Stephen's ultimatum, "If he stays on here I am off,"
echoes events at the beginning of the Odyssey.
Telemachus attempts to get rid of the suitors, and fails.
Athena, in her disguise as
Mentor, advises him to overcome his impotent
dissatisfaction and take action, by leaving Ithaca to go
looking for news of his father. Similarly, Stephen feels
excluded and demeaned by Mulligan's alliance with Haines, and
resolves to leave.
Although Stephen leaves the tower at the end of this episode
less dramatically than Telemachus or Joyce (he heads off to a
morning of teaching at Mr. Deasy’s private boys’ school), he
resolves not to return at night. He avoids a planned meeting
with Mulligan and Haines at The
Ship—a narrative echo of Telemachus’ evasion of the
ambush at sea planned by Antinous and his companions. And when
Mulligan catches up with him in Scylla and Charybdis,
he thinks, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?”