Ulysses

At 8:00am on Thursday, June 16, 1904, Buck Mulligan taunts his housemate Stephen Dedalus on the top of the Martello Tower that overlooks the bay in Dublin, Ireland. Stephen does not respond to respond to Mulligan’s jokes, delivered in a “preacher’s tone” (3). He is too preoccupied with Haines, a “dreadful” (4) young Englishman who has been invited to stay in the house that Stephen and Mulligan share. Haines has already woken Stephen the previous night, and Stephen resents this new arrival. Together, Stephen and Mulligan stare over the bay. Mulligan claims that the sea is his “great sweet mother” (5), which stirs a memory in Stephen’s mind. He remembers his aunt’s annoyance that Stephen refused to pray beside his dying mother. Stephen still wears his mourning clothes. He reflects on his mother’s death, ignoring Mulligan’s “mockery” (6) about Stephen’s cheap clothes and disheveled appearance. Mulligan shows Stephen his reflection in a cracked mirror; Stephen returns the jibe, likening the cracked mirror to the “lookingglass of a servant” (7). He suggests that this could be a symbol for all art in Ireland. Mulligan jokes with Stephen that, together, they could raise the status of Irish art until it is comparable to the classical Greek era.