Leopold Bloom
Leopold Bloom (aka Leopold Virág (ung. Virág means "flower")) is a fictional character in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce .
Although he is the main character in the novel, he is only introduced in the fourth chapter ( Calypso ). Bloom is to be understood as a “modern hero ” as a contrast to the Homeric hero Odysseus . He has the role of an outsider, which is mainly reflected in the fact that he lives as a Jew in Catholic Dublin and is exposed to an anti-Semitic climate there . In the novel, which takes place on June 16, 1904, the wandering of Leopold Bloom through Dublin is described. He is presented to the reader as an advertisement acquirer, but he is not very successful. In addition, he is aware all day that his wife Molly is having an affair with the attractive Blazes Boylan . The death of his son Rudy, who died eleven years ago at the age of a few days, also depresses him. In the course of the novel, Bloom takes on a father-like role for Stephen Dedalus .
The Bloomsday , every year on 16 June in Dublin and is celebrated elsewhere, to commemorate the "hike" Blooms through the city. Joyce lets the father Blooms (Rudolf Virág) descend from Szombathely in western Hungary and settles in Dublin only after stops in Vienna and Trieste . According to this honor, the city of Szombathely had a statue of James Joyce put up in the main square in the center. Bloomsday is celebrated annually in Szombathely's cultural program.
Fictional biography
Bloom was born in 1866 as the only son of Rudolf Virág (a Hungarian Jew from Szombathely who emigrated to Ireland, converted from Judaism to Protestantism and later committed suicide) and Ellen, a Protestant Irish woman. He married Molly on October 8, 1888. They have one daughter, Millicent (Milly), who was born in 1889; her son Rudolf (Rudy), born in December 1893, died after eleven days. The family lives at 7 Eccles Street in Dublin.
literature
- Wolfgang Hildesheimer : The Jewish thing about Mr. Bloom. English German. The jewishness of Mr. Bloom. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-518-11292-9 .