Ulysses Themes
Dissatisfaction
Let's face it, Ulysses is really bored. He can't stand just sitting around the house with his wife all day, eating and sleeping and settling disputes every once in a while. It would be like if you...
Perseverance
Ulysses is an untamed spirit, and nothing is going to stop him; he's got a disease, and the only cure is to keep traveling, to keep moving on. It's not that his life in Ithaca isn't good; there's a...
Mortality
The strong sense of urgency that Ulysses radiates stems largely from his own consciousness of death; it seems like every time he talks about going back to sea he mentions the fact that he might die...
Old Age
In a lot of ways, Ulysses resembles a retiree, someone who's had a long, eventful life and has been forced to hang it up just a bit too soon. Death isn't just stalking him because that's what death...
Exploration
Ulysses is like that guy you once knew who was totally happy taking whatever he could fit in his backpack and setting off for Europe, or Africa, or any other sprawling land mass. On one of those tr...