75 pages 2 hours read

James Joyce

Ulysses

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1922

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Episodes 10-12

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Episode 10 Summary: “Wandering Rocks”

The narrative switches to a series of vignettes, in which major and minor characters travel through Dublin. In the first vignette, a Jesuit priest named Father John Conmee travels to a school on the outskirts of the city to ensure that the son of Patrick Dignam can attend for free. On the way to the station, he passes a sailor with one leg, a group of schoolboys, and other Dublin residents. On the tram, he sees a poster for a blackface act named Eugene Stratton. He ponders life as a missionary and, exiting the tram at Howth Road, he reads his book of prayers while he walks. When he spots an amorous couple slinking guiltily away from a hedgerow, he “gravely” (215) blesses them. In the next vignette, Corny Kelleher inspects the lid of a coffin and then shares gossip with a police officer. The sailor with one leg makes his way down Eccles Street. While singing a song in praise of England, he asks for money. He passes Katey and Boody, Stephen Dedalus’s impoverished sisters. A “woman’s hand” (216) belonging to Molly Bloom throws a coin to the sailor through a window.