Joyce, James - Molly's Monologue, Ulysses

Molly's monologue - Ulysses

Text analysis

Joyce employs the direct interior monologue so the reader can understand things are said in the way that they are thought, without the filter of the narrator. The reader can make a personal idea about the character and he feels as if he were in the character's mind. The third-person narrator disappears and the reader has the impression of being close to the subject pronoun I, which, together with the adoption of devices similar to poetic language, allows the reader to see, feel, smell and touch all that Molly does.

Ulysses is a novel which tells a story that develops itself during a day, on the 16th of June 1904, and the plot is reduced to the minimum because for modernists what you say is less important than how you say things.

Another aspect that characterizes modernist texts is the focus on psychology. Molly's monologue is the main example of modernists' attention. Joyce tries to report the exact things that Molly is thinking, without the intrusion of the narrator. He writes in first person as if the writer were the character who speaks; he enters into the character's mind to write as realistically as possible. The focus on psychology is highly connected with the eclipse of the narrator because the writer tries not to put his point of view into the text, giving more freedom to the reader.

The shift of the point of view is another narrative technique which permits the narrator to speak from the point of view of different characters, and the reader can make a personal idea of the characters without the intrusion of the narrator; in the monologue of Molly, the narrator is a first-person narrator who speaks from the point of view of Molly. The effect that it makes on the reader's mind is that it seems the reader is thinking because he or she enters into the character's mind.

Joyce uses the monologue. The monologue is when a character speaks his or her thought aloud, addressing it to another character or to the audience.

Molly is in her bed early in the morning and she is thinking.

Joyce uses the stream-of-consciousness to convey her thoughts: there is no punctuation and no connectors. Her thoughts are connected by association. The use of the stream-of-consciousness implies the absence of the narrator's mediation and there is no use of the conventional and orthographic elements. The result is that it is difficult for the reader to understand Molly's thoughts, and the reader has to understand where Molly's thought is going.

Time is the first concept that Molly connects to people who get up in China. When she thinks of China, she also thinks about their hairstyle. Her thoughts switch from a geographic image again to time, and she starts to think about nuns ringing the Angelus. So the reader can understand that it is early in the morning because the Angelus is a morning religious function. She envies the nuns because they are not disturbed during the night or are disturbed only by a priest for the night function. As a consequence, Molly is sometimes disturbed during her sleep.

She thinks of the alarm clock next door that she cannot swallow. She would like to doze off, and so she starts to count. She can fall asleep and she sees the flowers in the wallpaper in Lombard Street, and she makes a comparison between the wallpaper and an apron. The apron is a present from her husband, but she does not like it; indeed, she wears it only twice. After that, she remembers flowers and she would like to buy some flowers to decorate her house.

Molly is thinking about the future. She makes a plan: she would like to clean and to do the place up for the arrival of her husband and a guest. It is very difficult for the reader to understand what Molly is thinking; she changes her thoughts a lot of times. She thinks about flowers, but suddenly she changes her thought and she thinks about the wallpaper in Lombard Street, but the reader does not know what she is exactly referring to.

We can say that Molly is thinking unconsciously because she tries to sleep, but her thought does not permit her to sleep. She tries to count the numbers to fall asleep, but she starts thinking again, so she thinks about the past, the present and the future. In modernism there is a new concept of time: while during the Victorian period time was linear, in the modern age time is considered simultaneous. It means that there is a mixture of past, present and future in the character's mind.

Her thoughts shift from cakes to a shop through an association. The intelligent reader understands that she is a wealthy woman because she likes rich shops.

There are new thoughts about nature: she likes nature: mountains, waves, flowers, sea. Joyce uses an anaphorical structure to emphasize her thoughts: "the wild mountains, the sea and the waves". Joyce also uses metonymy: "sea / waves", and he uses the language of sensory impressions, in order to provide the most realistic rendering of all that crosses the female character's consciousness.

Throughout her memory, the reader is driven into a country of farmers: all she "sees" is positive. The reader understands that she refers to a season in particular: spring. She looks at all these beautiful things and thinks about God, atheists and people who have a bad conscience. These people do not believe in God, but when they are afraid of death, they run to the priest, hoping for pardon. The reader can understand Molly's disdain towards these people through her thoughts.

She thinks about the sun and she associates this thought with her husband, who compares her to the sun, and with their long kiss. There is a reference to time: "16 years ago". He compares her also with flowers; flowers recall the woman's body and Molly's sensuality. She is the emblem of female principles; it means that women appeal to the senses.

Going on reading, the reader understands her character better: she wants to be independent, she does what she wants with men: "I could always get round him". She isn't like a Victorian woman, she isn't faithful as Penelope, she has had many men and her husband doesn't know that.