Why is Ithaca written as questions and answers?
Episode 17, “Ithaca”, is written as a series of over 300 questions and answers, like a church catechism or a science exam. Bloom brings Stephen home, and every detail is reported coldly and exactly, down to the route of the water from the reservoir to his tap.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Episode 17, Ithaca. The catechism, as Bloom fills the kettle in the kitchen.
Did it flow? Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow
What it means in plain English
The answer runs on for a page about the city's water supply. The method lets Joyce say everything, and nothing about feelings.
Yet emotion leaks through, in the heaventree of stars and Bloom's thoughts of Rudy.
Literary context
A catechism is a book of religious instruction in question-and-answer form, used in every Irish Catholic school.
References
- Ulysses, Episode 17, “Ithaca”
- Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (revised edition, 1982)
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Questions readers ask
Who asks the questions?
No one. The episode has no named speaker.
Related terms
“The heaventree of stars”
“The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit” is the sight Bloom and Stephen see when they step into the garden of 7 Eccles Street in Episode 17. A rare burst of poetry in a chapter written as dry questions and answers, it pictures the night sky as a tree of fruit.
Eccles Street
The Blooms' home address (number 7), where Bloom's day begins in 'Calypso.'
Parallax
Parallax is the way an object seems to shift position when seen from two different places. Bloom remembers the word from a popular astronomy book in Episode 8 and admits he never understood it. It suits a novel that shows Dublin from many viewpoints.