The Odyssey of Leopold Bloom: An Attempt to Find What Will Suffice

Abstract

Standards of morality have changed to the extent that James Joyce's Ulysses is no longer condemned for being exceptionaIly obscene. Almost fifty years after its publication, however, Joyce's novel remains notorious for its obscurity. The novel is certainly difficult to understand. Joyce himself recognized this when he declared, "I've put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant . . ." [1] Rather than becoming a widely read novel, Ulysses has indeed remained largely the province of academicians and literary critics. Among numerous authors who have pubiished works to help the reader understand Ulysses, Stuart Gilbert has analyzed its structural parallels to Homer's Odyssey, and Weldon Thorton has written a book whose sole purpose is to document the numerous allusions in the novel. I do not believe, however, that Joyce really intended Ulysses to be read solely by literary analysts, for the novel is much more than an academic puzzle. In this thesis, I have commented upon Joyce's use of Homer's Odyssey as a structural model for Ulysses, and I have examined the function of some of the allusions which the work contains. I could not begin to exhaust the wealth of material found in Ulysses, however, so I have concentrated on the major themes which the novel's minute details construct. I have tried to describe some of the basic character traits of Leopold Bloom and to indicate the amazing variety of styles from which Bloom's portrait emerges. I have also emphasized that Joyce's sympathetic portrait of Leopold Bloorn, in addition to being a love affair with the English language, is often an ingenious satire of the society in which Bloorn lived. [From Preface]