Playful Irish imagery
Joyce is a very playful writer, and this book is absolutely no exception. He makes fun of his own community by teasing the sacraments of the Catholic mass (there is body and alcohol offered from a resurrected alcoholic). The alcohol in the novel is a clear portrayal of alcoholism in Irish communities, and the novel itself almost forces the reader to develop an Irish lilt if the prose is to make any sense at all. The final sentence is a perfect example: "A way a lone a last a loved a long the" makes the reader adopt an Irish accent. The book is thoroughly Irish. Also, notice that the final line is one syllable longer than good pentameter, a joke at an educated reader's expense.
Brokenness and inconsistency
There is inconsistency and brokenness on every level of this novel. The sentences that begin and end the novel are literally chopped in half. The sentences are often not English at all, and sometimes the book descends into absolute gibberish. The inconsistency of the plot makes the reader question their comprehension. The nearly random characters make the reader say, "Wait, did I miss something?" When finally a plot emerges from the depths of chaos, the plot itself is about broken characters whose arguments are inconsistent.
Mythological imagery
So is the novel just a joke at the reader's expense? Far from it. In reality, the novel offers an entire mythology, replete with allusions old and new, the first and most important of which is "Eve and Adam's." The story of the Fall of Man is told in HCE's sinful indulgence in a "forbidden fruit;" like Zeus, he is accused of raping or molesting some young girls. His wife sets about in his defense, like Eve does when Yahweh confronts Adam and Eve in the garden. Their boys set about in competition for the role of power in the household in an Oedipal fashion. This book is like if the Holy Bible had a baby with Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Death and rebirth
The novel literally begets itself, because the final sentence seems to birth the first sentence, making the novel into a kind of Mobius Strip. The first act of the novel shows a hilarious depiction of rebirth and the Christian sacrament. A good-old Irish lad is dead until someone sloshes some whiskey onto him. His deep-seated alcoholism is powerful enough to raise him from the dead for one last drink until the funeral attendants talk him into dying once and for all. Clearly, in this novel's world, rebirth and resurrection are not that hard to attain. Also, the imagery plays on the Christian symbolism for rebirth and immortality, because the wife offers the alcoholic's body as the meal at his own wake, like the Eucharist's bread soaked in wine (because he was a drunk).
