The prostitute Bella is similar to Circe in the Odyssey who bewitches Odysseus' men and turns them into pigs. Stephen confronts religious guilt in the forms of family, the church, and state. There is a short brawl between Private Carr and Stephen, from which Stephen emerges with a bruised jaw. Bloom watches paternally over Stephen, and at the end of the chapter has a vision of his dead son Rudy. The chapter may be described as unruly, obscene, and frenzied.
Bloom manages to create life from death and tranquility from chaos.