Eating With Bloom on the Sixteenth of June: Food in Ulysses

Abstract

Food is not only a biological need but also a socio-cultural phenomenon. Though food is a vital need for people to survive, it does not only contain taste and ingredients, but contains other things like emotions, symbols of identity, power relations, gender roles, economy and social rules. Food choices affect lots of areas in the society and the life of individuals. This article will analyze the use of food in James Joyce’s Ulysses through its ordinary hero Leopold Bloom. The novel, as the epic of the body, uses food as a reflection of everyday life and grotesque realism. Moreover, food is used throughout the novel to exemplify Bloom’s personal and social identity. Bloom is a pacifist, nontraditionally masculine man, half Irish, half Jewish and also feels like an outsider in Dublin. All these aspects are narrated in Ulysses through the food he chooses to eat. Joyce has created a novel about life with all its aspects, including food.