Day 5

Overview

This is the most challenging episode so far—and one of the most rewarding. Stephen walks along Sandymount Strand, and we enter deeply into his stream of consciousness. He meditates on perception, reality, language, his family, his time in Paris, and his artistic ambitions. The style shifts to match the philosophical content: dense, allusive, and brilliantly experimental. Take your time with this one.

Key Themes

• The nature of perception and reality (the 'ineluctable modality of the visible')
• Language as a way of creating and limiting understanding
• Memory and identity—who is Stephen becoming?
• The artist's relationship to the physical world
• Proteus as shape-shifter—the instability of meaning

What's Stirring

Discussion