Ulysses · Chapter
Lestrygonians explained
Leopold Bloom wanders through Dublin around lunchtime, reflecting on various topics including food, death, and the passage of time.
What happens
Leopold Bloom wanders through Dublin around lunchtime, reflecting on various topics including food, death, and the passage of time. He encounters acquaintances, observes the city's life, and recalls memories of his past with Molly and Milly.
Themes in this chapter
Mortality and Grief
Bloom contemplates death and the constant cycle of birth and death in the city, reflecting on Dignam's funeral and the fragility of life.
Memory and History
Bloom recalls past events, including his marriage, Milly's childhood, and historical figures like Parnell, weaving personal and collective memory.
The Ordinary and the Epic
Bloom's mundane walk through Dublin is interspersed with profound reflections on life, death, and time, elevating the ordinary to the epic.
Characters to notice
- Leopold Bloom
Protagonist; wanders through Dublin, observes the city, and reflects on life, death, and memory.
- Molly Bloom
Recalled by Bloom in memories of their early marriage and intimate moments.
- Milly Bloom
Bloom remembers Milly as a child during a picnic and her bath time.
- John Howard Parnell
Observed by Bloom passing by; noted as the brother of Charles Stewart Parnell.
- Simon Dedalus
Quoted by Bloom in a remark about Parnell.
- Paddy Dignam
Mentioned as having been carted off (funeral).
Key passages
“The tentacles … They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and bicycle. Young woman. And there he is too. Now that’s really a coincidence: secondtime. Coming events cast their shadows before.”
Bloom notices a bearded man on a bicycle with a young woman, recognizing him as someone he saw earlier, and muses on the idea that coincidences foreshadow future events.
Bloom observes A.E. (George Russell) and a woman, reflecting on the symbolic and occult nature of the encounter.
“Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of pavements, piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands.”
Bloom reflects on the constant turnover of people and buildings in the city, with generations dying and being replaced, and property changing owners.
Bloom's meditation on the transience of urban life and the cycle of death and renewal.
“Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper, Dockrell’s, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly’s tubbing night. American soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she looked soaped all over. Shapely too.”
Bloom recalls a happy memory of their early married life, the cozy room, and Milly's bath time, evoking a sense of nostalgia and lost happiness.
Bloom's fond memory of domestic bliss with Molly and Milly, contrasting with his present melancholy.