"'The disguise, I fear, is thin. But listen:' Buck Mulligan as Ulysses' master of ceremonies."

My thesis takes a closer look at the oft-dismissed Buck Mulligan, the first character to appear or speak in James Joyce's Ulysses. I examine Mulligan's penchant for breaking the fourth wall and influencing events in terms of the overall machinations of the plot, ultimately concluding he is a kind of hybrid director and prophet. Further, Mulligan loves to create parody and is himself a parody of a real person, weaving him intrinsically with Ulysses' function as a work of parody and cultural transmission.