Joyce, James - Molly's Monologue, Ulysses

Molly's monologue - Ulysses

Text analysis

Joyce employes the direct interior monologue so the reader can understand things are said in the way that 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 disappear and the reader as the impression to be close in the subject pronoun I which together with the adoption of devices similar to poetic language allow the reader to see,fell, 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 is say things. Another aspect that characterizes modernist texts is the focus on the psychology. Molly's monologue is the main example of modernist's 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 more real 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 to 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 into 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 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 for the reader is difficult to understand Molly's thoughts and the reader has to understand where molly's thought is going. Time is the first concept that Molly connected to people who get up in China. When she thinks to China she also thinks about their hair style. 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 sometimes is disturbed during her sleep. She thinks to the alarm clock next door that she cannot swallow. She would like to doze off and so she starts to count. She can fall into sleep and she sees the flowers in wallpaper in Lombard streets and she makes a comparison between the wallpaper and an apron. The apron is a present of 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 future. She makes a plan: she would like to clean and to do the place up for the arrival of his husband and a guest.It is very difficult for the reader to understand what Molly is thinking, she changes a lot of times her thoughts. She thinks about flowers but suddenly she changes her though 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 though does not permit her to sleep, she tries to count the numbers to fall asleep but she starts again thinking, 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 shifts from cakes to a shop through an association .The intelligent reader understand that she is a wealthy woman because she likes reach shops. There are a new thoughts about nature: She likes nature: mountains, waves,flower , sea. Joyce uses an anaphorical structure to emphasize her thoughts: " the wild mountains, the sea and the waves". Also Joyce uses metonymy :" sea /waves" and he uses the language of senses impression ,in order to provide the most realistic rendering of all that crosses the female character ‘s consciousness. Throughout her memory the reader is driven in a country of farmer: all she " sees" is positive, the reader understand that she refers to a season in particular: spring. She looks all this beautiful things and thinks about God, atheists and people who have a bad conscience .This people don't believe in God but when they are afraid by death they run to the priest hoping into pardon. The reader can understand Molly's disdain towards this 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 recalls the woman body , Molly's sensuality. She is the emblem of female principles, it means that women appeal to sense. Going on reading the reader understand better her character: she wants to be independent, she does what she wants with men : " I could always get round him ". She isn't as a Victorian woman, she isn't faithful as Penelope, she has had many men and her husband doesn't know that.