Scylla and Charybdis

This is a chapter about the better-read characters, who contrast with Bloom-- who is not like them, who thinks of his family, mostly, and whose most insightful reveries concern the stockings of girls and some disparate aspects of a concept from his high school physics class.

All of Stephen’s friends are eager to display their knowledge to one another, but their thoughts and theories are never realized in conversation. They speak in fits and starts, one upping eachother, but there is no realization to their ideas, the conversation doesn’t go anywhere .

The stream of consciousness in this chapter parallels their conversation. Stephen thinks of concepts from Shakespeare’s plays, but he doesn’t come to any conclusions.