Plumtree’s Potted Meat: The Productive Error of the Commodity in Ulysses

Symbolic interpretations of the commodities in Ulysses have obscured fundamental material details. A materialist approach shows that Joyce significantly altered the historical commodity Plumtree’s Potted Meat in the “Ithaca” episode, representing this English product as Irish. Explaining this alteration in the context of Ireland’s colonial economy reveals the political significance of Joyce’s representation. His alteration of the productive origin of the commodity in “Ithaca” is part of that chapter’s demystification of British imperial claims of progress and universal improvement.