Molly Bloom How Do You

Molly Bloom

How do you characterize Molly Bloom and why? How would you characterize the overall message of the piece?

The title of James Joyce's final chapter of Ulysses, "Penelope" seems bitterly ironic. In Homer's "Odyssey," Penelope was the faithful wife of the hero. But the modern Penelope Molly Bloom is the faithless wife of Leopold Bloom, and she is primarily concerned with her sexual relations with other men rather than her love for her husband. "The central parallel to Homer [in the book] is that Bloom's wife Molly -- like Penelope in Homer -- is being courted by a suitor, the dashing Blazes Boylan. In order to win her back, Bloom must negotiate twelve trials -- his Odyssey" (Barger 2001).

Even in comparison to the other stream-of-consciousness monologues of Ulysses, Molly's monologue strikes the reader as the least coherent. It has no punctuation and thus makes her seem less rational than the other characters. She is primarily defined by her rampant sexuality. Even when talking about other women, Molly can only describe them in terms of their attractiveness to the opposite sex: "suppose she was pious because no man would look at her twice," she says of one woman. Molly is common in her class, as is evident by her use of words like "slut," yet gives herself airs: "it was all his fault of course ruining servants then proposing that she could eat at our table on Christmas if you please O. no thank you not in my house."