Reading Nietzsche Ulisses James Joyce

Reading Nietzsche in
James Joyce’s Ulysses

Nathan Miller
With Special Thanks To:
Robert Baker
and
John Hunt
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2009048

Miller 2

Let us face ourselves. We are Hyperboreans; we know very well how far off we live. ‘Neither
by land nor by sea will you find the way to the Hyperboreans’ – Pindar already knew this
about us. Beyond the north, ice, and death – our life, our happiness. We have discovered
happiness, we know the way, we have found our way out of the labyrinth of thousands of
years.
-‐Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist
As the ancient poet Ovid tells us, the labyrinth created by the master architect Daedalus was
filled with passageways so confusing and seemingly endless that Daedalus himself was almost
unable to find his way back to the entrance of his own deceptive creation. The labyrinth’s captive,
Theseus, was only able to escape his dark and winding prison by following a thread left behind by
Ariadne, which led him through the “maze of conflicting passageways”1 back to the entrance.
In many ways, James Joyce creates a labyrinth of his own in his celebrated modernist work,
Ulysses, a novel regarded by many as not only one of the most important and influential novels of
the twentieth century (many argue it is the most important), but also one of the most complex and
difficult novels to read in any kind of productive way. Indeed, Ulysses quickly becomes, like
Daedalus’ labyrinth, a maze of “conflicting passageways,” of references and allusions to anything
and everything under the sun: from flatulence and bodily functions to orthodox Catholic doctrine,
from drinking songs to Greek and Roman mythology, from Irish national history to Shakespeare,
the novel leads the reader on an epic, and at times confusing, journey. In Ulysses, Joyce has created a
literary world that offers the reader innumerable avenues of exploration in the quest to try to make
some sense of the novel as a whole, and indeed this is one of the most remarkable features of the
book. Joyce acknowledged (and perhaps celebrated) this aspect of Ulysses; at one point shortly after
the completion of Ulysses, he jokingly confessed to Jacques Benoist-‐Méchin, a friend of his, that “I’ve

1
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2009048

Miller 3

put in [Ulysses] so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy centuries arguing
over what I meant, and that’s the only way of ensuring one’s immortality.”2
There are many potential interpretive “threads”, so to speak, leading out of the labyrinth
that is Ulysses: the extraordinary volume of detail and allusion alone guarantees this. However, one
of the more interesting and seldom explored threads through Ulysses involves the idea of another
individual whose work – like Joyce’s – generated significant amounts of controversy and discussion
in intellectual circles during the years of Joyce’s early life: Friedrich Nietzsche. Joyce’s attraction to
Nietzsche has at best received little attention in scholarship, though the familiarity of the former
with the latter is evident in Ulysses, Dubliners, and elsewhere. The influence of Nietzsche’s ideas
upon Joyce’s thought can be felt throughout his writing, and as this paper will suggest, there is
much to be gained from reading Ulysses through a Nietzschean interpretive frame. A mapping of
the fundamental dimensions of Nietzsche’s thought onto the characters and artistic shape of Ulysses
yields new and meaningful insights into the novel that have for the most part remained
unaccounted for. Joyce shared many of Nietzsche’s concerns with the prevailing modern mindsets,
and as this paper suggests, incorporates fundamental aspects of the latter’s thought into his work
both implicitly and explicitly.
I. Joyce’s Life and Background
To understand why Joyce would be drawn to Nietzsche’s work, it is necessary to go back to
Joyce’s formative years, and trace the development of his thought through circumstances that left
an indelible mark on the future writer. James Joyce was born in 1882, and grew up in a family
environment that was decidedly Catholic. As one might expect of a boy from an Irish Catholic
family, he was educated at small Jesuit schools. While Joyce did extremely well in his studies, he was
not fully persuaded by the Jesuits, and as a young man began to develop a deep skepticism toward

2
Richard Ellman, James Joyce, 521
Miller 4

Christianity that would eventually culminate in his complete rejection of it. Joyce’s issues with
Christianity can be traced back to 1896, when the young man, an adolescent of fully fourteen years,
began his sexual life, first with a maid servant and subsequently with a prostitute along the canal
bank in Dublin.3 At some point after these events Joyce, reeling from Father Cullen’s sermons at
Belvedere College (where Joyce was a student), went to confess his sexual sins and entered a short
period of ‘reform’ that lasted into 1897. Joyce slowly began rethinking the events surrounding his
personal ‘revival’ and became convinced that the sermons which had first moved him to confession
had in fact simply played to the weakest part of his nature, and as such should not be given any
weight.
Joyce was unwilling to accept the idea of living with continual guilt over what he believed
were his most human desires, and so, at the age of fifteen, his faith in the teachings of Catholicism
began to falter. Accounts of Joyce’s later adolescent years suggest that his newfound disregard for
the teachings of the Church only grew stronger as he grew older. He began to think of Christianity
less in terms of its religious value and more in terms of its value as a source of fodder for his artistic
ambitions. He came to believe, suggests Richard Ellmann, that Christianity was a “superior kind of
human folly.”4 Ellmann observes that although Joyce continually strove to distance himself from the
religious aspects of Christianity, he at the same time was engaged actively in redefining and re-‐
appropriating elements of the faith in secular artistic terms. He could claim a kind of artistic
allegiance to Christianity, but no longer regarded himself as a Christian in the religious sense. It was
from this point of view that Joyce would later be able to criticize Christianity on the grounds that it
was suppressive of the human spirit, which Joyce believed only art was truly capable of affirming.
It seems likely that the family situation in the Joyce home may have contributed to James’
ultimate rejection of Christianity as well. His father, John Joyce, was a loudly professing Catholic

3
Ibid, 48
4
Ibid, 66
Miller 5

who attended mass on Easter and Christmas Eve, and a heavy drinker; not surprisingly, the elder
Joyce was also notorious for managing both his affairs and his money extremely poorly, which
resulted in the family’s frequent moves when the money for rent was instead used to stand rounds
of ale for John Joyce’s drinking pals at the local pub. Joyce’s father had learned over his many years
of financial mismanagement how to deal with landlords, but in spite of his inventiveness at avoiding
evictions for failing to pay rent, the family was forced to find new lodging with disturbing
regularity, and many of their accumulated belongings ended up in the hands of the pawnbroker.
The food situation in the Joyce household was not much better; the family often lived on credit from
local grocers who hoped to have their accounts settled when the unlikely day should come that John
Joyce did not drink his entire pension from a pint glass. James regarded the situation at home as
deplorable, blaming his father’s neglectful ways for the family’s struggles, and ultimately for the
death of James’ mother.
At the same time that his skepticism toward Christianity was growing stronger, Joyce was
gravitating toward a new impulse in his thinking: the affirmation of the human spirit. The Circe
episode of Ulysses describes an encounter between Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, the
autobiographical character that represents Joyce’s younger self:
Were their views on some points divergent?
Stephen dissented openly with Bloom’s view on the importance of dietary and civic selfhelp
while Bloom dissented tacitly from Stephen’s views on the eternal affirmation of the spirit
of man in literature.5
Stephen’s belief in the “eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature” reflects Joyce’s own
recognition of an unending potential to express and therefore affirm all aspects of human existence
in art itself. Hence art became for Joyce an attractive candidate as a replacement for the Catholic

5
Ulysses, 666
Miller 6

faith which he felt denied and repressed his most human qualities, such as his sexuality.
Chronologically speaking, Joyce’s rejection of Christianity corresponds with his growing passion
(that at times borders on obsession) for the arts: instead of focusing his energies of developing
piety, he devoted himself voraciously to writing stories and poems, singing, going to the theater,
and reading. He discovered and was immediately enthralled with the playwright Ibsen, whose
approach to drama informed Joyce’s artistic style to a great extent. As Ellmann observes, Joyce’s
relentless self-‐examination was formed largely in response to what he interpreted as Ibsen’s idea
that the artist should be brutally self-‐honest within his work.6 Ibsen’s work also played an
important role in shaping another key aspect of Joyce’s notion of the artist: the idea of the great
artist as an exile.7 These themes of rigorous self-‐examination and artistic exile which he gravitated
toward in Ibsen helped situate Joyce’s thought and prepared him for his impending encounter with
Nietzsche, which was soon to come.
Whether he was conscious of it at the time or not, Joyce’s thought was already beginning to
take on a shape that would find in Nietzsche’s philosophy a certain resonance. His rejection of his
Catholic faith largely on the grounds that it forced him to deny some of the most fundamental
features of his own humanity is entirely compatible with certain dimensions of Nietzsche’s criticism
of Christianity as denying the human spirit. The idea that a state of guilt is a fundamental condition
of the Christian life – a condition which Joyce ultimately refused to accept – is in fact one of the focal
points of Nietzsche’s critique of Christian morality. In identifying art as a viable replacement for
Christianity, Joyce in effect no longer recognizes the Christian God’s claim of authority in the world;
in some sense he already acknowledges the truth of Nietzsche’s controversial claim – that “God is
dead.” Finally, Joyce’s conviction that he must leave Ireland in order to become a great writer –

6
Ellmann, 54
7
Dante Alighieri wrote his epic, The Divine Comedy, while living in exile from Florence, Italy, and he was arguably
Joyce’s favorite writer. According to Ellman, Joyce was referred to as “Dublin’s Dante,” and saw himself as a kind of
Dantean exile. See Ellman, 75; 109.
Miller 7

which he did twice8 – suggests a need to “break free” from his upbringing, his family situation, and
his nationality; this impulse is in some ways reminiscent of Nietzsche’s idea of self-‐surpassing
(though this was likely not a large part of Joyce’s thinking at the time). As he had grown older, Joyce
had identified a number of things in his world that he did not like, or did not accept, or both, and it
is at roughly this point in his life that Joyce discovered the work of Friedrich Nietzsche.
According to Ellman, it was somewhere in the vicinity of 1903 when James Joyce first
became acquainted with Nietzsche’s writing,9 and there is a fair amount of evidence that suggests
Joyce quickly became familiar with, and even took somewhat seriously, the philosopher’s ideas. In a
card addressed to Dublin publisher George Roberts and dated July 13, 1904, Joyce signed his name
“James Overman,”10 using as his last name the literal English translation of the German
“übermensch,” the word which Nietzsche uses in both The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra
to refer to his self-‐overcoming individual. It seems unlikely that Joyce would have used such a
reference with someone who would not have grasped its significance with regards to Nietzsche, and
indeed there is a fair amount of evidence which supports the idea that there were at least a few of
Joyce’s friends and/or acquaintances in Dublin who were familiar with the philosopher’s writings.11
Also during 1904, Joyce began work on the collection of short stories that would eventually be
published as Dubliners, and it is here that another indication of Joyce’s interest in Nietzsche
appears. In the story titled “A Painful Case,” which Joyce finished writing in 1905, he includes The

8
As mentioned in the previous footnote, Joyce needed to think of himself as an exile, and so he departed Dublin
under self-‐imposed “exile” on two separate occasions: first in 1902 to Paris (he gave up on the idea and returned
to Dublin fairly quickly), and then again in 1904 for Pola, Rome, and ultimately Trieste, where he would stay for
many years. The story of Ovid’s Daedalus provide an interesting point of comparison to Joyce. Daedalus, wishing to
escape from his imprisonment in a tower, turns his minds to “obscure arts” and fashions wings for himself and his
son Icarus to fly away. Like Daedalus, Joyce is trying to “fly away” from Dublin.
9
Ellman 142
10
Letters, vol.1 need page
11
Both Davidson and Ellman claim that a number of Dubliners, notably Yeats, were passing around copies of
Nietzsche’s books around this time.
Miller 8

Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra among the favorite reading of the story’s main character,
Mr. James Duffy.12
Perhaps the strongest evidence of Joyce’s interest in Nietzsche comes from the catalogue of
the library he left behind in Trieste when he moved to Paris in June of 1920. While it impossible to
determine the full extent of Joyce’s knowledge of Nietzsche, Joyce owned translations of The Birth of
Tragedy, The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and The Gay Science, all of which were
printed between the years of 1909 and 1911.13 The philosophy section of Joyce’s collection was
relatively small, although it did include one or two works each from Aristotle, Aquinas, Berkeley,
Hume, Schopenhauer, Russell, and John Stuart Mill. His interest in Thomas Aquinas (and thus
Aristotle as well)14 notwithstanding, it would seem that by comparison no other philosopher
piqued Joyce’s interest in quite the way that Nietzsche did, judging by the works of philosophy
found in Joyce’s library: he discovered in Nietzsche a thinker whose singular and radical ideas
would animate his as yet unwritten masterpiece, Ulysses, a work which would be a radical in its own
right.
II. Friedrich Nietzsche: Conceptual Orientations
The application of a Nietzschean interpretive frame to Ulysses necessitates a brief overview
and explanation of several main ideas in Nietzsche’s philosophy. However, one of the implicit
problems with such an overview is the fact that in scholarly circles, opinions of Nietzcshe’s most
basic ideas are often far from settled, and in many cases there remains vigorous debate about what
Nietzsche actually meant by what he said, not to mention the relevant implications. Consequently,
in discussing the dimensions of Nietzsche’s philosophy that I am applying to a reading of Ulysses –
his proclamation of the death of God, his notion of the übermensch, his doctrine of eternal

12
Dubliners 321;
13
Richard Ellmann, The Consciousness of James Joyce, Appendix A
14
Note on Aquinas and Aristotle
Miller 9

recurrence, and his fundamental concern with nihilism that underlies these ideas – I must qualify
my efforts with the acknowledgment that I am presenting the interpretations that I take to have the
strongest arguments and/or textual support, and about which there seems to be at least a small
modicum of consensus among Nietzsche scholars.15 It is far beyond my purpose (or ability for that
matter) to attempt a comprehensive analysis and explication of Nietzsche’s philosophy: my
purpose, rather, is to offer what is admittedly an extremely simplified overview of the central
themes of Nietzsche’s thought, such that it might be usefully applied (at least in a basic sense) to a
modern work of literature.
In the prologue to his exposition of Friedrich Nietzsche’s life and philosophy, Walter
Kaufmann succinctly summarizes the general state of affairs in the arena of scholarship on the
philosopher: “Nietzsche became a myth even before he died in 1900, and today his ideas are
overgrown and obscured by rank fiction.”16 Few names in the recent history of philosophy are as
well known among those with little or no knowledge of philosophy as Nietzsche’s, and
understandably so, for Nietzsche’s opposition to the dominant moral framework of the last several
centuries in the Western world – namely, Christianity – has been highly publicized. Yet Nietzsche’s
issues with Christianity, though having perhaps garnered him a great deal of attention, are in fact
connected to a much deeper and probing critique of Western civilization that extends all the way
back to ancient philosophy. For Nietzsche, it is not Christianity in itself that is the problem; rather,
Christianity (and moreover, the Christian worldview) is simply another articulation, a religious
variant, of a mentality that is deeply embedded in Western culture, and that Nietzsche believes has
brought it to a point of crisis. Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of God, his doctrine of eternal

15
I wish to acknowledge here that my understanding of Nietzsche’s philosophy owes a great deal to the work of
Walter Kaufmann, Bernd Magnus, Kathleen Higgins, Robert Solomon, Robert Baker, and others. The influence of
their ideas will undoubtedly be seen in my discussion of Nietzsche’s thought.
15
Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philsopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, 3
Miller 10

recurrence, his notion of the übermensch, and his critique of Christianity are all fundamentally
related to his ultimate philosophical aim: to confront and deal with nihilism.
The concept of nihilism involves, for Nietzsche, a combination of the devaluing of that which
has real value and a notion of “otherworldliness” or “afterworldliness,” which ultimately are
created in response to suffering and incapacity, according to the teacher Zarathustra.17 Nietzsche
points to the growth of nihilism throughout the history of Western philosophy, and in a section of
Twilight of The Idols titled “How the ‘True World’ Finally Became A Fable: History of An Error,” he
traces nihilism in its current state all the way back to Plato’s idea of what Nietzsche ironically refers
to as the “true world”: the world of the Platonic forms that is knowable only to the philosopher.18
Plato’s theory of forms postulates the existence of a realm of the forms that is beyond this world
and this life, from which this world and this life derive their meaning, order, and significance; in the
most basic sense, it is a dualist metaphysical framework. It is with ideas such as this that Nietzsche
takes issue. Nietzsche understands any philosophy or religion that posits a realm “beyond” to be
expressing a basic desire to escape (or “transcend,” if you wish) the reality of human existence and
the human condition; they effectively offer a promise that there exists a “real” world other than, and
in addition to, this one. The problem, as Nietzsche sees it, is that the dualist conceptions of a “true
world” proposed in the Platonist and Christian traditions share one thing in common: they
essentially devalue (or completely deny) what Nietzsche considers the most vibrant and important
qualities of our real human existence – our impulses and instincts, our senses, our capacities, and
our potential power as human beings. This is why Nietzsche says that Platonism and Christianity
are nihilist. In his estimation, dualist metaphysics (expressed in various philosophical and religious
traditions) has been stretched to the point of exhaustion over the course of history; the idea is no

17
Kaufmann, The Viking Portable Nietzsche (VPN, 143
18
VPN, 485
Miller 11

longer sustainable, and as a result, dualist metaphysics has finally collapsed upon itself in the
modern period. This is the state of things in Western civilization as Nietzsche encounters it.
The hyperbolic and often scathing attacks on Christianity for which Nietzsche is perhaps
most famous potentially eclipse the larger concerns of his philosophy, which aims to illuminate and
propose a solution to the very real problem of nihilism in Western humankind. He asserts that in
nihilism human existence has reached a crisis point, in which “the highest values, God, the Absolute,
the timeless and eternal –indeed truth itself – have ceased to hold sway over the individual”19 – in
other words, the idea of “real world” beyond which guides and gives meaning to this life (i.e. dualist
metaphysics) has become bankrupt. The Western world, by his assessment, is destined to become a
kind of waste land, and the human existence, without the hope of a “true world,” is characterized by
a complete lack of depth or significance. One of the aspects of this perceived state of affairs that
Nietzsche finds especially troubling is that Western culture as a whole seems to be completely
oblivious to the reality of its own condition. Nietzsche senses that once humankind “wakes up” to
this reality – that the absolute values it purports to depend upon are essentially empty and
therefore irrelevant – there will be nothing left to stop Western society from disintegrating
completely in the absence of a coherent worldview.
It is thus against the backdrop of nihilism that Nietzsche takes the opportunity to point out
the obvious: God is dead.20 Nietzsche’s most quoted claim appears initially in the third part of The
Gay Science, and subsequently reappears at the beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and then again
in the fifth part of The Gay Science, which he wrote after completing Zarathustra. While it is a well-‐
known fact that Nietzsche was an adamant atheist, one should not understand Nietzsche’s
statement to constitute an absolute metaphysical claim about the existence of a supreme being:
rather, Nietzsche is trying to point out that the “belief in the Christian God has become

19
Bernd Magnus, Nietzsche’s Existential Imperative, 10
20
The Gay Science, sec 108
Miller 12

unbelievable.”21 He asserts that not only do few people realize that the event – the death of God –
has happened, but even fewer are aware of its significance, which he spells out clearly:
Much less may one suppose that many people know as yet what this event really means –
and how much must collapse now that this faith has been undermined because it was built
upon this faith, propped up by it, grown into it: for example, the whole of our European
morality.22
The implication of Nietzsche’s claim is simple and troubling: with the triumph of nihilism and the
death of God, the basic assumptions upon which the Western moral tradition is grounded disappear
as well, bringing about the inevitable demise of morality as such. What is interesting about
Nietzsche’s perspective is that he sees the emergence of the Platonist and Christian dualist
frameworks as symptomatic of nihilism (despair/disgust over the human condition, and the desire
to escape through either reason or religion) but also sees their collapse bringing about the climax of
nihilism as well. This seems to be one of the ambiguities – or even paradoxes – in Nietzsche’s
thinking. One of the more plausible explanations attempting to resolve the apparent contradiction
is offered by Bernd Magnus, who suggests that the positing of any dualist metaphysics is itself an
expression of a distressed condition, and a symptom of a decline of life23; that is, it expresses an
existing condition of nihilism. At the same time, Magnus maintains that Nietzsche is all-‐too-‐aware
that Western culture will be unable to stomach the realization that the dualistic thrust which has
informed its existence since the time of Plato is untenable, and will find itself once again in the
distressed condition of nihilism, albeit in a far more severe sense.
Appearing exclusively in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the übermensch is a fundamental
dimension of Nietzsche’s solution to the problem of nihilism. Literally meaning “over man,”

21
22
Ibid, 343
23
Magnus, 120-‐124
Miller 13

although it also been translated as “superman”, übermensch is the term Nietzsche uses to describe a
“self-‐overcoming, self-‐possessed”24 individual, one who overcomes the sickness of nihilistic,
“afterworldly” thinking, creates new values, and ultimately affirms his or her own life to the fullest
possible extent. “I teach you the übermensch. Man is something that shall be overcome.”25
Nietzsche’s idea of the übermensch involves a process of self-‐overcoming, a transformation of the
individual, and a “going-‐under” (untergehen) as he refers to it in Zarathustra.26 Zarathustra’s
inaugural speech yields some insights into the nature of this process.
In “On the Three Metamorphoses,” Zarathustra describes a “going-‐under” – a progression of
spiritual change – that Nietzsche believes is vital for the individual who would overcome the
nihilistic attitude toward life within themselves and thus overcome nihilism itself. In the first stage
of this transformation, the spirit of the individual becomes like a camel, a beast of burden. There are
many things that are difficult for the human spirit, says Zarathustra, but its strength demands of
itself the things which are “difficult and the most difficult.”27 The spirit-‐as-‐camel wants to take upon
itself the greatest possible load it can carry, and so it kneels down “wanting to be well laden”28;
laden, that is, with the values of its culture. And the spirit-‐as-‐camel carries the burden of these
values well: it is able to “understand, internalize, and appropriate the values of its culture.”29
However, once the spirit has burdened itself to the fullest possible extent with these values, it seeks
its own desert, a state of isolation and reflection, and it is here that the second stage of the change
occurs. The spirit transforms itself from a camel into lion, from a beast of burden into a beast of
might, and overcomes itself. A lion’s strength is what is required for the spirit to be able to assert
itself and say “I will,” and for it to be able to confront and defeat “the great dragon that the spirit

24
Magnus 33
25
Zarathustra, 9
26
This is described in greater detail in the Prologue, section 4. Zarathustra, 11
27
Zarathustra 25
28
Ibid.
29
Magnus, 35
Miller 14

will no longer call lord and god”: the dragon called “thou shalt,” which identifies itself as all created
value.30 The lion conquers the great dragon called value, and in doing so it negates the values which
the camel once carried as its burden. The lion does not and cannot create new values – “that not
even the lion can accomplish,” says Zarathustra – but the lion can create the freedom that is
necessary for the creation of new values. The spirit-‐as-‐lion engages in complete negation, it opens
up the space for new values, but the spirit must still undergo a final transformation in order to
create new values: it transforms itself from a lion into a child.
Why must the lion become a child? Because the child is a new beginning, a forgetting, a first
movement, a game, and most importantly, it is a “sacred Yes-‐saying,” Zarathustra says.31 The child
encounters the world from a fresh perspective, it does not remember the old values, and thus it is
not bound think of the world as the lion and camel did. And because of this, the spirit can say “yes”:
it can fully affirm itself, its place within the fluctuation and flux of the larger world, and the process
of becoming – the “eternal cycle of genesis, growth, decay and death.”32 The wholesale affirmation
of this world, and of one’s place within it, is at the core of Nietzsche’s philosophy and his solution to
nihilism: it is the culmination of the metamorphosis of spirit, the process of going-‐under and of self-‐
overcoming, that he believes is the only way for an individual to truly overcome nihilism.
The final piece of Nietzsche’s thought left to examine is one that Bernd Magnus claims is “no
doubt the most difficult, if not the most obscure”33: his doctrine of eternal recurrence. The doctrine
of eternal recurrence surfaces at a number of places in Nietzsche’s work, including Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, but is perhaps most clearly expressed in a section of The Gay Science in which
Nietzsche asks us to imagine living our same lives, exactly the same in all of their smallest details,
over and over again, infinitely. Nietzsche then asks what our reaction to this imagined reality would

30
Zarathustra 25-‐26
31
Zarathustra 26
32
Magnus, 9
33
Magnus 38
Miller 15

be: would we be devastated, or would we welcome the thought? He concludes the section with a
final question: “[How] well-‐disposed would you have to become to yourself and your life to crave
nothing more fervently than this ultimate and eternal confirmation and seal?”34 While there are at
least three (and likely more) competing general interpretations of this doctrine, the interpretation
which seems to me to have the strongest case and the best fit within the overall scope of Nietzsche’s
thought is the one offered by Bernd Magnus, who proposes that the doctrine of eternal recurrence
should be interpreted as an existential imperative, with a heuristic or diagnostic function. Magnus
asserts that “[eternal] recurrence (and its real or possible truth) is a visual and conceptual
representation of a particular attitude toward life,” and he spells out exactly he means: “the attitude
toward life captured in the doctrine of eternal recurrence is the expression of nihilism already
overcome.”35 The attitude toward life that Nietzsche is interested in portraying is one of affirmation,
one which expresses “life as celebration,” and the implication is apparent: only someone who has
undergone the transformation from camel to lion to child described in Zarathustra – in other words,
only an übermensch – would be well enough disposed towards themselves and their life – including
all of its failures, tragedies, joys, and successes – to wish for its eternal repetition. Eternal
recurrence becomes a way for us to determine our condition (i.e. whether we have truly overcome
nihilism) by testing our attitude toward life; in another sense it helps us to overcome nihilism by
showing us the attitude we must adopt toward life:
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati:36 that one wants nothing to be
different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary,

34
35
Magnus, 142
36
Latin: love of fate
Miller 16

still less conceal it – all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary –but love
it.37
III. Ulysses: A Nietzschean Interpretive Frame
Stephen
The opening scene of Ulysses finds the characters Stephen Dedalus and his friend Buck
Mulligan having an exchange regarding, among other things, the death of Stephen’s mother; it is
within this exchange that Buck Mulligan identifies both himself and Stephen as being ‘hyperborean’,
alluding to Nietzsche’s concept of the übermensch – an individual who has, among other things,
been liberated from the demands of any moral system (which in this case means Christian morality,
specifically). Mulligan is evidently not only familiar with such a notion of freedom (at one point he
jokingly refers to himself and Stephen as übermenschen, or supermen), but in fact embraces it, as
evidenced by the joy he apparently finds in turning his morning shave into a parody of the Catholic
mass, or his “mad gaiety” at chanting ‘The Ballad of Joking Jesus” later on in the episode.38 Clearly,
for Mulligan few things are sacred, especially things pertaining to religion and morality; however,
Mulligan’s flagrant disregard for the confines of Christian propriety appears at times to be almost
playful, a sort of carefree, “all-‐in-‐good-‐fun” mentality. It is difficult to take him seriously as an
example of the individual who embodies Nietzsche’s self-‐affirming approach to life.
Stephen, on the other hand, seems to adopt a much more calculated attitude toward things,
and invites a more careful consideration from a Nietzschean point of reference. By contrast to
Mulligan, Stephen’s actions suggest a far more embedded and deep-‐seated resistance to the
conventions of the Christian ethic. “No mother,” he remembers saying (though perhaps only in his

37
Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, 258
38
Ulysses, 18
Miller 17

mind, it isn’t clear), “let me be and let live.”39 This rebuke appears as Stephen refuses to join those
kneeling in prayer for his dying mother, an act loaded with significance: not only does Stephen
refuse his mother, ignoring the traditional Christian doctrine of honoring one’s parents, he also
refuses to take part in prayers for the dying, suggesting either a lack of belief, or a more deep-‐
seated and willful indifference toward accepted Christian practices, or both. Even the ‘hyperborean’
Buck Mulligan, who is supposedly liberated from conformity to traditional Christian ideals, takes
exception with Stephen’s action, sharply criticizing it as stemming not from being ‘above the
crowd,’40 but from something else, something which is (to Mulligan’s way of thinking) more
“sinister”41 and even heartless. Though Mulligan attributes Stephen’s actions to dark motives, the
reader may come to understand Stephen’s refusal of his mother as ultimately a principled and
calculated response, as evidenced by the gravity of the event(s) such as Stephen recalls it. The
Nietzschean frame helps to situate the actions of both Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus in a
particular light; while both men’s actions may be seen respectively as choices (rather than mindless
reactions) in defiance of Christian value, only Stephen’s actions might be thought of as deliberate
and premeditated moral choices (as compared to Buck Mulligan, whose ‘liberation’ is largely
inconsequential and silly) constituting a refusal of the dominating discourse of Christian morality.
The notion of the übermensch, as we have seen, is intrinsically connected to another one of
Nietzsche’s ideas, which becomes essential to understanding Stephen’s vision of himself as an
individual and an artist: the death of God. Stephen’s outright dismissal of Christianity as such
amounts in the most basic sense to an affirmation of Nietzsche’s often-‐quoted and controversial
claim that “God is dead,” and at the very least becomes Stephen’s own assertion that if God is not in
fact dead, he is certainly meaningless in the real world. Throughout Ulysses, Stephen identifies
himself, both directly and indirectly, as a version of Nietzsche’s übermensch: one who frees himself

39
Ibid, 10
40
See note 1.92 in Don Gifford, Ulysses Annotated (University of California, 1974)
41
Ulysses 5
Miller 18

from the oppression and nihilism of religion (which in Stephen’s case means Christianity) in order
to create his own values, his own morality, who then with god-‐like authority imposes his own
values and morality upon the world around himself. In the wake of the ‘death of God’, Stephen
assumes the role of god, and the notion of the ‘artist-‐as-‐god’ becomes one of the foundational
principles of Stephen’s view of life, along with his approach to art (and in his case, literature). In
view of his vision of the artist-‐as-‐god, it is not surprising that Stephen’s thought (and also his
dialogue with other characters) throughout Ulysses frequently is obsessed with Christian theology
and cosmology; though Stephen ultimately rejects the Christian cosmology, he still values the
coherence and comprehensiveness of its account of the world and of human existence, and seeks to
replicate this coherence within his own philosophical and artistic framework.
In an early sounding of Stephen’s developing philosophical and metaphysical concerns,
Buck Mulligan in Telemachus wryly compares Stephen to Saint Thomas Aquinas, a famous
Dominican theologian and philosopher, and also to Aristotle. “No, no,” shouts Mulligan in response
to a request for Stephen to explain his unique interpretation of Hamlet, “I’m not equal to Thomas
Aquinas and the fiftyfive reasons he has made to prop it up. Wait till I have a few pints in me first.”42
Mulligan’s quip, with its linking together of Aquinas and the “fiftyfive reasons” (an allusion to
Aristotle’s assertion of fifty-‐five immutable celestial spheres from the Metaphysics43), is itself
significant, as the philosophical project of Thomas Aquinas largely seeks to reconcile Aristotelian
thought with Christian truth(s); thus, Mulligan’s reference to Stephen as both an Aquinas figure and
an Aristotle figure implicitly suggests that Stephen may be seeking to reconcile something secular
with something divine, and possibly to provide a rational account of his own ideas of ultimate
realities, and the divine. Given the fact that Stephen is an aspiring artist, this passage seems to
suggest that Stephen is wrestling with certain questions, and that he is looking to philosophy for

42
Ibid 17
43
Ulysses Annotated, 1.547
Miller 19

answers to these questions. The allusions to philosophy in this passage throw open a door to a
potentially deeper understanding of Stephen Dedalus as a character, and create new possibilities of
interpretation of both his artistic project, and in a larger sense, Ulysses itself.
The philosophical allusions which begin surfacing in Stephen’s thoughts, from his interior
monologues in the Nestor episode of Ulysses, lend further support to an understanding of Stephen as
a man whose interest in philosophy serves a particular, though as yet still unclear, purpose.
Pondering the fates of Pyrrhus and Julius Caesar, Stephen asks the question “what if,” and thinks of
the “infinite possibilities [the concrete, actual event] have ousted.”44 This thought echoes Aristotle’s
distinction between potential and actuality, from his Physics; Stephen’s thoughts turn immediately
from the Aristotelian metaphysical frame to questions from his Poetics, in which Aristotle suggests
that a poet, as an artist (which Stephen wishes to become in the true sense) deals not with what
actually has happened, but rather with “the kind of thing which would happen [emphasis added].”45
Stephen presumably possesses a familiarity with Aristotle from his knowledge of Aquinas, and
Aristotelian ideas continue to move in and out of his thoughts as he (presumably) attempts to
rearrange them into some kind of logical structure. At this point it becomes possible to begin
interpreting Stephen as not only an aspiring artist, but also as a man wrestling with intellectual
questions as well; clearly, he is attempting to develop some kind of theoretical or conceptual
framework, and looking to philosophy – and particularly Aristotle’s philosophy, it would seem – for
answers.
His contemplation of Averroës and Moses Maimonides later in Nestor begins to offer some
insight into the nature of Stephen’s intellectual and philosophical quest, as well as deepening the
reader’s understanding of him as an individual. As he assists one of his young students with sums,
Stephen’s mind wanders to two influential Aristotelian scholars, Averroës and Moses Maimonides,

44
Ulysses 25
45
Aristotle, Poetics 51a-‐b
Miller 20

whom he remembers with what appears to be almost sadness, noting that they are “gone…from the
world” (28). The significance of these particular philosophers with regard to Stephen lies in the fact
that both men’s philosophy attempts to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with religious orthodoxy:
Averroës was concerned to reconcile Aristotle with Moslem orthodoxy, whereas Maimonides
sought to reconcile Orthodox Judaism with Aristotle.46 Both men, and especially Maimonides, had a
significant impact upon Thomas Aquinas, who ultimately sought to reconcile Aristotelian thought
with Christian doctrine, and with whom Stephen is frequently compared throughout the pages of
Ulysses. 47 Stephen, in a reversal of the biblical reference to Christ from the Gospel of John, refers to
these philosophers as a “darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend,”48
suggesting in his play on the allusion to Christ that they posited certain truth(s) which the
“brightness” (as a metaphor for religious orthodoxy) was either unable or unwilling to accept. In
other words, Stephen thinks of these men as promoting ideas that are essentially antithetical to the
dogma and conclusions of Christianity. Stephen’s preoccupation with these particular Aristotelian
philosophers, all of whom sought to connect certain notions of the divine with philosophical
thought, gestures perhaps towards Stephen’s own, similarly oriented ambition to connect his own
notion of “highest values” (as Nietzsche calls them) with a rational, philosophical framework, which
will perhaps be an antithesis to Christianity’s account of the world.
The early episodes of Ulysses, and particularly Telemachus and Nestor, establish Stephen as
an individual who in many ways resembles the übermensch that Nietzsche describes. At the same
time, it also becomes clear that Stephen is interested in developing (or perhaps has already
developed) a philosophical and/or metaphysical framework of his own that will replace the
Christian cosmology, while still providing within his own cosmological framework the kind of

46
See FN 5 and James Cappio, “Aristotle, Berkeley, and Proteus: Joyce’s Use of Philosophy” in Philosophy and
Literature 5.1 (1981): 21
47
Gifford, 2.158
48
Ulysses 28
Miller 21

coherent and comprehensive explanation of the world that the Christian framework offers. These
early episodes introduce and establish Stephen’s character and his larger artistic and intellectual
project; in subsequent chapters, Stephen’s belief in the artist-‐as-‐god is more fully developed, as well
as his larger theory and its implications. In the Scylla and Charybdis episode, which Joyce scholar
Garold Sharpe suggests is “the most comprehensive statement of James Joyce’s metaphysical
beliefs,”49 the narrative finally arrives at the long-‐anticipated revelation of Stephen’s theory of
Shakespeare, which spells out in a larger sense Stephen’s manifesto of his new ‘cosmology’ of the
artist.
Scylla and Charybdis takes place in the rooms of The National Library of Ireland, located in
Dublin’s center, and provides the setting in which Stephen discusses, with an audience of writers
and literature figures, his theory of Hamlet as William Shakespeare’s own ghost story. The outset of
the discussion is marked by George William Russell’s claim that “art has to reveal to us ideas,
formless spiritual essences,” a claim which he connects to “Plato’s world of ideas.”50 Russell’s
statement echoes a certain reading of Plato’s notion of the “forms,” suggesting that in his view art
possesses no inherent value as such, but rather is valuable only to the extent that it accurately
reflect or points to transcendental truth(s) (he mentions Shelley in support of his claim) located in a
spiritual or metaphysical realm.51 He classifies other notions of literary interpretation as the
“speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys,” a remark which Stephen counters with his own
observation that “Aristotle was once Plato’s schoolboy.”52 The juxtaposition of the two
philosophers, which librarian John Eglinton claims makes his “blood boil”, figures prominently in
the episode, where Plato and Aristotle find symbolic importance on multiple levels: as exemplifying
the relationship between the respected mentor and the protégé seeking to assert his own ideas; as

49
Garold Sharpe, “The Philosophy of James Joyce” in Modern Fiction Studies 9.2 (1963): 120
50
Ulysses 185; see also note 9.52-‐53 in Gifford
51
Gifford, 9.51
52
Ulysses, 185
Miller 22

embodying two widely different approaches to art; and perhaps most importantly for Stephen, as
representative of two vastly different metaphysical accounts of the world.
In his allusion to Plato’s Republic, and the question of which philosopher “would banish
[Stephen] from his commonwealth,”53 Stephen indirectly asserts his identity as a literary artist,
offering a glimpse of how he sees himself, and of his overall perspective on literature as well.
Evidently Stephen already knows the answer to his own question: as a literary artist, he would be
banished from Plato’s, rather than Aristotle’s, commonwealth. Plato’s criticism of poets (and
ultimate justification for their banishment from the ideal city), is constituted in three basic claims:
first, Plato criticizes poetic content, asserting that poets often tell untrue stories. Next, he criticizes
the form of poetic art (for him this includes all literature), which he says is an imperfect imitation of
an imitation of an eternal and unchanging form. Finally, Plato argues that poetry destroys the
rational part of the soul by enlarging and appealing to the irrational part: that is, the part of the soul
which experiences emotions. 54 On the other hand, Aristotle’s Poetics, with which Stephen is
familiar, affirms the poet’s importance, and his/her capacity to produce art which will – through
inspiring language and depiction of human action, among other things – stir the emotions and lead
individuals, through the experience of art, to a greater understanding of the virtuous and good
human life.55 Presumably, Stephen envisions his identity as an artist from a more Aristotelian
concept of both literature itself and the writer (in contrast here to both Eglinton and Russell, who
seem to hold a more Platonic and transcendentalist view of literature that seems more in keeping
with their Theosophist religious views), and this concept is further formulated in his subsequent
thoughts and statements.

53
Ibid 186
54
Plato’s three main criticisms of poets, as summarized here, appear respectively in Books II, III, and X of The
Republic.
55
Gifford, 2.52
Miller 23

In an interior monologue that closely follows his allusion to Plato, Stephen, recalling a
comment from his conversation with Deasy in the Nestor episode, thinks: “God: noise in the street:
very peripatetic. Space: what you damn well have to see.”56 His thought points to several different
ideas which Stephen is engaging: it suggests first that he is interested in an approach to literature
which is, above all, practical and rooted in the concrete realities of everyday life: he values the
representation of actual people, places, and events, the kind of things “that would happen.” But on a
deeper level it suggests that Stephen believes the essence of ultimate reality – one of the key points
of difference between Aristotle’s and Plato’s respective philosophies – is essentially material and
immanent (that is to say, existing and manifesting itself in and through the material world) rather
than transcendent and idealist (existing beyond the observable world). Stephen’s characterization
of this idea as “peripatetic” carries a double meaning: the word ‘peripatetic’ denotes in a literal
sense things pertaining to the Aristotelian school of philosophy; it refers in a more general sense to
one who walks from place to place, i.e. “someone in the street” (a thought which is strikingly
humorous, given the narrative of Ulysses). Stephen’s thinking also suggests that his notion of truth
(if he in fact believes in any notion of ultimate truth) is manifested within the material world
(specifically, in art) rather than outside of it. His equating of “God” with street noise suggests that
he believes truth expressed and apprehended in tangible, concrete objects and experiences, as
opposed to the notion that truths and/or ideals exist solely in a transcendental realm beyond the
material world and cannot therefore be embodied in objects, an idea that Plato (and in similar
ways, the Theosophists alluded to throughout Scylla and Charybdis) asserts in his philosophy. Taken
together, the ‘peripatetic’ element and the ‘God is the noise in the street’ element suggest that
Stephen believes art itself becomes a location for the creating of truth, a location of the ultimate
realities of existence; he envisions his art as an infusing of the commonplace experiences of life
described in his art with truth or value as defined by the artist (that is, the artist-‐as-‐god).

56
Ulysses 186
Miller 24

Stephen proceeds to set his theory of art into motion with his discussion of Shakespeare:
having for the moment finished debating the differences between Plato and Aristotle, John Eglinton
gives Stephen the floor with an introductory announcement that “[Stephen] will have it that Hamlet
is a ghoststory.”57 “[W]ith tingling energy,” Stephen begins to tell a story for his audience: he re-‐
creates a performance of the play Hamlet, in which William Shakespeare himself plays the part of
Old Hamlet’s ghost, speaking to “the son of his soul,”58 the young Prince Hamlet of Denmark.
Stephen’s reference to Hamlet as a “son” of Shakespeare in once sense points to the similarity
between the character’s name and that of Shakespeare’s biological son, Hamnet, who dies at a
young age. In another sense, though, it is extremely suggestive of the notion that the playwright is
in a deeper sense the ‘father’ of his work, his characters; the writer in fact fathers his writing(s).
Stephen returns to the fathering/birthing theme with his remark that Socrates learned from his
mother both dialectic and “how to bring thoughts into the world.”59 Stephen is clearly suggesting
that the relationship between the artist and the work of art is essentially that of father and son; he
is also asserting that it is within work of art that the artist’s thoughts are born into the world. At this
point the reason for Stephen’s obsessive interest in the Christian doctrine of consubstantiality
throughout Ulysses – the belief that the Father and Son, though separate persons, share the same
substance – becomes obvious: he is appropriating the doctrine of consubstantiality for his own
metaphysical framework of the artist. Stephen refers back to the concept of consubstantiality of
father and son (or by implication, artist and work of art) throughout the episode, concluding finally
that Shakespeare is “all in all” (212)60, both father and son, an assertion with which the initially
skeptical John Eglinton is in agreement.

57
Ulysses 187
58
Ulysses 188
59
Ibid 190
60
This is also a biblical allusion; see I Corinthians 15:28
Miller 25

There is a larger implication of Stephen’s new ‘doctrine’ of the consubstantiality of the artist
and the work of art, as well: if father (artist) and son (work of art) share the same substance, then
the work of art is not only the offspring of the artist, as suggested earlier, but the artist comes to
exist, or live, within his own work of art as well. This idea holds paramount importance for Stephen,
and indeed he understands the whole of Shakespeare’s work, including “all the other plays which I
have not read,”61 in terms of Shakespeare ‘giving birth,’ as it were, to his entire life, to himself in
fact, within his plays and poems. One way that Stephen substantiates this idea is by drawing
connections between the characters and plots of Shakespeare’s plays, and the real people and
events of his own life. He uses the similarity between the names ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Hamlet’ to suggest
that Shakespeare is perhaps avenging his betrayal by his wife Anne Hathaway’s adultery through
his writing, calling upon the ‘son of his soul’ to take up his cause. Stephen links the birth of
Shakespeare’s granddaughter with his emergence from a period of dark struggle and turmoil, and
the corresponding change in the tone of his plays, claiming that the “girl placed in his arms”62 is
responsible for softening the heart of Shakespeare, comparing the storms of his life to the
shipwrecks experienced by Ulysses (the Latin version of Odysseus) and Pericles (a title character
from one of Shakespeare’s plays). The death of Shakespeare’s mother, according to Stephen,
provides a scene for the play Coriolanus; similarly, the death of his son Hamnet becomes the “death-‐
scene of young Arthur in King John.”63 He claims that the villain Iago, who torments the hero Othello
with thoughts of Desdemona’s infidelity, symbolizes Shakespeare’s “unremitting
intellect…ceaselessly willing that the moor in [Shakespeare] shall suffer” (212) Stephen argues that
the betrayals which Shakespeare experiences at the hands of both his wife Anne and his friend (or
possible love interest) William Herbert become a theme which pervades all of Shakespeare’s work:
“[t]he note of banishment,” as Stephen sums up, “banishment from the heart, banishment from the

61
Ulysses, 212
62
Ibid,195
63
Ibid, 208
Miller 26

home, sounds uninterruptedly from The Two Gentlemen of Verona onward till Prospero break his
staff” (212). In short, the whole of Shakespeare’s life and world is, from Stephen’s perspective,
living in some form within in all of his writing, or as he puts it: “…through the ghost of the unquiet
father (or artist) the image of the unliving son (or work of art) looks forth” (194).
At this point it becomes possible to synthesize the threads of Stephen’s seemingly
disconnected philosophical, religious, and aesthetic concerns into a single, unified idea that
constitutes the new metaphysical framework envisioned by Stephen, and in a larger sense, James
Joyce. In an echo of Nietzsche’s concepts of ‘death of God’ and of the übermensch, Stephen rejects
the Christian accounts of reality, value, and truth, and installs himself, as an artist, in the place of the
Christian God: hence, the notion of the artist-‐as-‐god, invested with the power to determine his own
values. By implication the artist also becomes the source of ultimate reality, and his creation, the
work of art, becomes its location. The notion that the work of art is both the creation of artist-‐as-‐
god as well as the location of ultimate reality encapsulates Stephen’s rejection of both Platonic and
religious notions of transcendence as such, and his affirmation of a version of Aristotelian
materialism, that is, the idea that ultimate reality exists and is manifested only in the material world
(and specifically for Stephen, in material works of art). Stephen’s interest in Thomas Aquinas,
Averröes, and Moses Maimonides – men who sought to reconcile versions of monotheism and
Aristotle’s philosophy – is finally explained in his transformation of the Christian doctrine of
consubstantiality into his own secular metaphysics of the artist, a hybrid idea that makes possible
his claim that the artist and his work are one in substance. In the sense that the work(s) of art
encompasses or contains the entirety of a human life – namely, the artist’s – it becomes not only
relevant to every human being, but in fact accounts for the whole of human existence: it becomes its
own cosmos, with the artist at its center – as god. The idea that the work of art is the creation of
artist-‐as-‐god and the location of ultimate reality encapsulates Stephen’s rejection of both Platonic
and religious notions of transcendence as such, his rejection of nihilistic frameworks.
Miller 27

Bloom
It is not difficult to make the case that if anyone in Ulysses deserves to be able to escape
from life’s struggles, it is Leopold Bloom. This is in part made easier because Bloom’s trials and
tribulations seem to be much more beyond his control by comparison to other characters. It is
possible to see how Stephen’s cockiness and cynicism could be at least partly to blame for the fact
that he is overlooked and at times even ostracized socially, whereas Bloom is mistrusted by others
and kept at a distance through no fault of his own, but simply because he is a Jew by birth, among
other things. At first glance it is easy to read Stephen, with his lofty ambitions and his outward
defiance of religious ideals, as the powerful, assertive, self-‐overcoming übermensch type; but upon
closer examination it is in fact Bloom who comes to express this idea in a more meaningful,
substantial, and relevant way. We must keep in mind that Bloom’s journey over the course of June
16, 1904 is above all things a kind of epic journey, with Bloom as its epic hero, but he is not a hero
in the traditional sense. He is not called upon to fight battles, slay beasts, or conquer new lands;
nevertheless he must display the same kinds courage and strength necessary for battle in order to
face and overcome the little (and big) tragedies that are inseparable from his life, and indeed from
all human life. Bloom must ultimately find a way to overcome the tragic in life not by escaping it, as
Stephen seems at times to be trying to do, but by accepting it, embracing it, and finding his way
through it. Stephen has yet to fully realize the kind of self-‐overcoming approach to life that
Nietzsche envisions, in which a human being affirms their own life most fully by affirming life itself,
by affirming the whole, whereas Bloom illustrates it beautifully in all of his humanness.
In the Lotus-‐Eaters episode of Ulysses, Bloom leaves his house for the day and is headed to a
funeral mass for the deceased Paddy Dignam. Bloom’s conduct during the funeral mass gives us a
clue as to his overall mentality toward religion, which becomes important in relation to the larger
question of whether Bloom’s attitude toward life is that of a self-‐overcoming person. He observes
Miller 28

the priest giving communion to some women at the altar and thinks, “Corpus. Body. Corpse. Good
idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying.”64 While Bloom is willing to participate in
the socially mandated practice (and it appears that he does it solely for the sake of tradition), he is
clearly convinced that it is empty and serves no real purpose except to comfort those who perhaps
are not aware that they are living ‘dead’ lives. “There’s a big idea behind it,” he thinks, “kind of a
kingdom of God within you feel…lulls all pain. Wake this time next year.”65 Bloom sees religion as
something that merely exists as an escape from the pain of human existence, which echoes
Zarathustra’s claim that religion is drunken joy that allows people to look away from their suffering
and forget their pain.66
Bloom’s mind continues to wander extensively over the course of the service: he imagines a
clandestine rendezvous with a girl in the church, imagines what a “gay old time”67 the Benedictine
monks must have had chanting and brewing liquor after hours, concludes that the Catholic Church
is a wonderful organization because it is runs “like clockwork.” What is interesting in Bloom’s
thought is the fact that although he has no use for religion, his mind is not occupied with harping on
the manifold faults of the Church or the perceived emptiness of Christian doctrine: in other words,
he is simply unaffected and indifferent. Unlike Stephen, he is not driven by the continual need to
destroy the Church precisely because he sees it for what it is, acknowledges its presence (and its
emptiness), and moves beyond it. He does not feel any hostility or vindictiveness toward
Christianity. This mentality stands in stark contrast to Stephen’s, in that Stephen feels a constant
need throughout Ulysses to negate Christianity, which is itself ironic given that he wants to preserve
certain aspects of Christian doctrine for his own purposes as an artist.

64
Ulysses 80
65
Ibid 81
66
TPN, 143
67
Ulysses 82
Miller 29

In the Hades episode, the narrative continues to follow (among a host of other things) the
issue of Bloom’s religious beliefs, this time more specifically in regard to Bloom’s thoughts on the
possibility of heaven and hell, or any other kind of afterlife. Simply put, he believes there isn’t one.
Standing at the graveside service for Paddy Dignam, he muses:
The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are dead. That last day idea. Knocking
them all up out of their graves. Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Last
day! Get up! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the rest of his
traps. Find damn all of himself that morning.68
Bloom’s hilarious imagining of the frantic chaos on the “last day” confirms his lack of belief in the
afterlife, in a world beyond, which continues further into the funeral service.
We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you’re well and not in hell. Nice
change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life and into the fire of purgatory.69
Having concluded his obligation, Bloom leaves the cemetery reflecting that Dignam is now “out of
sight, out of mind,”70 suggesting his final thoughts about a life after this life, a world beyond this
one: in the end, there is nothing but this life. At first glance, it might seem that Bloom is
simpleminded, that his thoughts reflect a lack of depth, or that he is simply obtuse to the gravity of
the issue of death: however, it is this very mentality – that death is in some ways just a fact of life
which gets too much attention – that is integral with a much more important idea, on which helps
Bloom to confront and overcome, rather than avoid and escape, the tragic dimensions of his life.
That Bloom does not identify any life beyond this one is important for several reasons. First
of all, it shows us that despite his willingness to participate in religious ritual for the sake of

68
Ulysses, 105
69
Ibid, 111
70
Ibid, 111
Miller 30

decorum, Bloom is not in fact religious at heart. If he believes in the existence of God at all (and it is
possible to make a good argument in favor of Bloom’s not believing in the existence of God), he
certainly does not believe that God has anything whatsoever to do with the world as we know it. If
there is a God (in the Christian sense) then there must also be a hereafter, a life beyond: but there is
no life beyond, according to Bloom, and so it follows that there is no God for Bloom either. Secondly,
Bloom’s belief that this life is all there is, that “once you are dead you are dead,” also implies that
Bloom is not looking beyond this life for meaning and value: that he sees life itself as the most
valuable thing of all. The everyday failures, successes, joys, and pains of human existence do not
serve some higher purpose, they do not find some higher value in world beyond; if this were the
case then everything in life would be for the sake of something else, and Bloom never even
considers this a possibility. Bloom’s meditation on the afterlife (or the lack of it, to be precise)
suggests that he is not stuck in the kind of nihilistic thinking that constitutes Christianity and the
various forms of Platonism according to Nietzsche. It is as if Bloom has already reached the
conclusion that “God is dead,” that belief in the Christian (or Jewish) god is not believable.
The illumination of Bloom’s beliefs about religion and the afterlife is not the only item of
importance in Hades: the episode also provides a glimpse of the specific kinds of suffering Bloom is
dealing with. While on his way to Paddy Dignam’s funeral, Bloom reflects on the tragic loss of his
infant son: “If little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. Walking beside
Molly in an Eton suit.”71 In the vast wanderings of his mind Bloom’s thoughts frequently returns to
the issue of his lost son, with Rudy’s death being one of the elements that frames Bloom’s entire life.
In Hades we are also made aware that Bloom still feels the weight of the loss of his father. On the
carriage ride to the cemetery, one of Bloom’s colleagues, unaware of Bloom’s past, raises the issue
of suicide: he remarks that it is the worst death of all, that it is the greatest disgrace to have in the
family, and that it is the mark of a coward. Only after all this has been said does it become apparent

71
Ibid, 89
Miller 31

that Bloom’s father committed suicide, a fact that is still a regular part of Bloom’s memory. Finally,
Hades is the site of Bloom’s first encounter (there are three separate encounters over the course of
the day) with the man that his wife Molly is about to begin an affair with: Blazes Boylan. Bloom is
already painfully aware of the impending liaison, and the encounter with Boylan puts the finishing
touch on a trifecta of unnecessary human suffering in Bloom’s life: the death of a son, the suicide of
a father, and the betrayal of a wife.
It is not coincidental that the Hades episode should deal with Bloom’s religious views
(moreover, his lack of religious beliefs) while at the same time gesturing toward the larger issues of
tragic suffering at work in Bloom’s life, for one of the beauties of Leopold Bloom is that he deals
with the difficulties of life, indeed with the whole of life itself, on his own and without the “help” of
religion. The juxtaposition of Leopold Bloom and his deceased father is particularly striking, for it is
apparent in Bloom’s memories of his father in the Lotus-‐Eaters, Hades and Aeolus episodes that
Rudolf Virag (Bloom) was in at least one respect quite the opposite of Leopold Bloom: he was a
pious man of faith. While watching the Freeman Journal’s typesetter reading text backwards in
Aeolus, Bloom remembers his father reading the Hebrew Haggadah backwards during the
celebration of the Jewish Passover when Bloom was a child: “Poor papa with his haggadah book,
reading backwards with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! All that long
business about that brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of bondage alleluia.”72
What is interesting here (but not accidental) is the fact that Bloom is remembering the words from
the Haggadah incorrectly, for the Israelites in fact praised God for delivering them from the house
of bondage, not into it. Clearly, however, Bloom sees the faith of his father as another kind of jump
from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak, and understands the “promise” of religion simply as
the exchange of one form of bondage for another.

72
Ibid, 122
Miller 32

It is perhaps most ironic of all that Bloom’s father, the pious man of faith, despairs of this life
to such a degree that he decides to take his own, despite the “meaning” and significance his faith
supposedly conveys upon his existence. Although Bloom pities his father, referring to him
throughout Ulysses as “poor papa,” he somehow does not share his father’s deeply pessimistic
outlook on life, and this seems to suggest another implicit critique of the Judeo-‐Christian worldview
and of religion as a whole. According to the Judeo-‐Christian perspective, it would be Leopold Bloom,
rather than his father, who would have no reason to see life in a positive light, lacking an “eternal
hope”; however, in Ulysses it is quite the opposite that is true, and we can only conclude that this is
not an oversight on Joyce’s part. By investing Bloom with a kind of resilient outlook, and his father
with an insurmountable pessimism towards life, Joyce is gesturing toward Nietzsche’s claim that in
the end the Judeo-‐Christian worldview leads one to devalue and ultimately despise this life.
How then does the non-‐religious Bloom encounter and respond to the difficult and
sometimes tragic dimensions of his life? In recognizing this life as the only thing that really matters,
Bloom is able to accept, confront, and ultimately overcome the tragic in his life – the death of Rudy,
his father’s suicide, and Molly’s infidelity, among other things – with a resilience that affirms both
himself and his life. Rudy’s untimely death as an infant and Molly’s affair with Blazes Boylan are the
two sources of pain that most frequently occupy Bloom’s mind over the course of the day, a fact
made more significant by the relationship between the two seemingly unrelated events. In the
Ithaca episode, it is revealed that Leopold and Molly Bloom have not had sexual relations since just
before the birth of their son Rudy, a span of close to eleven years. Their lack of intimacy is largely a
repercussion of tragic event, for elsewhere Bloom admits that he could never find the desire to be
intimate with Molly after his son’s death. Hence the sexual frustration which Molly confesses to in
Penelope, and which leads her to consider beginning an affair with Boylan, is by implication an
indirect consequence of Rudy’s death also. The two seemingly separate issues go hand-‐in-‐hand for
Miller 33

Bloom, and although he often thinks about them separately, dealing with one entails dealing with
the other to a certain extent.
What is revealing about Bloom’s attitude toward life is that he does not try to moralize
about Rudy’s death, he does not try to rationalize and/or justify it, nor does he try to assign to it a
larger meaning according to some system of religious beliefs: he simply accepts Rudy’s death as
something that is painful, something that is neither right nor wrong, something that is an
unchangeable part of his existence. Recalling the circumstances around Rudy’s birth in the Calypso
episode, Bloom remembers the words of the midwife who assisted Molly: “She knew from the first
poor little Rudy wouldn’t live. Well, God is good sir. She knew at once.”73 Bloom sees the midwife’s
remark – that “God is good, sir” – for what it is: a cliché that is intended to mask a fatalistic
perspective on tragedy of the situation. Yet Bloom does not take a position in response to this
statement, because it is irrelevant to him. What is relevant is allowing Rudy’s death to be what it is –
a sad part of Bloom’s life – while refraining from trying to categorize it as ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or from
trying to redefine it altogether. This attitude carries Bloom throughout his day, and viewed through
a Nietzschean frame, is indicative of his healthy disposition toward life. The mark of Bloom’s
healthy mentality is that he does not feel the constant need to change, redeem, or negate the past:
unlike the midwife, he does not try to suggest that in some way Rudy’s infant death was actually
good after all, or not painful. He accepts the pain as an integral part of his humanity; he accepts that
it is part of life itself.
Bloom’s willingness to go on living with the pain of losing Rudy, rather than denying and
negating it, is at least in part responsible for the feelings Bloom develops for Stephen, and helps
open the door for a potential friendship between the two. In Oxen of the Sun, Bloom and Stephen are
together in a maternity ward when Bloom remembers that Molly buried Rudy in a wool sweater,

73
Ulysses, 66
Miller 34

and suddenly he views Stephen from a father’s perspective, “and as sad as [Bloom] was that him
failed a son of such gentle courage, (for all accustomed him of real parts) so grieved he also in no
less measure for young Stephen for that he lived riotously with these wastrels and murdered his
goods with whores.”74 Regarding the notion of a father-‐son relationship emerging between the two
men, the analog between Ulysses and Homer’s Odyssey is particularly useful, as Stephen and Bloom’s
meeting in the former is reminiscent of Telemachus’ reunion with his father, Odysseus, in the latter.
We are told in both Eummaus and Ithaca that although Stephen and Bloom are in many ways
different, they are alike in many ways as well, and Stephen’s departure from Bloom’s house in
Ithaca suggests the real possibility that a new friendship is beginning.75 This seems all the more
significant given the fact that it has apparently been over ten years since Bloom had a thorough and
stimulating conversation on such a wide range of topics as he does with Stephen. The suggestion is
that this is the first time since Rudy’s death that Bloom has engaged with anyone in more than a
superficial sense, and as such it is a breakthrough for him, an overcoming of the past that does not
negating the past.
Bloom’s final encounter of the day – with Molly – offers a final glimpse of how the hero
works his way through difficult realities. All throughout, Bloom has known that Molly and Blazes
Boylan are planning to rendezvous, and has put off the unavoidable confrontation with the reality
of Molly’s affair by wandering around Dublin into the wee hours of the morning. However, once
Stephen departs and Bloom turns in for the night, he is forced to face reality of “new clean bedlinen,
additional odours, the presence of a human form, hers, the imprint of a human form, male not his.”76
Now Bloom knows for certain that the breach of marriage has occurred, and like any normal man,
he is affected with feelings of “envy, jealousy, abegnation, [and] equanimity.”77 Bloom’s feelings

74
Ibid, 391
75
Ibid, 656, 666
76
Ibid, 731
77
Ibid, 732
Miller 35

quickly give way to reflection, and rather than moralizing about Molly’s “sins” or making value
judgments about her actions, he simply concludes that it happened. He does not ignore the fact of
Molly’s adultery, but he does not harp on it either. Instead, having acknowledged and submitted to
the new reality of his life and marriage, he begins to move beyond it and into a sense of satisfaction.
He turns to Molly and “[kisses] the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each
plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative
melon-‐smellonous osculation.”78 In the end he responds to Molly’s adultery by continuing to affirm
his own desires and her as the object of his desire. He has gone under and overcome.
Bloom and Dedalus: Synthesis
Both Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus exhibit in their respective lives certain
characteristics or attitudes that resonate with particular dimensions of Nietzsche’s philosophy. At
the same time, it seems problematic to read either Bloom or Stephen individually as completely
capturing the spirit of Nietzsche’s thought, as both men leave certain Nietzschean themes
untouched. For the most part, Bloom seems to express Nietzsche’s ideal of the individual who
understands his own life without reference to some higher realm or religious hope (in other words,
to nihilistic thinking). He seems to know that God is dead. And he seems to be more willing to
encounter and suffer the tragedies of life without having the need to escape or negate them; on the
contrary, Bloom is by comparison more than willing to accept his failures and the failures of others
for what they are. However, what seems to be relatively absent from Bloom’s life (that is, from a
Nietzschean perspective) is the spirit of negation that says “I will,” and the spirit of creative
transformation that creates new values. Bloom exhibits some aspects of a Nietzschean attitude
towards life fairly clearly, while other key dimensions are more difficult to identify in his character.

78
Ibid, 735
Miller 36

What is less clear in Stephen’s case it whether his actions really indicate that he has yet
truly overcome himself on a personal level. He possesses self-‐confidence, as evidenced in his
willingness to challenge the respected literary establishment and their views of Shakespeare, as
well as create his own theory of art in the Scylla and Charybdis episode, yet it appears that he still
feels compelled to construct his new cosmological framework from “legitimate” philosophical
and/or religious doctrines and ideas,79 suggesting that he has not completely given up on the idea of
the “true world” that Nietzsche claims is a fable. Perhaps the most telling indicator of Stephen’s
current condition is the fact that he appears to be, like the great artificer Daedalus, searching for a
way to “escape”; his efforts could be interpreted as a attempt to fashion wings which will allow him
to fly away from the unpleasant realities of his life – his lack of success as an artist, his father
Simon’s disapproval, and his ongoing guilt over his mother’s death. Such an attitude, according to
Nietzsche, is not reflective of one who has fully overcome himself in affirming this life; rather, it
reflects a lingering despair of the human condition that is not übermenschlichkeit.
This is precisely the point where Stephen’s theory of Shakespeare becomes extremely
informative as a theory of Ulysses. As previously said, the similarity between Stephen and Bloom is
frequently acknowledged throughout Ulysses, and the implicit suggestion is that there is a father-‐
son dynamic at work, both in terms of the “resemblance” of the two men and in terms of the analog
of their characters in The Odyssey. Following the drunken reveling of Oxen of the Sun, Bloom
prevents Stephen from getting into a fight with several soldiers at the end of Circe, and in Eumaus
the connection between the two men is elicited further: “though they didn’t see eye to eye in
everything, a certain analogy there somehow was, as if both their minds were travelling, so to

79
I have argued in a previous paper that Stephen’s “cosmology of the artist” is itself a fusion of the Catholic
doctrine of consubstantiality and Aristotelian materialism.
Miller 37

speak, in one train of thought.”80 Following their walk back to Bloom’s house from the cabman’s
shelter of Eumaus, the catechistic Ithaca further illuminates a connection between the two men:
Did Bloom discover common factors of similarity between their respective like and unlike
reactions to experience?
Both were sensitive to artistic impressions musical in preference to plastic or pictorial. Both
preferred a continental to an insular manner of life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of
residence. Both indurated by early domestic training and an inherited tendency of
heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodox religious, national, social
and ethical doctrines. Both admitted the alternately stimulating and obtunding influence of
heterosexual magnetism.81
The suggestion is both that there is a fundamental resemblance between Bloom and Stephen, and
that their minds are somehow linked. Furthermore, the doctrine of consubstantiality that is
foundational to Stephen’s theory of Shakespeare would suggest in the case of Ulysses that if indeed
Bloom and Stephen are understood figuratively as father and son, then figuratively they share the
same substance. The implications of this thought with regards to the Nietzschean frame are
particularly fitting, for Nietzsche envisions the true self-‐overcoming mentality as a fusion of all the
traits which Bloom and Stephen respectively exhibit. Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus, read as
father and son who share the same substance, combine to create a picture of the complete life-‐ and
self-‐affirming individual that Nietzsche envisions. Bloom undergoes the tragic sufferings of life and
emerges from them stronger; Stephen creatively transforms the world around him. Stephen
negates all; Bloom in some ways does not “remember” the old ways, does not need to take revenge

80
Ulysses, 656
81
Ibid, 666
Miller 38

on them. The two are meant to be understood as one: together, they constitute the whole of what
Nietzsche envisioned in the übermensch, the man who has overcome himself.
Epilogue: Molly
It is fitting that Joyce allows Molly to have the last word in Ulysses, for perhaps nowhere else
is the idea of a complete and wholehearted affirmation of this life expressed so obviously as in her
final monologue in the Penelope episode. It begins with the “sacred Yes-‐saying”; it ends with the
“sacred Yes-‐saying.” Molly says “yes” to her life more than eighty times in Penelope, demonstrating
the attitude of an individual who embraces their life, such as it is, to such an extent that they would
unhesitatingly accept the opportunity to live it again, exactly as it was. Of all the characters in
Ulysses, Molly most fully captures the idea of Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence as an
existential imperative, and as a diagnostic tool for judging one’s own approach to life.
There are several stylistic aspects of Molly’s monologue that lend support to reading her
character from the perspective of eternal recurrence. To begin with, there is a complete lack of
punctuation: while there seem to be a myriad of distinct thoughts, their boundaries are unclear:
they merge into one another endlessly, to the point that the monologue reads like a single,
continuous sentence. Apparently, all of Molly’s thoughts are interconnected: there is not one that is
completely distinct separate from another. This seems to gesture toward Nietzsche’s notion of the
necessity of affirming one’s place within the whole: individual lives, like individual thoughts, are
never completely distinct or separate from the whole, but rather are simply a part of the unending
flux, and of the process of becoming, which characterizes the world. Molly’s thoughts endlessly
become other thoughts. In addition to the absent boundaries of punctuation, the first and last
words of her monologue are identical, suggesting the absence of an absolute beginning or ending. It
is possible to reach the end of Molly’s monologue and begin again immediately, at the very same
place; conceivably, this process could be repeated innumerable times, exactly the same each time.
Miller 39

This idea -‐ of the possibility of endless repetition – is at the heart of Nietzsche’s notion of eternal
recurrence.
Such insights add to the significance of Molly’s unhesitating affirmation: on a literal level,
she affirms the realities of her own life. She is not oblivious to the pain of life, having experienced
tragedies of her own, including a number that she shares with her husband, such as Rudy’s death.
Yet she realizes on some level (perhaps unconsciously) that if she were to imagine her life
happening again without these things in it, she would in fact be imagining someone else’s life,
wishing to live someone else’s life, rather than her own. Molly’s monologue is one continuous,
never-‐ending reflection on everything that constitutes her life, down to the minutest detail. She
reflects on old landladies and her youthful romances, the loss of Rudy, the sexual encounter with
Boylan (indeed, much of her thought is devoted to comparing Boylan and Bloom in various ways),
her thoughts about Jews and Catholics, and in the end her love for Bloom in spite of his failings and
shortcomings. Molly reflects insightfully on the whole of her life, and concludes that it is worth
saying “yes” to it unequivocally.
On a symbolic level, which is potentially more significant with respect to the idea of eternal
recurrence, Molly unequivocally says “yes” to the very nature of life itself, to life as a whole, and not
only to her own individual life. She accepts the idea of endless and continual change, as expressed
stylistically in her ever-‐changing and morphing thoughts. Just as she affirms the place of individual
thoughts within the transient whole of her own thought, she accepts the place her individual life
within the larger whole of life itself, within the whole of the transient world. Finally, she embraces
the possibility that the cycle of life – of birth, growth, decay, and death – repeats itself over and
over, innumerable times, just as her collective thought might. Such a person as Molly is alone
capable of saying to the proclaimer of eternal recurrence:

Miller 40

“You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.”82
IV. Conclusion
Ulysses is a dazzling, captivating novel of life-‐affirmation, of self-‐affirmation, of creative
transformation. It is an affirmation of Joyce’s past; as Richard Ellmann notes, “Joyce was never a
creator ex nihilo83; he recomposed what he remembered…”84 Stephen’s theory of Shakespeare is
less an assertion about the biographical details of Shakespeare’s life than a claim about the way that
an artist’s work in intrinsically related to his life. Ulysses is also Joyce’s transformation of the
ordinary, commonplace people and experiences of his life, past and present, into masterpiece of art.
It is that kind of book that Leopold Bloom imagines writing someday: “a miniature cameo of the
world we live in.”85 It is a stylistic tour de force; it is a labyrinthine maze of allusion; it is an epic; it is
a commentary on Irish nationalism; indeed, Ulysses is all this and much more. But above all, it is an
assertion about what a human life ought to look like, a claim about the kind of outlook on life one
must adopt to truly live: taken together, Stephen, Molly, and Leopold Bloom form a comprehensive
picture of the kind of powerful approach to life that Joyce, like Nietzsche, believes is alone capable
of making a human life worth living.

82
The Gay Science, section 341
83
Latin: “from nothing”
84
Ellmann, 364
85
Ulysses, 646
Miller 41

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—. The Consciousness of James Joyce. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
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Reading Nietzsche Ulisses James Joyce

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Reading Nietzsche in

James Joyce’s Ulysses

With Special Thanks To:

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2009048

-­‐Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2009048

both implicitly and explicitly.

I. Joyce’s Life and Background

death of James’ mother.

autobiographical character that represents Joyce’s younger self:

Were their views on some points divergent?

of man in literature.5

Nietzsche, which was soon to come.

Mr. James Duffy.12

II. Friedrich Nietzsche: Conceptual Orientations

modern work of literature.

completely in the absence of a coherent worldview.

In “On the Three Metamorphoses,” Zarathustra describes a “going-­‐under” – a progression of

showing us the attitude we must adopt toward life:

III. Ulysses: A Nietzschean Interpretive Frame

thoughts and statements.

skeptical John Eglinton is in agreement.

with thoughts of Desdemona’s infidelity, symbolizes Shakespeare’s “unremitting

and forget their pain.66

traps. Find damn all of himself that morning.68

a father, and the betrayal of a wife.

the exchange of one form of bondage for another.

the other to a certain extent.

it is part of life itself.

negating the past.

Bloom and Dedalus: Synthesis

reactions to experience?

saying “yes” to it unequivocally.

capable of saying to the proclaimer of eternal recurrence:

of making a human life worth living.

Higgins, Kathleen. Nietzsche's Zarathustra. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987.

—. Ulysses. New York: The Modern Library, 1992.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Indianaplois: Hackett, 2010.

You might also like

-‐Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist

In “On the Three Metamorphoses,” Zarathustra describes a “going-‐under” – a progression of