Many of these parallels between Stephen and Bloom that are established in "Calypso" continue throughout Ulysses. Both Bloom and Stephen (as was mentioned before) are keyless heroes, both symbolically dispossessed. Bloom realizes that his latchkey is not in his hip pocket, but he does not want to disturb Molly by returning to fetch it from his other pair of trousers. Because Molly has been stirring in her sleep, Bloom simply slips out, leaving the door "to" — that is, closing the hall door just enough to dissuade any possible intruder. Bloom's capitulation to Molly's wishes reminds us of Stephen's deference to Mulligan. In addition, both men wear black and both men do so because of a death: Mrs. Dedalus's and Paddy Dignam's. As the two men walk through Dublin, at first separately and finally together, they resemble odd Catholic priests: one a Jew and the other an apostate (someone who has forsaken his faith).
In addition, both men are united in their desires to be creative and, for both, writing is associated with bodily functions. Dedalus urinates in "Proteus" after using part of Deasy's letter for beginning a literary endeavor, and Bloom sits in his outhouse reading Titbits, and, to wipe himself, he tears off part of the prizewinning story, "Matcham's Masterstroke" by Philip Beaufoy. Beaufoy, in fact, was a real person who did contribute to the magazine, which did, in fact, publish a "prize titbit" in each issue; and Bloom's concern for the money he could make by having a story accepted by Titbits ("payment at the rate of one guinea a column") reminds one that Stephen would permit Haines to market his sayings only if he were to be paid for their publication. Bloom, the more practical of the two protagonists, seems to be more serious than Stephen in his insistence on commercial considerations. Stephen, in contrast, is being only lightly cynical. Returning to the bodily functions for a parallel, both Stephen and Bloom would agree with Joyce that "dirty [a noun] cleans [a verb]"; here, Joyce's emphasis is on the paradox of the "reconciliation of opposites." In "Proteus," Stephen places a piece of dry mucus on a rock after beginning to write, and here, Bloom contemplates ways of improving his garden through the use of manure mulches.
