index

“Ulysses is a modernist novel by the Irish writer James Joyce. Partially serialized in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, the entire work was published in Paris by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, Joyce’s fortieth birthday. It is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and has been called “a demonstration and summation of the entire movement”.

“The medium is the message.”

“One can only re-read Ulysses”

Episodes

In a 1920 letter to Carlo Linati (a friend and early reader of Ulysses), Joyce wrote, “in view of the enormous bulk and the more than enormous complexity of my […] novel it would be better to send you a sort of summary-key-skeleton-scheme (for your personal use only). Perhaps my idea will appear clearer to you when you have the text” (Letters I 146). So, even before having finished writing the novel, Joyce recognized that readers needed some support in grasping the nuanced allusions and intricate structures he had put into Ulysses. He later sent similar “schemas” to other friends and early scholars of Joyce’s work, including Stuart Gilbert. Joyce gave Gilbert permission to publish the contents of the schema in his study of the novel published in 1930. The Gilbert and Linati schemas have some differences, but I have collated their information into the table below.

Ulysses is divided into the three books (marked I, II, and III) and 18 episodes. The episodes do not have chapter headings or titles, and are numbered only in Gabler’s edition. In the various editions, the breaks between episodes are indicated in different ways; in the Modern Library edition, for example, each episode begins at the top of a new page.

Episode	Time	Scene	Color	Technique	Correspondences	Science/Art	Meaning	Organ	Symbols
1 Telemachus	8:00	Tower	Gold, White	Narrative (young)	Stephen = Telemachus, Buck = Antinous, Milkwoman = Mentor	Theology	Dispossessed son in struggle	None	Hamlet, Ireland, Heir
2 Nestor	10:00	School	Brown	Catechism (personal)	Deasy = Nestor, Stephen = Telemachus, Sargent = Pisistratus, Mrs. O’Shea = Helen	History	Wisdom of the Old World	None	Horse, Ulster, Woman, Common Sense
3 Proteus	11:00	Strand	Blue, Green	Monologue (male)	Primal Matter = Proteus, Kevin Egan = Menelaus, Cocklepickers = magapenthes	Philology	Prima materia	None	Word, Tide, Evolution, Metamorphosis
4 Calypso	8:00	House	Orange	Narrative (mature)	Mr. Bloom = Ulysses, Molly Bloom = Calypso, Penelope, The Nymph = Calypso, Zion = Ithaca	Mythology, Economics	The departing wayfarer	Kidneys	Exile, family, Nymph, Israel, vagina
5 Lotus-Eaters	10:00	Bath	Brown	Narcissism	Ulysses, Nausicaa, Erylochus, bather, communicants	Chemistry, Botany	Seduction of the faith	Skin, genitals	Host, penis, flower, drugs
6 Hades	11:00	Graveyard	Black, White	Incubism	Dignam = Elpinor, Menton = Ajax, Parnell = Agamemnon, O’Connell = Hercules, Cunningham = Sisyphus, Caretaker = Hades, the 4 rivers, Orion, Laertes, Telemachus, Antinous	Religion	Descent to Nothing	Heart	Cemetary, the past, the unknown man, heart trouble
7 Aeolus	12:00	Newspaper	Red	Enthymemic	Crawford = Aeolus, Journalism = Incest, Press = Floating Island, Mentor, Ulysses, Telemachus	Rhetoric	Mockery of victory	Lungs	Machines, wind, fame, kite, failed destinies, press, mutability
8 Lestrygonians	1:00	Lunch	Blood Color	Peristaltic Prose	Hunger = Antiphates, Food = The Decoy, Teeth = Lestrygonians	Architecture	Dejection	Esophagus	Bloody sacrifice, foods, shame, constables
9 Scylla and Charybdis	2:00	Library	none	Whirlpools, dialectic	The rock = Aristotle, Dogma, Stratford / The Whirlpool = Plato, Mysticism, London / Ulysses = Socrates, Jesus, Shakespeare / Telemachus, Antinous	Literature	Two-edged dilemma	Brain	Hamlet, Shakespeare, Christ, Socrates, London and Stratford, Scholasticism and Mysticism, Plato and Aristotle, Youth and Maturity
10 Wandering Rocks	3:00	Streets	Rainbow	Labyrinth	Liffey = Bosphorous, Viceroy = European Bank, Conmee = Asiatic Bank, Groups of Citizens = Symplegades	Mechanics	Hostile Environment	Blood	Christ and Caesar, Errors, Homynyms, Sychronization, Resemblances
11 Sirens	4:00	Concert Room	Coral	Fuga per Canonem	Barmaids = Sirens, Bar = Isle, Parthenope, Ulysses, Orpheus, Menalaus	Music	Sweet Cheat	Ear	Promises, Woman, Sounds, Embellishments
12 Cyclops	5:00	Tavern	Green	Gigantism	I = Noman, Cigar = Stake, Apotheosis = Challenge	Surgery	The egocidal terror	Muscles, Bone	Nation, Religion, Gymnastics, Idealism, Exaggeration, Fanaticism, Collectivity
13 Nausicaa	8:00	Rocks	Grey	Tuescence/Detumescence, Retrogressive Progression	Star of the Sea = Phaescia, Gerty = Nausicaa, Ulysses	Painting	The projected mirage	Eye, Nose	Onanism, Female, Virgin, Hypocrisy
14 Oxen of the Sun	10:00	Hospital	White	Embryonic development	Hospital = Trinacria, Nurses = Lampetie, Phaesthusa / Horne = Helios, Fertility = Oxen, Fraud = Crime / Jove, Ulysses	Medicine	The Eternal Flocks	Matrix, Uterus	Fecundation, Frauds, mothers
15 Circe	12:00	Brothel	Violet	Hallucination	Bella = Circe / beasts, Telemachus, Ulysses, Hermes	Magic	The man-eating orc	Locomotor apparatus	Zoology, personification, pantheism, poison, antidote
16 Eumaeus	1:00	Shelter	None	Narrative (old)	Skin the Goat = Eumaeus, Sailor = Ulysses Pseudangelos, Corley - Melanthius	Navigation	The ambush at home	Nerves	Sailors
17 Ithaca	2:00	House	Starry, Milky	Catechism (impersonal)	Boylan = Eurymachus, Scruples = Suitors, Reason = Bow	Science	The armed hope	Skeleton	Comets
18 Penelope	∞	Bed	Starry, Milky, Dawn	Monologue (female)	Earth = Penelope, Movement = Web	None	The past sleeps	Fat	Earth