Buck Mulligan

Malachi "Buck" Mulligan is a fictional character in James Joyce's 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.

Buck Mulligan is described as having a "face... equine in its length", a "sullen oval jowl", a "strong wellknit trunk", "light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak", "even white teeth", and "smokeblue mobile eyes." 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.

Mulligan is a medical student with a cynical view of the human condition, which he describes as "a mockery and beastly". Paradoxically, he is also the most consistently cheerful character in Ulysses, and is portrayed as being in constant pursuit of the next opportunity to eat, drink, and make merry. He is widely regarded as a hero for having saved men from drowning, and appears to be well liked by all the characters in the book, with the exception of Simon Dedalus (who dismisses him as a "bastard" and a "contaminated doubledyed ruffian"), and, to a lesser extent, Leopold Bloom.

Mulligan is an avid classicist and espouses the belief that Ireland ought to be "Hellenized". His speeches contain a barrage of quotations from poets (notably Swinburne and Whitman), popular songs, and self-composed lines of parody and ribaldry. He also seems to admire the philosophy of Nietzsche, referring to himself as a "hyperborean" and (more facetiously) "the Ubermensch." He expresses disdain for the Celtic Revival when in the company of Stephen Dedalus, but is socially active in Dublin's literary circles.

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