What is free indirect discourse in Ulysses?
Free indirect discourse is narration in the third person (“he”, “she”) that takes on a character's own words and attitudes, without “he thought”. Ulysses uses it constantly. The first half of Nausicaa is the best example: the narrator speaks in Gerty MacDowell's romantic-magazine voice.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Several episodes. The narrator of Nausicaa, opening the episode in a voice borrowed from sentimental fiction.
The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace.
What it means in plain English
The sentence is not Gerty speaking, but it uses the clichés she loves. The narrator and the character blur.
It differs from interior monologue, which gives thoughts directly in the first person: “I”, “me”.
Literary context
The technique was used by Jane Austen and Flaubert; Joyce takes it further than either.
References
- Ulysses, Episode 13, “Nausicaa”
- Hugh Kenner, Joyce's Voices (1978)
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Questions readers ask
Is it the same as stream of consciousness?
No. Stream of consciousness is the broad aim; free indirect discourse is one technique, interior monologue another.
Related terms
The Uncle Charles Principle
The Uncle Charles Principle is the critic Hugh Kenner's name for Joyce's habit of letting narration pick up the vocabulary a character would use. It comes from a sentence in A Portrait of the Artist where Uncle Charles “repaired” to the outhouse, his own prim word, not the narrator's.
Interior monologue
The technique of rendering a character's unspoken thoughts directly on the page, as they actually occur. The engine of the book's style.
Gerty MacDowell
Gerty MacDowell is the young woman Bloom watches on Sandymount Strand at sunset in Episode 13. The first half of the episode is told in the gushing style of the romantic magazines she reads. She leans back to show her legs; Bloom masturbates; then she limps away.