Summary of Ulysses by James Joyce

1. Buck Mulligan shaving, conversing with Stephen Dedalus about the death of his mother. Uncouth and insolent remarks about religion (a constant theme).
2. Dedalus walks on to meet various people of disreputable and incredulous respect. Proposes theory of Shakespeare and Hamlet. Move form of language using memory and blatant satire singed with poetry (constant theme, another one).
3. Dedalus walks on the beach with eyes closed to imagine Berkeley’s notion of a subjective realm unposited by external reality. Stream of consciousness triggered by immediate associations (constant theme #3).
4. Leopold Bloom thinking about Molly, receives letter from Milly, his daughter. Metempsychosis. Wordplay, false syllogisms, wit, irony, dry and wry.
5. Bloom walks around talking to people reminding himself of the letter. Martha’s punishing letter reveals adultery.
6. Martin Cunningham, Dedalus and Bloom attend Dignam’s funeral service. Think about death, rotting corpses.
7. Presented with newspaper headlines, mocking journalists whilst characters are writing articles.
8. Bloom in conversation with Mrs. Breen. Examination of women and men’s tendencies in affairs. Helps blind man cross the road.
9. Plethora of literary references. Main one being Hamlet and Shakespeare’s enormous list of plays. Discussion about Shakespeare’s life and wife. Man delights him not, nor woman neither.
10. A day with a priest, taunting Godless and soulless people everywhere. Section split into several anecdotes. Multifarious characters joined by aesthetic topic.
11. Index in short sentences at beginning, summarising contents of passage. Jingle jaunty jingle. A song by two humans. An eternal loop in musical cycle = form enhanced.
12. Dubliners sit drinking in dialogue about politics, indigence, capital punishment and people in society. Bloom parenthetically dictates on medical concerns: erection when hanged. Love over hatred. Biblical references. Unreliable first person narration.
13. Gerty MacDowell’s pursuit of Bloom, including a show of her knickers. A girl’s fantasy develops; flowing language elucidating inner thoughts and sexual deviancy. A nymph in dolorous amour, rosewood, silted sand. Reflects on Boylan’s affair with Molly.
14. Digresses upon childbirth, pregnancy, abortion and death. Stylistic changes in writing to incorporate fluctuating content. Mythological/religious inquiry and conceptualisation. Attack on scientific methods and clinical hazards. Objectification of characters, self-referential.
15. A play. Recreation of foretold events set with stage directions, costumes and melodrama. Bloom turns hero from villain after a failed trial to prosecute him on charge of ribald excursions. Playing on themes of Hamlet and Zarathustra. Becomes mayor. Multiple apparitions of historical figures create charade of mockery. Anti-hero Bloom falls to demise and Stephen’s impertinent poetry lands him with a fist. Longest section. Myths, fairytales, folklores and incredulous attempts to deride literary history- almost like Faust, Part Two, finding unexpected redemption through centuries of mistakes and deceit.
16. Voluble and lucid prose synthesising Dubliners (Leopold) and Portrait of the Artist (Stephen). Meet ex-navy soldier who pontificates at length about his miscreant, perfidious travels. Two main protagonists connect with synergy; selfish, well-schooled and witty Stephen balances Leopold’s empathy, bawdiness and utopian ideals. Bloom thinks of how to make Stephen a living artistically.
17. Q&A format. Inquisition into Bloom and Dedalus’ character. More structure of narrative content with leading questions, linking the answer to another question, ad infinitum. Stephen is 22, Bloom is aged 38. Differences/similarities espoused, relationships/women, scientific vs artistic temperament. Properties of water: fluid hydrostasis account with non-excludability promulgated in multifarious facts thinly hydrated as staunch opinions contributing to the advancement of society. Exposition on transitory volumisation of adulterous, licentious behaviour.
18. The Freudian free association discursion by Molly. Exempt from punctuation/grammar except proper nouns, paragraphs and full stop at end. Glorifies various affairs, religious attachment and musings on licentious sex. Graphic detail about breasts, period, vagina, arsehole, orgasms, erections and long kisses. Announces her love for Bloom at the end as he understands a woman’s sensibility.