The Story and Structure

The novel's structure is broadly based on that of Homer's Odyssey, and each character corresponds roughly to a character in the classic epic.

All the events take place on the 16th June, 1904 in Dublin. The basic plot is very simple. Leopold Bloom, a middle-aged Jewish advertising agent, and Stephen Dedalus, a about their business in the city and meet in the evening.

The book ends with a long section in which Leopold's wife, Molly, is lying in bed thinking.

Around this deceptively simple plot Joyce builds up a comprehensive kaleidoscope of characters and situations which are described in a constantly changing variety of styles and  registers.

An extract from “Ulysses”

Molly, Leopold Bloom's wife, is lying in bed and thinking of the day when asked her to marry him.

(...)

the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seed out of my mouth and it was leapyear¹ like now yes 16 years ago my C after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of mountain yes so we are flowers all a woman’s body yes that was one t thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was v I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is ar knew I could always get round him² and I gave him all the pleasure I co leading him on³ till he asked me to say yes and I would not answer first and looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things didn’t know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and captain Groves⁴ and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop³; washing up dishes⁶ they called it on the pier⁷ and the sentry in front the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor d half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls⁸ and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the Jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharans and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

George Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion

Pygmalion, which was popularized in the musical film version My Fair Lady in 1964, can be enjoyed at different levels. It can be seen as an entertaining story about a university professor who changes the way an uneducated girl speaks and behaves, or it can be interpreted as a subtle analysis of how important language and language use are in defining an individual’s position in society.