Who is Buck Mulligan?
Mulligan is a young medical student, plump, golden, and bursting with energy. He lives — for now — in the Martello tower at Sandycove with Stephen Dedalus. From his first line, intoning a mock Latin Mass over his shaving bowl, he is performing. He talks constantly, quotes everything, and treats the world as raw material for jokes. He is great company and impossible to fully trust.
Why is he such a memorable opening character?
Joyce hands Mulligan the opening of the entire novel, and he seizes it. His blasphemy, his showmanship, and his quick, allusive wit announce that this will not be a solemn book. He is funny — genuinely funny — and that comedy teaches you how to read the rest: irreverently, alertly, ready for the sacred and the absurd to sit side by side. The full episode is unpacked in the Telemachus summary.
How does Buck Mulligan relate to Stephen?
Beneath the banter is real damage. Mulligan mocked Stephen's grief when his mother was dying, and he keeps the wound open with careless jokes. He borrows Stephen's money and wit, takes the tower's key, and performs friendship without offering loyalty. Stephen privately names him a usurper — the man who takes his place. Their tension is the emotional engine of the opening, and it pushes Stephen out into the city. To meet Stephen on his own terms, read who is Stephen Dedalus?
What tone does he establish?
Mulligan's voice — mocking, musical, allusive — is the first taste of how Ulysses will behave: shifting registers, mixing the holy and the crude, never quite serious and never quite a joke. If you can enjoy Mulligan, you are already halfway to enjoying Joyce. He is the book's invitation to relax and play along. New to all this? Start with the beginner's guide to Ulysses.
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Common questions
- Who is Buck Mulligan in Ulysses?
- Buck Mulligan is the witty, irreverent medical student who opens Ulysses, sharing the Martello tower with Stephen Dedalus. He is loud, theatrical, and very funny — and also careless and cutting in ways that wound Stephen. He sets the novel's playful, mocking tone in its very first pages.
- Is Buck Mulligan based on a real person?
- Yes. Mulligan is famously modelled on Oliver St John Gogarty, a real friend of Joyce's with whom he briefly shared the Sandycove Martello tower in 1904. Joyce reshaped that friendship — and its falling-out — into the Stephen–Mulligan relationship.
- Why does Stephen dislike Buck Mulligan?
- Mulligan is charming but disloyal. He mocks Stephen's grief over his dead mother, uses him, and performs friendship rather than offering it. Stephen calls him a 'usurper' — someone who takes Stephen's place and his peace without earning either.
- What is the role of Buck Mulligan in the opening?
- Mulligan dominates the first episode, 'Telemachus,' with his blasphemous comedy and energy. He establishes the book's tone — mocking, allusive, performative — and throws Stephen's seriousness into sharp relief, which is exactly why he matters.