How is Leopold Bloom introduced in Ulysses?
“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls” is the first sentence of Episode 4, “Calypso”, and the reader's first sight of Bloom. Joyce introduces his hero through his appetite, a warm, physical, slightly comic opening that sets Bloom apart from the brooding Stephen.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Episode 4, Calypso. The narrator, opening Bloom's day in the kitchen of 7 Eccles Street at 8 am.
Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.
What it means in plain English
The sentence goes on to list his favourite foods: thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, and most of all grilled mutton kidneys, which give his palate “a fine tang of faintly scented urine”.
After three episodes inside Stephen's clever, anxious mind, Joyce restarts the clock at 8 am with a different man entirely: practical, curious and at home in his body.
Literary context
Joyce links each episode to an organ of the body in his schemas. “Calypso” is the kidney, so the opening sentence quietly announces the episode's theme.
References
- Ulysses, Episode 4, “Calypso”
- The Linati and Gilbert schemas
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
What does Bloom eat for breakfast?
A pork kidney, which he buys from Dlugacz the butcher and fries at home.
Why does Ulysses introduce Bloom in Episode 4?
The first three episodes follow Stephen. Joyce then goes back to 8 am and starts again with Bloom, so the two men's mornings run in parallel.
Related terms
Leopold Bloom
The central character: a kind, curious advertising canvasser whose wanderings give the novel its shape. Joyce's modern Odysseus.
Eccles Street
The Blooms' home address (number 7), where Bloom's day begins in 'Calypso.'
Mkgnao
“Mkgnao!” is the sound Bloom's cat makes in the kitchen of 7 Eccles Street in Episode 4. Joyce spells the cat's miaow exactly as he hears it, and varies it as the cat grows more insistent: “Mrkgnao!” and then “Gurrhr!” It is one of the book's most-loved small details.
The Linati and Gilbert schemas
The Linati and Gilbert schemas are two charts Joyce made to explain Ulysses. They list each episode's Homeric title, hour, organ of the body, art, colour, symbol and technique. Joyce sent one to Carlo Linati in 1920 and lent another to Stuart Gilbert, who printed it in 1930.