Molly Likes to Bang

I couldn’t help but wonder what a woman would think about this chapter. But in a way this curiosity, of the woman’s perspective, is essentially the last thing Bloom needs. In the end of the Odyssey Penelope and Odysseus reconvene at tell each other their stories. In Bloom’s case he has reunited with his son (Stephen), discussed a plan of attack (discussed philosophies, theologies etc.), and then retook his house (kissed Molly’s behind). While the two have a short discussion about their time apart, Molly’s stream of consciousness seem to be somewhere the Odyssey would never dare to go, into the woman’s perspective. But we find that Bloom has nothing to worry about, because there is something “immovable” about this bed. Part of this has to do with how critical Molly is of Boylan. The first thing is that Bloom, probably at Boylan’s age, is described as being just charming as the usurper. When Molly recalls the day that he proposed to her she thinks of his “grey tweed suit and his straw hat,” the same type of hat Boylan is seen with all day (782). And while we see Molly negatively think of Bloom’s undergarment fetish (745), she notices a similar trait in Boylan when he was “talking about the shape of my foot” (744). Last we know Bloom is silly, clumsy, and not exceptionally brilliant, but Boylan is made to look foul. He has “no manners no refinement nor no nothing in his nature slapping us behind like that on my bottom because I didn’t call him Hugh the ignoramus that doesn’t know poetry from a cabbage” (776).
The immovability of the Blooms’ bed is also found in the similarity of their thoughts. First is their respect for art and poetry, found in the quote above about Boylan. This makes them both have similar attitudes towards Stephen. One could read Bloom’s attraction to Stephen as sexual, but Molly thinks of it quite explicitly. She thinks “I’m not too old for him if he’s 23 or 24” and (I can’t exactly tell if it’s about Stephen) thinks about fellating him (775, 766). Also Molly worries about Bloom hanging out with the medical students, like Bloom does with Stephen. But of all these similar thoughts one stands out, how neither see each other separating. In this chapter Molly thinks, “Id rather die twenty times over than marry another of their sex of course hed never find a another woman like me to put up with him the way I do” (744). And there are probably few men who could tolerate Molly.

Is this one of the most brilliant things I've read? Possibly.

Seeing that this chapter is a long series of questions and answers it would be silly to think that not a lot is answered with this section. When Bloom invites Stephen to stay in the room above the kitchen that narrator asks, “What various advantages would or might have resulted from a prolongation of such extemporization?” (695). And each person of the house is benefited “For the guest: security of domicile and seclusion of study.” So Stephen would get the most practical benefit, an inviting home. “For the host: rejuvenation of intelligence, vicarious satisfaction.” Bloom shows signs or wanting a son or regretting never having one throughout the whole book. But when Stephen is portrayed as “the son” it’s a unique sort of emotion. If Bloom is rejuvenated by Stephen, and Bloom was Stephen’s age 16 years ago (679), then he would feel like the age when Milly was born. But if anything this rejuvenation seems to be an intellectual one, reminding him of the time when he was out of school and ambitious. “For the hostess: disintegration of obsession, acquisition of correct Italian pronunciation.” This line “disintegration of obsession” is really ambiguous. Could this be a referral to an obsession like Bloom’s over Rudy? Maybe this refers to Molly’s obsession with Boylan. Or Stephen could simply answer what metempsychosis is. In the next chapter we do see Molly think about living with Stephen, mentioning that she would like to have a conversation with an intelligent man. So later there is no mention of what this obsession may be. This definitely one line I ponder.

But beyond reaching a new level of connection with Stephen, Mr. Leopold Bloom also overcomes his problem with Molly. Not only do we learn that it has been ten years since they had sex, but “complete mental intercourse between himself and the listener has not taken place since the consummation of puberty” (136). But in this chapter Bloom overcomes this usurpation of his marriage but coming to grips with Boylan and Molly. The first thing he thinks is that while many men might sleep with Molly, she is still his man. Every adulterer is “imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone, whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series origination in a repeated to infinity” (731). But with these men Bloom feels “envy, jealousy, abnegation, and equanimity” (732). He is envious of fully function penises. Jealousy comes about because an attraction to others would mean Molly is not attracted to him. I don’t really understand what the “abnegation” answer is referring to, but I want to sum it up as a denial of silly distractions. And last is equanimity, in which Bloom pretty much says that having sex with others is natural, and not a crime compared to other acts. Eventually I think Bloom’s take on his marriage is summarized in the line “divorce, not now” (733). I read this a Bloom thinking if these affairs create controversy, then the couple should split. But as of now Bloom has retaken his wife and home and his bed may remain unmovable.

I've been stabbed

In terms of Bloom’s, and also Stephens, heroism this is one of the most significant chapters of the book. The reason why is he has now reunited with his son (metaphorical), like Odysseus does before he retook his family and home. Although, unlike in the Odyssey, Bloom does not conspire with Stephen to remove usurpers. There are some moments in this chapter that do relate to Bloom confronting Blazes and Molly. For example we learn that Bloom would not want to physically attack Blazes or Molly, for “criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his bosom in any shape or form” (642). The interaction between Bloom and Stephen looks most like the one between Odysseus and Telemachus when they talk “about sirens, enemies of man’s reason, mingled with a number of other topics of the same category, ursurpers” (665). But one of the strangest schemes that Bloom comes up with in this chapter is to manage a tour with Stephen. Seeing that this is what Blazes is doing for Molly, I find it hard not to read this as a sexual lust for Stephen. The intensity of this lust is minimal, but apparent. I’ve been reading a lot of Freud lately and can’t help apply a psycho-analytical reading to this whole affair. Bloom identifies with Stephen, meaning that at many points Bloom hopes to be similar to Stephen.

At the same time Stephen is Bloom’s object of affection. Since the loss of his son eventually led Bloom to stop copulating with Molly, Bloom must associate fatherhood and sexuality. When Bloom describes the Aztec he says sitting in the street Bloom “indicates on his companion the brief outline, the sinews, or whatever you like to call them, behind the right knee” (636). This seems like a part of the body that Bloom would have noticed on many women. Also later on Bloom tells Stephen, “lean on me,” a very affectionate request. So with the tour that Bloom is planning he is ambivalently trying to win Molly back. In terms of experience this tour could be very pleasant. Bloom assumes that Stephen has his father’s voice, and he would be able to travel (something he says he never really did). Again, this also looks like Bloom coming on to Stephen the way Blazes has with Molly. This could be read as Bloom redirecting his love for Molly. But considering that Stephen is both Bloom’s object of affection and identification helps explain the intensity of his psychological journey.

Bello's wild ride

“I’m talking about injustice” (332). This is one most of the most heroic things Bloom has said, implying that he is in favor of eliminating injustice altogether. His empathy is significant in looking at the interaction between Bella and Bloom. One of the most abrupt, yet significant, “hallucinations” in this chapter is when Bloom becomes a woman. On 530 I think this transformation occurs when Bella’s “heavy face, her eyes strike him in the mid brow. His eyes grow dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.” Within these few lines we see something change about Bloom’s countenance, but nothing particularly effeminate is named. Rather one could say that his widening nose is like an African American, or maybe the darkening of his eyes makes him more Jewish (according to Deseay). This would then make him more like a “bond-slave” (531). After “Bella” becomes “Bello” in the stage direction, but Bloom still calls her empress. Bloom’s submissiveness becomes womanish as he admires Bello’s size. Not only has Bloom transformed into a woman, but also Bello, like Circe, turns Bloom into a pig. In these lines Bloom’s empathy for animals and women take a different appearance, for he arguably wants to be treated like them. When Bello is riding Bloom “he bends sideways and squeezes his mount’s testicles roughly” (534). So during this part of his punishment Bloom is a man again. But he does cry “not man…woman” (535). It is in the next few lines Bello says Bloom will have to be dressed like a whore to be a woman. Here Bloom says, “I tried her things on only once, a small prank” (536).
At this moment Bloom’s sins of the past speak to him. I read this moment as Bloom being his own enemy, because he realizes how he rudely ogles women dressed this way. The next idea explored is marriage. Rather than becoming Bello’s wife Bloom becomes his property. So at this moment one sees how live-stock, slaves, and wives are the condescended. And on 540 when Bello presents Bloom like a horse for sale, the language resembles some sort of slave auction. Also Bloom’s lactation is advertised, emphasizing how women are like slaves to procreation.

Oh the labor Joyce must have gone through when writing this book.

I’d like to hypothesize about how Joyce reworks myth in this novel. In this chapter particularly I have come to some realizations. While many would want read this novel alongside the Odyssey, or scene by scene with Hamlet, I think that method could distort someone’s interpretation. I see this being a problem because this novel(?) alludes to too many other works. While it is titled Ulysses and the scenes parallel those from the epic, the scenes are out of order. I see Joyce superimposing images, characters, and themes from past works to essentially create a second Ulysses. I think the significance of the Odyssey is that it is the original heroic epic. Being this I think Joyce is either showing, or merely exploring, the idea that every hero since Odysseus has followed his journey.

If one were to boil down the “oxen of the Sun” scene in the Odyssey, one could say that bulls are killed and part of the crew is hit by lightning. At one point, I think Stephen in his drunkenness is frightened by the thunder. Before, there was discussion of how no-one knows where the soul travels too. Stephen also makes a joke about the friar’s vows saying that he had “obedience in the womb, chastity in the tomb, but involuntary poverty all his days” (392). I assume some of this blasphemy angers the “black crack of noise in the street” (394). While this refers back to what Stephen called the monotheistic god, it is also “Thor thundering.” What Joyce does here is superimpose two scenes of God creating lighting. If my hypothesis is true, then these are rewritings of the scene when Zeus strikes Odysseus’s crew.

Joyce does not only superimpose images and events, but also styles as well. If he is trying to find who has relived Odysseus’s struggles, he will also be curious in how their stories are told. In this chapter there are examples of Roman philosophy, Old English Verse, and even drunken bantering. By doing so Joyce can be a critic of philosophies and style. With all the puns and auditory devices Joyce uses, one has to understand that this novel is a manipulation of language as much as it is with themes. By using so much word play one has to question whether there is something inherent in language itself. For example Mrs. Purefoy thinks of Doady, “to lay in his arms that mite of God’s clay, the fruit of their lawful embraces” (421). This implies that this couple has created an Adam, God’s clay, from their relationship. While the mention of fruit recall the commandment “be fruitful and multiply,” it also implies that these “lawful embraces” are related to the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and original sin.

At this point in the novel I think I’m starting to grasp what Joyce is doing and how he is doing it. I think I’ll wait until class to try to piece these thoughts together.

Questions:

Bloom is often shown as being motherly, even womanish. Do you think this is because he was never able to a father to a son, or rather do you think it might have happened poorly? In one way this is how Bloom’s tale differs from Odysseus’s, because he has no Telemachus.

Why do you think that Mrs. Purefoy’s baby is like Christ?

In hopes to better understand the chapter, I vote we all masturbate in class

This chapter deals with attraction. Even thought this theme relates to topics as strange as magnetism, the chapter revolves around Gerty’s attraction to Bloom and Bloom’s to Gerty. This attraction reaches its climax, literally, when Gerty exposes herself to Bloom and Bloom ejaculates. In a way we get to see Mr. Bloom having his affair. After the climax the narrator mentions the lovers’ “secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and there was none to know or tell” (367). Like Sweets of Sin the infidels are now left with a secret between them. There is a sense of spiritual connection in the line “their souls met in a last lingering glance and the eyes that reached her heart, full of strange shining, hung enraptured on her sweet flowerlike face” (367). This sort of lovingness is then shattered when Bloom notices how this seemingly perfect, delicate lady is lame. And as the romantic style fades Bloom is left alone, clammy, cold and wet.
One of most interesting things about encounter is it look like a confession. Throughout the whole scene the narration flows in and out of focusing on the religious ceremony. In on of these descriptions Canon O’Halon “looked almost a saint at his confession box was so quiet and so clean and dark and his hands were just like white wax” (358). In this line one could make connections between Canon’s darkness and Bloom’s, also Canon’s white hands and Gerty’s white legs. Also Gerty recalls a time when she was confessing about menstruating. The priest’s response to her was “in this life that that was no sin because that came from the nature of woman instituted by God” (358). In considering the weight of this line in response to the rest of the sexual “confession,” it seems like Joyce is the nature of sexuality, and whether it is base. Gerty is called pure hearted many times, but is also made to seem vain, in how she contemplates tossing aside Mr. Reggy. And again she seems prideful of her beauty when her “skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim graceful figure to perfection” (350). But at the same time Bloom is “thankful for small mercies,” meaning Gerty’s willingness to show him her all.
Like a lot parts in this book, I find a strong connections back to Deseay’s rant in chapter two. The darkness of Bloom’s eyes is what Deseay says to be a trait of the Jew, and this is what attracts Gerty (361). It is strange how in most chapters evidence of Bloom’s Jewishness serves as a form of alienation. But here, it serves to attract a woman. The second connection to Deseay is how woman is a thing of sin. And in this chapter sin is found in Gerty’s sense of guilt towards menstruation, the religious service, and the fact that Bloom does something scandalous. Deseay also mentions how Helen caused catastrophe for many men. Gerty seems like Helen when Joyce states if she were of a higher class there would be “suitors at her feet vying with one another to pay their devoirs to her” (348). I have found this relationship of women and sin many times in this novel, and will probably write my paper on it.

Questions:

It has been some time since Bloom has mentioned his soap, but on 375 we see it again. For the first time since buying it Bloom recalls how he is still in debt for it. Do you think this could be read as Bloom needing some type of cleansing, like a confession? Or do you think it holds other symbolic significance? The soap is also mention on 100, 123, and 85.

Does Gerty seem like the female Boylan? I saw similarities in their beauty and the rosiness of their complexion.

I can only hope I get an erection when hanged.

Within this whole book, and especially within these last two chapters, there have been a lot of references to the second coming and the apocalypse. Early on in the novel Deseay pointed out how the Jews have “sinned against the light…you can see the darkness in their eyes” (34). Then in the wanderings rocks scene “Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however for men’s race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our ways.” In that chapter people are shown to be incontinent, and all passively react to the fact that “Elijah is Coming.” In the Cyclops episode this theme is manifested in the “parodies.” The nameless narrator through parody displays the annals of history, and superimposes them. On pages 296-297 there is a long list of Irish heroes. But in this list there are people like Caesar and Napolean. This creates a sense of a common history, for either Ireland or all mankind. Being Irish, the characters have a blurred sense of identity. But simultaneously one realizes how all humanity is affected by these same heroes. Being this way, societies can become analogous to each other. The citizen mentions how the Irish are assimilated to British standards, meaning “there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as red-skins in America” (329). Since varying societies have common histories, one can wonder if there will be a common end to society.

In this thought the importance of the apocalypse is made clear. If all cultures become interlaced, will their prophecies be too? This exploration is also found in the chapter. When the narrator speaks of the soul of Paddy Dignam he describes its theosophical journey. But Dignam was Catholic so many believe that his soul will follow a different route. This mixing of prophecy is also found in how Bloom is presented as a messianic figure in this chapter. Bloom is “crucified’ by his chiding comrades, and is referred to as “ben Bloom Elijah” (345). In this it is hard to say whether he is messianic himself, or like Elijah, is just a sign of the messiah coming. Either way there is a strong sense of the apocalypse in this chapter. There is the discussion of the earthquake and natural disaster, and also the citizen encourages people to “read the revelations that’s going on in the papers about flogging” (328). If anything the presentation of Bloom as messianic suggests that anyone can be. Since Bloom is a very ordinary person it implies that an escape from this “Wasteland” could be found in anyone.

Questions:

What significance do you think this new narrator played? I thought it was a great way to display how strongly Bloom is disapproved of.

Do you think Joyce shares any opinions with these characters? I find it difficult to make assumptions because all are equally supported and refuted.