Olives, Oysters and Oranges: A new way of reading James Joyce’s Ulysses

Abstract

James Joyce’s Ulysses tells the story of a day in the life of a city. The city is Dublin and the main protagonists are Leopold Bloom, an advertising canvasser of Jewish race; his wife Molly, a singer who is having an affair with a concert promoter Blazes Boylan; and Stephen Dedelus, an aesthetic young teacher. In eighteen episodes, Joyce uses Homer’s Odyssesy as a framework for his novel. Each episode is represented by a bodily organ which gives life to the city. Each episode also has an allotted hour of the day, and meals chart the progress of time. Bloom is introduced in Episode 4, ‘Calypso’, making breakfast in bed for Molly, and cooking a kidney for himself. Other episodes that I have mentioned in this paper are ‘Lestrygonians’, the land of the cannibals, which is almost entirely about food; ‘Cyclops’ which takes place in a pub; ‘Circe’ in a ...