Who is Rudy in Ulysses?
Rudy Bloom is Leopold and Molly's son, who died at eleven days old, eleven years before the novel. Bloom thinks of him throughout 16 June, and his ghost appears at the end of Circe as an eleven-year-old boy reading a book.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Several episodes. Bloom, in the funeral carriage, watching Simon Dedalus and thinking of fathers and sons.
If little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house.
What it means in plain English
Rudy's death broke something in the Blooms' marriage: they have not had full sex since. Bloom's grief is quiet but constant.
At the end of Circe, as Bloom stands guard over the fallen Stephen, he sees Rudy as he might have been, and calls his name.
Literary context
Joyce's own first son, Giorgio, lived; but Joyce knew loss of children in his family, which he drew on.
References
- Ulysses, Episodes 4, 6, 8, 11, 15, 17 and 18
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
How old would Rudy be in 1904?
Eleven. Bloom works it out in Calypso.
Related terms
Leopold Bloom
The central character: a kind, curious advertising canvasser whose wanderings give the novel its shape. Joyce's modern Odysseus.
Molly Bloom
Leopold's wife, a singer, whose long unpunctuated monologue closes the book on the word 'yes.' Joyce's Penelope.
Milly Bloom
Milly Bloom is Leopold and Molly's daughter, who turns fifteen on 15 June 1904. She is working in a photographer's shop in Mullingar, and her chatty letter arrives with the morning post in Episode 4. Bloom worries about her and a young student she has met.
Stephen Dedalus
The young writer who opens the novel — brilliant, grieving, and adrift. Joyce's Telemachus, the searching son.