The Bloom

A Bloomsday Meditation
June 16, 1904 / June 16, 2026

Dramatis Personae

Leopold Bloom

Ad canvasser. Hungarian-Jewish-Irish. Born 1866. Husband of Molly. Father to Milly (15) and Rudy (died at 11 days). Our Odysseus, wandering Dublin, thinking of kidneys and love and death.

Molly Bloom

Marion (Molly) Tweedy Bloom. Concert soprano. Gibraltar-born. Her monologue ends the book and begins eternity. "Yes" is her word.

Stephen Dedalus

The artist as a young man. Telemachus seeking a father. Mourning his mother. Teaching school. Theorizing Shakespeare. "History is a nightmare."

Buck Mulligan

Malachi (Buck) Mulligan. Medical student. Usurper. Mocker. "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead."

Simon Dedalus

Stephen's father. Widower. Drinker. Singer. Once had a fine tenor voice. "A praiser of his own past."

Blazes Boylan

Concert promoter. Molly's tour manager and afternoon visitor. Jingle jangle. His letter arrives. At 4 o'clock he'll come.

Milly Bloom

Millicent Bloom, 15. Works in a photo shop in Mullingar. Her letter arrives with the morning post. Growing up, away.

Rudy Bloom

Leopold and Molly's son. Died eleven days after birth, eleven years ago. He appears, transformed, at the end of Circe.

Paddy Dignam

Patrick Dignam. Dead. His funeral is the occasion for "Hades." His ghost haunts the Cyclops episode.

Martha Clifford

Bloom's epistolary romance. "Dear Henry." They've never met. She writes of flowers and words typed wrong.

The Citizen

Nationalist. Anti-Semite. One-eyed giant in Barney Kiernan's. His Garryowen growls. A biscuit tin becomes a boulder.

Gerty MacDowell

Girl on the strand. Romantic dreams, romantic prose. "As God made them He matched them." Lame in one foot.

The City Itself

Dublin is a character - every street named, every pub real, every church standing. Joyce claimed you could rebuild Dublin from Ulysses if the city were destroyed. The Liffey flows through it all.

and yes I said yes I will Yes.