![]() Statue of Molly Bloom – Alameda Botanic Gardens, Gibraltar You might call it a first-wave feminist voice. But part way through the episode, I began to hear another, more mature voice on top of that, what I imagined to be the voice of the real-life Nora herself-skeptical, acerbic, disillusioned. ![]() Molly Bloom the character has a distinctive voice, that of a sensual, half-Spanish woman who prides herself on her allure and the relative unattractiveness of other women. We learned in class that some critics consider the Penelope episode Joyce’s revenge on Nora for refusing to have that affair.Īs I read the river of words, I began to wonder how many reflections and trenchant turns of phrase Joyce had borrowed directly from his wife Nora. Molly’s thoughts tumble over each other-flashbacks to her lonely childhood in Gilbraltar as the daughter of a widowed army officer, numerous amorous encounters with men, her singing career, flash forwards to what might happen in the near future, and sexual fantasies. Joyce said, “I put enough puzzles in ‘Ulysses’ to keep the professors busy for at least 300 years.” The final episode rewards the reader for making it through a long, difficult book. The Penelope episode consists of forty-four pages of the unbroken, unpunctuated stream-of-consciousness reverie of Leopold’s wife Molly as she lays in bed, her husband lying asleep beside her, with his head by her feet. Public Domain.įor the last class, we read the final chapter, called the Penelope episode, where Leopold returns home late at night after a long day perambulating Dublin on June 16, 1904, which echoes, on a mundane, mock heroic level, the wanderings of the classic Greek hero, Ulysses, and his ultimate return to his wife Penelope. Leopold “Poldy” Bloom by James Joyce – From a page of Joyce’s notes.
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