Why does Bloom carry a potato in Ulysses?
Bloom carries a shrivelled potato in his trouser pocket all day as a charm. It was his mother's, kept to ward off illness. He checks it as he leaves the house in Episode 4, and in Circe he takes it back from the prostitute Zoe: “A talisman. Heirloom.”
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Several episodes. Bloom, checking his pockets as he leaves 7 Eccles Street.
Potato I have.
What it means in plain English
He forgets his latchkey but remembers the potato, which sums Bloom up.
In Circe Zoe takes it and Bloom has to ask for it back. Bloom explains, with feeling: “It is nothing, but still, a relic of poor mamma.”
Literary context
Carrying a potato against rheumatism was a common folk belief in Ireland.
References
- Ulysses, Episodes 4, 15 and 17
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
Why does Bloom forget his key?
He left it in his other trousers, worn to the funeral. He cannot get into his own house that night.
Related terms
Leopold Bloom
The central character: a kind, curious advertising canvasser whose wanderings give the novel its shape. Joyce's modern Odysseus.
“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls”
“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.
Sweny's pharmacy and the lemon soap
Bloom calls at Sweny's chemist on Lincoln Place in Episode 5 to order a face lotion for Molly, and buys a bar of lemon soap. He carries it in his pocket all day. In Circe the soap rises like a sun and sings. Sweny's is still open, run by volunteers.