Stephen Dedalus's Perception of History Anonymous College

The characters of Ulysses are, to some extent, all shaped by the years of historical turmoil that preceded them. In early 20th century Dublin, they hold their various lineages and family histories to great importance, and others determine their identities for them based on factors completely outside their control. Take Leopold Bloom, for example, who is determined by everyone around him to be a Jew, even though he himself empathizes more with Ireland than his Jewish background. In one scene, Stephen Dedalus announces that, “History…is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” (28), certainly taking on a different mindset from the rest of Dublin society. By stating this, not only is Stephen trying to dissociate himself from his impoverished and unintellectual past in his quest to become a scholar and a writer, but he also wants to disengage from a history that pigeonholes him and so many others into a cycle of violence, tragedy, and discrimination.

Ulysses follows Stephen from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man after he returns to Paris, failing to become the writer he strove to become, so in a sense his past failures haunt him. Thoughts of his youth constantly waft through Dedalus’s thoughts, as much as he does not want...