Joyce's time in Paris, from December 1902 until April 1903, represents his first experiences on the Continent. While the trip initially seemed promising, Joyce discovered his own potential for failure in Paris when his plans to become both a physician and a poet collapsed. In the role of dejected foreigner, Joyce felt a kinship with the disenfranchised groups he observed in the culturally mixed Latin Quarter near his lodgings at the Hôtel Corneille. One such group that certainly suggested Stanislaus' “rating of failure” were Parisian Jews, who in 1902 were still the target of Dreyfus-related anti-Semitism. Rather than a religious prejudice, however, Parisian Jew-baiting incorporated stereotypes drawing on a century of theories about racial hierarchy. Such images provoked Joyce's curiosity about the secularized Jew of Europe and became the foundation of parallels he later drew between his own Otherness in British culture and Jewish Otherness on the Continent.

After returning to Dublin for the Christmas holidays, Joyce once again sailed for France on January 23, 1903. On the morning after his arrival, he registered for an admission card to both the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Bibliothèque Saint-Geneviève. He soon discovered that he would have to pay fees immediately to attend classes at the École de Médecine. Not possessing the necessary funds, he began spending his days and nights reading Aristotle, Ben Johnson, and the Symbolist poets. His French at the time was not adequate enough to comprehend the technical terminology of his courses, and his impecuniosity kept him from any immersion in the life of the city.

The ensuing winter months were quite hard on him. He met with some fellow Irishmen – the “wild goose” Joseph Casey and John Synge – but for the most part he was on his own.