The central figures and returning faces of Ulysses, ranked by importance and traced through Joyce's earlier fiction and the eighteen episodes.
Showing 56 of 56, in ranked order
Jewish-Irish advertising canvasser; the novel's everyman hero, patient and curious, quietly grieving his son Rudy. We will have unfiltered access to his thoughts.
Homeric correspondence · Ulysses (Odysseus)
The semi autobiographical young James Joyce. Young poet and schoolteacher, fresh from Paris, grieving his mother and searching for a father figure.
Homeric correspondence · Telemachus
Leopold's (unfaithful) wife, a concert soprano born in Gibraltar to a British soldier and Spanish mother. She is a constant in Bloom’s mind throughout the day.
Homeric correspondence · Penelope
Stephen's witty, mocking medical-student roommate. Opens the novel with a mock Mass. Based on Joyce’s college “frenemy” Oliver St John Gogarty.
Homeric correspondence · Antinous (chief suitor)
Flashy concert promoter; Famously wears a serge blue suit, tan shoes, sky blue socks with clocks as a pattern and a straw hat. Molly Bloom’s afternoon paramour.
Homeric correspondence · The Suitor(s)
Stephen's father: a witty, improvident singer, sliding into debt and drink. Singer, raconteur based on the real John Stanislaus Joyce.
Fierce pub nationalist who baits Bloom in Barney Kiernan’s. Supposedly based on Michael Cusack founder of The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA)
Homeric correspondence · Cyclops / Polyphemus
Young Dubliner on Sandymount Strand whose romantic daydream frames the episode.
Homeric correspondence · Nausicaa
Respectable, sympathetic civil servant; organises Dignam's funeral and led the 'Grace' intervention in Dubliners. His alcoholic wife consistently pawns the home furniture.
A protestant tea salesman. Dresses impeccably to hide his slide into misfortune; He is the man 'rescued' by his friends in 'Grace' after a drunken fall.
Sharp-tongued sponger and race-tipster. The ultimate ‘hanger-on’ always on the lookout for free cigarettes and drink.
Jesuit rector of both Clongowes Wood College and Belvedere College. A real man with his real name.
Brothel keeper in Nighttown who dominates Bloom in the Circe hallucination.
Homeric correspondence · Circe
Manipulative schemer from 'Two Gallants'; Stephen and Bloom pass him in Eumaeus.
Dublin journalist made good in London. Lauded by Myles Crawford for his (questionable) journalistic skill.
Clerk manoeuvred into marriage in 'The Boarding House’ in Dubliners. Seen on his annual drinking bout.
The woman whose death by train closes 'A Painful Case'; remembered, not seen, on Bloomsday.
Pub regular at Davy Byrne's, full of racing gossip and Boylan talk. Has a constant dew drop at the end of his nose.
Journalist and IRB man; the unnamed narrator's companion for most of Cyclops. Owes Bloom money but fails to take the hint.
Younger man employed in the Royal Irish Constabulary (policeman) in Dublin castle. Puts his foot in it regarding Bloom's father's death.
Solicitor and Bloom's former employer he snubs him in Hades. Still begrudging his loss to Bloom in the competition for a young Molly’s affections.
Corn merchant and clubbable Dubliner — at the funeral, in the newsroom, and showing a visiting clergyman round St Mary's Abbey.
Undertaker's man who manages Dignam's funeral and turns up, quietly watchful, at the day's edges. Police informer.
Caretaker of Glasnevin Cemetery, greeting the mourners with graveyard humour.
Blustery, hard-drinking editor of the Evening Telegraph, presiding over the newsroom like a small tempest.
Homeric correspondence · Aeolus
Classicist and newsroom fixture, fond of grand rhetoric and Greek quotation.
Freeman's Journal clerk who first brings Bloom in about the Keyes advertisement.
Printer, city councillor, and newspaper foreman — based on the real Dublin figure Joseph Nannetti.
Once-promising barrister, now down on his luck, drifting between the newsroom and the pub. On the lookout for a loan of some money.
Journalist known for his rolling turn of phrase, one of the newsroom regulars.
The genial 'quaker librarian' who chairs the literary discussion in the library office.
Essayist and library regular (pen name of W. K. Magee), coolly sceptical of Stephen's Shakespeare theory.
Poet and mystic, drawn as himself, unconvinced by Stephen's biographical reading of Hamlet.
Assistant librarian, eager and a little foppish, egging Stephen's theory along.
Stephen's English houseguest from Telemachus — an outsider fascinated by Irish folklore, seen again around the library.
Real-life Dublin dancing instructor who processes through the episode in his own small pageant of colour.
Dignified pawnbroker whom Father Conmee greets with a bow on his walk across town.
Wandering beggar-veteran whose progress through the streets threads several of the episode's vignettes together.
Stephen's sister, glimpsed talking their father out of a few pennies and later buying a French primer with money the family needs for food.
One of Stephen's younger sisters, left largely to fend for the family at home.
Another of Stephen's sisters, part of the same hungry household scene.
The eldest Dedalus sister at home, making a thin soup for the family.
Stephen's Italian singing teacher, urging him not to waste his voice.
Blazes Boylan's secretary, typing and fielding his calls.
Clergyman-historian being shown Dublin's old abbey by Ned Lambert.
Dubliner demonstrating his invented disc-indicator device to Lenehan and M'Coy.
Bloom's acquaintance, forever touching people for the loan of a valise; seen with Lenehan chasing Rochford's invention.
Racing man who misreads Bloom's offhand remark as a tip for the horse Throwaway.
Real-life Dublin eccentric who processes down the street sniffing at shop windows, always given his full comic name in full.
Priest in financial trouble, cadging help from Ben Dollard against the bailiffs.
Booming bass singer, a fixture of Dublin's musical evenings, helping Cowley dodge his creditors. Remembered fondly by Molly for his tight fitting suit.
Moneylender remembered mainly for the (possibly apocryphal) story of fishing his son out of the Liffey.
Civil servant who discusses Bloom's business dealings with Cunningham and Power; later defends Bloom in Cyclops.
The dead man's young son, sent on an errand, quietly carrying the day's grief in miniature.
The King's representative in Ireland, whose ceremonial cavalcade closes the episode, saluted and ignored by turns.
Unidentified figure glimpsed repeatedly across the day — one of the novel's most argued-over unsolved mysteries.