Buck Mulligan
Malachi Mulligan | |
---|---|
First appearance | agnostic |
Nationality | Irish |
Malachi Roland St. John "Buck" Mulligan is a fictional character in James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses. He appears most prominently in episode 1 (Telemachus), and is the subject of the novel's famous first sentence: "Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."
Characteristics
Physical appearance
Buck Mulligan is described as having a "face... equine in its length",[1] a "sullen oval jowl",[2] a "strong wellknit trunk",[3] "light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak",[2] "even white teeth",[2] and "smokeblue mobile eyes."[3] He begins the morning in a yellow dressing-gown; later he dons a distinctive primrose waistcoat and Panama hat. His facial expressions often shift rapidly, and he is prone to sudden, energetic movements.
Personality
Mulligan is a
Mulligan is an avid
Mulligan's finances appear to be at least partially dependent on the generosity of a wealthy, pious aunt; he is also mentioned as having a father who was a "counter-jumper"[5] (i.e. sales clerk), a mother, and a brother.
Relationship with Stephen Dedalus
Mulligan does not appear as a character in
Mulligan's attitude towards Stephen in conversation is both playful and patronising; he alternately teases and compliments Stephen's physical appearance, and refers to him by such epithets as "Kinch"[7] (in evocation of a knife-blade), "Wandering Aengus"[9] (a dual reference to the poetry of W. B. Yeats and to Stephen's demeanor whilst drunk), and "dogsbody".[3] He is frequently generous with Stephen, lending him money and clothing, but also carelessly makes free with Stephen's own possessions and funds, importunities which Stephen seems to accept out of a sense of obligation. Mulligan also injures Stephen with callous remarks about Stephen's late mother and his conduct towards her. Although Stephen's mother has been dead for ten months, Stephen has seemingly never vocalised any grievances to Mulligan concerning these remarks until the opening chapter of Ulysses.
Stephen, meanwhile, has come to regard Mulligan as an antagonist, privately referring to him as "mine enemy."[10] He interprets a request for the Tower key at the end of chapter one as an attempt by Mulligan to "usurp" the Tower from him, and eventually resolves to part company with Mulligan altogether. Stephen also harbours feelings of insecurity about Mulligan's physical courage and fearlessness, traits which Stephen feels that he himself does not possess.
Role in Ulysses
Buck Mulligan is the first character to appear in Ulysses, opening the novel by ascending to the top of the
Mulligan surfaces again in the chapter "Scylla and Charybdis" at the National Library, where Stephen is expounding his theories on
Mulligan puts in a brief appearance in "Wandering Rocks", where he meets Haines at a bakery and vocalises the opinion that Stephen Dedalus is insane. He then attends an evening gathering at the home of
Inspiration
The character of Buck Mulligan is partly based on
Various details of Mulligan's character parallel those of his real-life inspiration.
Gogarty also resided for a time in the Sandycove Martello Tower; unlike Mulligan, however, he paid the Tower's yearly rent himself. He had originally inquired after renting the Tower with an eye to sharing it with Joyce, who was in need of a place to live while he worked on Stephen Hero, but the plan for cohabitation fell through after the pair quarrelled in August 1904. Joyce, however, did stay at the Tower for six days in September, together with Gogarty and an Oxford friend who became the inspiration for Haines.[14]
Contemporaries of Joyce and Gogarty, on reading Ulysses, differed over the extent to which Buck Mulligan was a fair and accurate portrayal of Oliver Gogarty. Gogarty himself, though he held largely negative views on Joyce's work, once wrote positively of his role in Ulysses: "When [Joyce] paid me the only kind of compliment he ever paid, and that is to mention a person in his writings, he described me shaving on the top of the tower. In fact, I am the only character in all his works who washes, shaves, and swims."[15] Padraic Colum felt that Buck Mulligan, in addition to being an accurate portrait of Gogarty's distinctive speaking-style and mannerisms, was in fact "much more alive than Oliver Gogarty in his later years",[16] while Seán Ó Faoláin disagreed, saying that "Joyce did [Gogarty] an immense and cruel injustice in Ulysses by presenting him to posterity as something approaching the nature of an insensitive lout whose only function in life was to offset the exquisite sensitivity and delicacy of Stephen Dedalus."[17]
References
- ^ Joyce, James (1990). Ulysses. New York: Vintage Books. p. 3.
- ^ a b c Ulysses, p. 3
- ^ a b c Ulysses, p. 6
- ^ Ulysses, p. 8
- ^ a b Ulysses, p. 88
- ^ Ulysses, p. 7
- ^ a b Ulysses, p. 5
- ^ Ulysses, p. 22
- ^ Ulysses, p. 214
- ^ Ulysses, p. 197
- ^ Complete text of Trieste notebook: http://www.istrianet.org/istria/illustri/non-istrian/joyce/works/notebook-trieste.htm
- ^ Litz, A. Walton (1964). The Art of James Joyce: Method and Design in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 135.
- ^ Joyce, James (1975). Selected Letters of James Joyce. New York: Viking Press. p. 143.
- ^ O'Connor, Ulick (1963). Oliver St. John Gogarty: A Poet and His Times. London: Jonathan Cape. pp. 78–82.
- ^ Gogarty, Oliver (1948). Mourning Became Mrs. Spendlove. New York: Creative Age Press. p. 47.
- ^ Rodgers, William (1973). Irish Literary Portraits. New York: Taplinger Publishers. p. 145.
- ^ O'Faolain, Sean (1964). Vive Moi!. London: Little, Brown and Company. p. 353.