named Aubrey abruptly ends.

While visiting his father's old medical school in Cork, Stephen discovers the word "Foetus" carved into a lecture hall desk.

Father Arnall delivers a guest lecture at Belvedere and announces a religious retreat centered on death, judgment, and the soul.

Stephen imagines terrifying goatish creatures surrounding him in his room and rushes to the window to gulp cold air.

The morning after his confession, Stephen receives the Sacrament alongside his classmates and feels a sudden sense of invisible grace.

After meeting with the school director, Stephen passes a statue of the Virgin Mary and feels absolutely nothing.

Stephen's classmates tease him by calling him "Stephanos" in Greek, prompting him to reflect on the myth of Daedalus.

Stephen's family pawns their possessions to buy food while his mother insists that university has changed him for the worse.

Stephen speaks with the university dean who is lighting a fire and reflects that English is only his acquired language.

Sitting on the library steps, Stephen watches a flock of birds soar overhead and feels a powerful longing for freedom.

Stephen and Cranly walk home together and Stephen confesses he will refuse to attend Easter Mass with his mother.

From his very first days at Clongowes, where bullying and an unjust beating teach Stephen both the pain of powerlessness and the reward of speaking out, a series of quiet revelations gradually redirects his course. The discovery of a single word carved into a Cork lecture hall desk crystallizes his growing horror at his father's world, just as nighttime visions of hellish creatures confirm the depth of his spiritual terror after the retreat sermons. His religious renewal ends not in genuine conviction but in numbness — passing a once-sacred statue and feeling absolutely nothing — while his classmates' Greek taunts about his name lead him to the liberating myth of Daedalus. At university, conversations about language, nationalism, and the burden of English crystallize his belief that Ireland itself is a cage from which he must escape. He ultimately chooses art over every institution that has shaped him, refusing to attend Easter Mass, watching birds ascend above the library steps, and walking away from everything familiar as he prepares to forge his identity in exile.