There is much that is carnal in Ulysses.  The Eucharist, communion, is an important theme that reoccurs throughout Ulysses.  Catholics believe in transubstantiation of the Body and Blood of Christ.  The Eucharistic Host is not just bread and wine that represents the Body and Blood; it IS the Body and Blood of Christ.  Ulysses is about the material world and flesh.  The novel opens with plump, fleshy Buck Mulligan coming down the stairs with a bowl.  He is bringing the chalice that will be filled with the blood.  Eating and drinking, what the boys propose to do with Stephen's money, what you do when you partake in communion, are also parts of the carnal celebration.

The question of comedy in Ulysses:  What is Joyce's comedy?  It comes at us in a different way.  It isn't blatant or knee-slapping.  Ulysses begins with a parody of the Catholic mass.  A parody, mind you, not a satire.  Satire is a lesson, you learn something as you make fun but parody is a game.  In parody, the thing you make fun of is something that you take extremely seriously.   Comedy was Joyce's true mode.  He is purported to have said that nothing reveals us so much as our laughter.  His comedy is the reconciliation of forces or opposites. Carnality is important for comedy.  The body is funny as evidenced by Aristophanic comedies.  Joyce understood that plump was funny.  He knew that Falstaff was fat because he was full of life, he was full of laughter.

Nostos - homecoming "nostalgia"  The story of the Odyssey is mirrored in the Wizard of Oz.  Like Odysseus, all Dorothy wants to do is go home.  Odysseus is offered the chance to remain with Calypso and live forever.  But Odysseus chooses to go home to Penelope.  He chooses mortality and death.  Joyce embraces the decomposing mortal world, instead of "that other world." Everything changes into something else in Ulysses.  Because change is what it is, we are unable to get a firm grip on anything.  To oversimplify, a mistake is a change in plans.  Mistakes are important in Joyce's world.  When you make a mistake, you go somewhere you didn't intend to go.  You may do something you didn't intend to do.  It is something that transforms the mundane into something interesting.  Oz is a dream of home turned into something interesting by Dorothy's anxiety.

*Proteus is a symbol of change *3 is the magic number: 3 heros -Stephen, Bloom, and Molly -3 parts of the book: Telemachia, Nostos, and Odyssey *Samuel Beckett was Joyce's secretary *Joyce obsessed over the order of words *Apocalypse - removing the veil *History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake *Ulysses is a very famous dirty book - was censored ?*Bishop Berkley practiced philosophical idealism, the world is not realy but Samuel Johnson refuted him by kicking a rock and saying, this is as real as it gets *Jacob Boheme - everything you see in the world is God's signature *omphalos - the navel or center of the world, represented by Martello Tower (umbilical cords linked to Eve) *epiphany - sudden manifestation of the divine *calpe - bowl or container (Calypso lived in a navel, also a phallus - Joyce became obsessed with these things and Finnegans Wake is an erection) *Molly's first word is Mn and her last four are Yes, I will yes *moly is the talisman given to Odysseus by Hermes and the potato Bloom carries in his pocket

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