In Stephen's scheme of things, then, Shakespeare himself, prepared by a professional acting career, played the part of the ghost during the first performance of his masterpiece. Moreover, Hamnet Shakespeare, the Bard's son, had he lived, would have been the same age as the protagonist. And Hamnet-Hamlet's part is played by the great tragic actor Richard Burbage, spoken to by Shakespeare himself; thus, symbolically, Shakespeare spoke to his "son" about the sexual infidelities of Anne Hathaway Shakespeare (Gertrude).
Perhaps the most important parts of Stephen's theories are his conclusions that he outlines before the appearance of Buck Mulligan and which he develops in detail while Mulligan derogates Stephen's assumptions. One of these conclusions is that Shakespeare never recovered from the emotional wound inflicted by Anne Hathaway, who seduced him and, Stephen insists, later cuckolded him. Thus, before it became fashionable to do so, Joyce maintains (through Stephen) that Hamlet is a psychosexual drama: King Hamlet, first of all, is a betrayed husband and only afterwards a murdered monarch. Because of his father's death, Hamlet the Prince becomes "dispossessed," his loss of a home and kingdom matching the losses of Stephen and Bloom, the two keyless heroes whose positions have been usurped. (Of course, Gertrude as betrayer becomes an analogue for Molly Bloom.) A second conclusion drawn in the opening rounds of the Hamlet debate comes from Stephen's brilliant turning around of the adage that Shakespeare's last plays are about reconciliation: Stephen argues that in order for there to be a reconciliation, there has to have been a sundering, and it is the sunderings in Shakespeare's life — among his family and friends — that Stephen considers, after he recovers from the surprise of Mulligan's entrance into the library.
But the appearances of Mulligan — and of Bloom — do provide much needed comic relief from the intricacies of Stephen's exposition, while the long pages of exposition continue Joyce's major themes. The grand entrance of Buck Mulligan follows Stephen's summary statement about Hamlet, that the "son [is] consubstantial with the father" — that is, Shakespeare is both King Hamlet and Prince Hamlet and, by implication, that Joyce is both Stephen and Bloom in Ulysses. (Stephen is the age of Joyce in 1904-22; and Bloom, the age of Joyce — 38 — when the major sections of Ulysses were being composed.) The term entr'acte refers to a break between the acts, and Mulligan's blasphemous humor (seen before in "Telemachus") resembles the combination of piety and broad farce found in medieval "interludes" and also in the gravediggers' scene in Hamlet.
