Notes on Mollys Monologue from Ulysses by James

Notes on Molly’s Monologue from Ulysses by James Joyce

• On first looking at the text → evident deviations from usual narrative language: * No punctuation * No paragraphs * Incorrect spelling * No apparent logical connections An extreme example of interior monologue

Content: Molly’s half-conscious thoughts • from the present (night) • to the immediate future (following day) • a specific episode in the past (16 years ago, the time of Leopold’s marriage proposal) • her past youth in Gibraltar Memories are intertwined and seem to melt into each other at the end

the past, and in particular her experience in Gibraltar, looks more attractive landscape intensity of experience

FLOWERS Word flower(s) repeated at least 8 times in the passage All sorts of shapes and smells and colours And fields of oats and wheat, primroses, violets, rhododendrons, figtrees, rosegardens, jessamine, geraniums, cactuses

Connected with • the house • herself, all women (woman’s body) • nature • Gibraltar

GIBRALTAR Exotic atmosphere recreated through an accumulation of images: different people (Spanish girls, Greeks, jews, etc. , Moors) details of landscape and colours (flowers, impetuous nature, red sea at sunset) elements of places (posadas, the boat at Algeciras, wine shops, governor’s house) noises/sounds (girls laughing, torrent, castanets, clucking, games)

Lots of references to sensory experiences, connected with all the senses: • smell • taste • touch • sight • hearing

thoughts and impressions are connected by AND (Molly thinks through images following one another) overlapping of memories association of different thoughts and impressions: created by similar sounds or recurring words SUN FLOWERS YES

End of the passage: crescendo in rhythm brought about by the closer and closer repetition of YES → a list of images of Gibraltar followed by the recollection of when she made love for the first time and of when she answered ‘Yes’ to Leopold

Molly’s character → womanhood, femininity • enthusiasm for life • amorality • genuine sensuality YES: a way to review her thoughts and memories before going to sleep her answer to Leopold’s marriage proposal and to the boy in her past a symbolic openness to and acceptance of life

actress Niamh Cusack describes Molly Bloom http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=U 2 E 41 Uk 5 vr. I

Yes ?