What does 'History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake' mean?
"History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake" is spoken by Stephen Dedalus to Mr Deasy, the headmaster of the school where he teaches, in "Nestor" (Episode 2). Stephen means that the weight of the past, Irish, Catholic and personal, feels like a bad dream he cannot escape.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Episode 2, Nestor. Stephen, talking with Mr Deasy in the headmaster's study after morning classes.
History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
What it means in plain English
Mr Deasy is an elderly, confident Ulster Protestant who loves lecturing. He tells Stephen that history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God. He also makes antisemitic remarks and blames women for history's disasters.
Stephen does not share that comforting view. For him history is not a story with a happy ending. It is a heap of wars, injustices and old grudges that still press on the present, especially in an Ireland under British rule.
His reply is short and bleak. When Deasy insists on God, Stephen points to the window and says God is "a shout in the street": something everyday and noisy, not a grand plan.
Literary context
The line sums up Stephen's struggle in the novel. He wants to be free of his country's past, his Church and his family, but cannot simply wake up.
It is one of the most quoted sentences in modern literature and is often used to talk about Ireland, colonialism and memory.
References
- Ulysses, Episode 2, "Nestor"
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
Who says 'History is a nightmare'?
Stephen Dedalus, to the headmaster Mr Deasy, in Episode 2, "Nestor".
What does Stephen say God is?
"A shout in the street."
Is the line about Ireland?
Partly. It covers Irish history under British rule, but also religion and Stephen's own past.
Related terms
Stephen Dedalus
The young writer who opens the novel — brilliant, grieving, and adrift. Joyce's Telemachus, the searching son.
Agenbite of inwit
"Agenbite of inwit" is Middle English for "remorse of conscience" (literally the "again-bite" of the "inner wit"). It comes from the title of a 14th-century religious book. In Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus repeats it to himself because he feels guilty for refusing to pray at his dying mother's bedside.