Heterogeneity, one of the most remarkable characteristics of James Joyce`s Ulysses, tends to lead critics to put too much emphasis on the element of its polytropic play in language and technique compared to the realistic element of its narrative. This tendency might be reconsidered by investigating two salient structural features resulting from the novel`s proclivity toward heterogeneity: digression and proliferation. Digression is a disorderly factor of discontinuity and incongruity in its confusing tangential mode, but, in Ulysses it functions as an important support for the text`s unity by alluding to the fictional theme and embodying the author`s epistemological vision. By the same token, proliferation, though apparently going against classical standards of artistic decorum such as balance, symmetry, and restraint, in reality contributes to reinforce the integrating effect of the general correspondences by entailing organising devices like leitmotif and cross-references. In this way Ulysses, while indulging in verbal play and technical explorations, never forgets to return to its main streams of narrative plot and theme.