Summary
This episode is narrated by an unnamed denizen of Dublin who works as a debt collector. The narrator goes to Barney Kiernan’s pub where he meets a character referred to only as The Citizen. This character is believed to be a satirisation of Michael Cusack, a founder member of the Gaelic Athletic Association. When Leopold Bloom enters the pub, he is berated by the Citizen, who is a fierce Fenian and anti-Semite. The episode ends with Bloom reminding the Citizen that his Savior was a Jew. As Bloom leaves the pub, the Citizen throws a biscuit tin at Bloom’s head, but misses. The episode is marked by extended tangents made in voices other than that of the unnamed narrator; these include streams of legal jargon, a report of a boxing match, Biblical passages, and elements of Irish mythology. It is the first and only episode to contain the first-person narration not by Stephen or Bloom.
Odyssey Allusion
In The Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew explore an island to see if its inhabitants are civilized and generous to guests.  A cyclops named Polyphemus answers this question without ambiguity by eating two of Odysseus’s men and trapping the rest of them in the cave with a giant boulder as the door. Odysseus tells the cyclops his name is “Nobody,” then devises a plan to get Polyphemus drunk before stabbing out his eye with the hot point of a stick.  Polyphemus calls for help from his fellow cyclops on the island, hollering that “Nobody is killing me,” to which the other cyclops holler back, “Well, if nobody is killing you, then it must be a plague, and there’s no way I’m coming to help you and risk getting myself infected. Sorry.”  As he sails away, Odysseus, overly impressed by his own cleverness, calls back to taunt Polyphemus and reveals his true identity. Enraged, the cyclops hurls a boulder at Odysseus as he sails away; he misses, but then he prays to his father, Poseidon, to hound Odysseus for the rest of his journey.
Characters
- This Characters - did this
Episode Notes
This occurred
- Wherein…
- Then this
Analysis
- Some themes
- And more themes