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Comparative plots of Cyclops between Homer’s Odysseus and James Joyce’s Ulysses Song Yang, Comparative Literature World Literature Homer’s Odysseus and Joyce’s Ulysses To enjoy Joyce’s Ulysses, the reader does not need a profound scholarly knowledge of Homer’s epics, the odyssey (the original Greek title, describing the wanderings of the hero Odysseus, Latinized as Ulysses). An acquaintance with Homer’s epic will certainly sharpen one’s appreciation of Joyce’s modern version, and it is essential to be at least familiar with an outline of Homer’s original. Joyce makes 1904 Dublin the adventurous geography through which his Odysseus/Ulysses wanders. Whom did Joyce choose to play the role of modern Ulysses? He cast an ordinary, mild salesman, Leopold Bloom, a Jewish “alien” to play the central role in a deeply Irish book. Bloom is the modern-day, comic, realist anti-hero “translation” of the epic hero Odysseus. Homer’s Cyclops Let us look at an episode in Homer, “The Cyclops”, and then see how Joyce transforms it in Ulysses. Odysseus and his crew land on an island inhabited by one-eyed giants called Cyclops. They are imprisoned in the cave of one of these giants, Polyphemus. The Cyclops are cannibals and Polyphemus begins devouring the crew. The wily Odysseus waits until one night Polyphemus is drunk on wine. Odysseus sharpens a stake, heats it in the fire and drives into the giants’ single eye, blinding him. Odysseus had told Polyphemus that his name was “No one”. So when Polyphemus shouts that “No one is hurting me”, the other giants ignore his cries, assuming him drunk. In the morning, Polyphemus rolls away the boulder from the cave entrance to let his sheep out graze. He feels their fleeces as they brush past him; but Odysseus and his men escape by clinging to sheep’s underbellies. As they sail away from the island, Odysseus cannot resist shouting his real name back at the wounded giant pacing the shore. The sound gives Polyphemus a radar fix on the ship, and h