Female Identity in Joyce's Ulysses

Ulysses (1922), by James Joyce, is one of the most well written novels of the twentieth century. The novel is an intriguing, complex, and influential experiment in prose writing. In Ulysses, Joyce incorporates numerous literary tactics to tell the story of Leopold Bloom. Joyce combines music, journalistic reports, parody, drama and stream of consciousness narration to create one of the greatest masterpieces of the modern era. Ulysses is a work that defies simplistic explanation, however in summation it can be said that the action in Ulysses takes place all on one day, June 16, 1904, and it is based on the episodes created by the ancient poet Homer in his epic poem The Odyssey. Throughout the novel, Bloom encounters many characters in the Dublin, Ireland. As Bloom goes about his day, we learn many things about him, his society and Ireland in general. Each character in the novel is in search of some type of self-identity, however, it is through the female characters that Joyce best exhibits this. By examining both the "Nausicaa" and "Penelope" episodes, one realizes that Joyce uses language as the primary catalyst in the establishment of the identities of his female characters.

In the "Nausicaa" episode, the reader is introduced to Gerty McDowell, a young woman that Bloom spots while lounging at Sandymount Strand. Initially, Gerty seems to be just another Dubliner that Bloom crosses paths with. However, this is the first time that Joyce gives and in-depth look into the mind of a female character in the novel. Gerty is at the beach with two friends and their little brothers. When she spots Bloom gazing at her, she imagines him as a foreigner in mourning. Gerty wonders about his past and is as intrigued by him as he is by her. Joyce uses irony in his characterization of Gerty. He infuses her grandiose thoughts of herself with her overly infantile language. "…for Gerty was womanly wise…she was a womanly woman, not like other flighty girls…" (Joyce 352, 358). This is ironic because Gerty is exactly what she claims not to be, flighty. She thinks of herself as a woman, however she speaks as if she is a child, using terms like "golliwog," "jaspberry ram," and "Cissycums" (Joyce 353). Gerty exists in an imaginary land of make believe. She is waiting for a prince to ride in and whisk her away.

Despite her capricious naivite, Gerty is a girl who is very much aware of and consumed with her own beauty: "…what joy was hers when she tried it on then, smiling at the lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to her" (Joyce 350). Gerty's self-proclamation as beautiful is proof that she thinks highly of herself. Gerty is also very conscious of her sexuality and her ability to entice Bloom. "Her wellturned ankle displayed its perfect proportions beneath her skirt and jus the proper amount and no more of her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose with high spliced heels and wide garter tops" (Joyce 350). Bloom's attention only intensifies her thoughts about herself and serves as validation to Gerty. She is aware of Bloom's gaze on her and plays up to his desires: "Gerty MacDowell may have internalized the male construction of an ideal woman of magazine advertisements and popular novels. And she may have idealized Bloom as a dashing foreign gentleman. But as Kimberly Devlin points out, Gerty sees him as a physical man whose masturbating gives her pleasure" (Pearce 46). Just as Bloom takes pleasure in watching her, Gerty takes pleasure in being watched. She does not acknowledge that fact that she has a limp, and does not see it in any way as a disability.

Gerty and Bloom never actually touch or have any physical contact with each other. They do not even speak to each other. They simply exchanges gazes across a beach. Like most of the women that Bloom fantasizes about, Gerty ultimately reminds him of Molly. However, unlike with Molly, Bloom is able to have a sexual experience with Gerty. Although not consummated, Bloom does have a sexual encounter with Gerty. As she tantalizes him, he becomes aroused and masturbates. With Gerty, Bloom is able to communicate in a way in which he is not able to do with Molly:
The lack of communication in Ulysses is perhaps less surprising than the occasional occurrence of some imperfect communication. Gerty, injured and slighted, presents herself to her best advantage for one short span, at the proper distance, with just the right degree of illumination to increase her glamour…Even after the release of tension and after the effects of the stage setting have worn off, Bloom is capable of sympathizing with her. 'Poor girl" is one of his first thoughts. (Senn 280-1)
Gerty and Bloom connect on a somewhat physical and emotional level. Both have sympathy for each other. Despite this, they never fully connect. This brief and unsatisfying exchanges between the two correlate to the steamy, cheap, romantic stories for which the chapter is modeled after.

In both "Nausicaa" and "Penelope" insight is given into the women who Bloom has the most contact with in the novel. The two episodes "extend between opposite poles of womanhood; young , immature Gerty, lame and incomplete (she is only accorded half a chapter), and ripe full blown Molly" (Senn 283). The similarities between the two are evident. However, the reader is unable to hear Molly's voice prior to the "Penelope" chapter. Before the "Penelope" episode, we are given a small glimpse on Molly through the eyes of Bloom. Molly is seem in 17 of the 18 episodes, however, she is seen only at a distance: "…Leopold is a voyeur...gazing at women throughout the novel, we are continually led to identify with a more general male point of view"(Pearce 44). From the male perspective, Molly is portrayed primarily as a sexually promiscuous woman.

The final chapter in Ulysses offers a glimpse inside the mind of Molly. Prior to the chapter, Molly is portrayed as a woman who has ceased communication with her husband: "…Molly does not enunciate a coherent reply to Leopold Bloom's question concerning breakfast. Instead, Joyce produces only a tantalizing phrase, 'Mn' which Bloom construes as, 'No, she didn't want anything'" (O'Brian). Molly's lack of communication in the prior episodes is more than made up for in "Penelope." However, an examination of this concluding chapter reveals that Joyce intended to portray far more than the inner workings of the female mind: " 'Penelope' represents a significant attempt by a male artist at letting the female object become a conscious subject, at supplanting the muse's face with the 'woman's' voice…" (Rado). By transcending the limits of language, particularly in regards to the uneducated Molly, Joyce allows readers into Molly's world, one dominated by sexual fantasy. Furthermore, an examination of this chapter reveals the profound observations that Joyce makes not only regarding the nature of women and womanhood, but he also challenges the structured concept of gender employed by his contemporary society.

Molly's long-winded interior monologue consists of only eight, long and intricately detailed sentences. The first sentence alone contains 2500 words. When laid on its side, the number eight is the sign for infinity and that there is much to suggest that Molly is the archetype of femininity and womanhood (Carlin). The eight can also be seen as a symbol of sex and sexuality: "…if 8 symbolizes Molly's genital area…. Then Bloom, who worships women particularly in her life-giving and regenerative role, is here finally approaching the source of human life" (Boyle 412). Joyce's carefully manipulated use of the number eight is another testament to his mastery of language.

"Penelope" is a sea of words, a jumble of images devoid of punctuation and conventional sentence structure, which are often hard to navigate. Molly, herself, is complex to say the least: " In her simplest and shortest statements the inimicable and meaningful rhetorical touch is always there. I have come to believe that only pronouns and articles carry no extra message and even amongst these abstractions, the defining touch at times appears" (Raleigh 7). Despite the weight of her speech, her monologue is relatively minuscule in comparison to the rest of the novel: "Molly occupies around six percent, 45 of 783 pages of Ulysses (Raleigh 9). Despite this, Molly is a significant part of Bloom's life and her final internal monologue has generated an enormous amount of debate and speculation.

Joyce chooses for Molly a background and heritage that is just as mystifying as her monologue. Born September 8, 1870 (another use of the number 8), Marian (Molly) Tweedy is the only child of Major Brian Tweedy, an Irishman and Lunita Laredo, a woman possibly of Spanish and Jewish ancestry According to John Raleigh, Molly's parents may not have been married and she may not have been Tweedy's biological daughter (18). Molly's mother may have been a sexually loose woman. This fact foreshadows Molly's own sexual freedom if one concedes to the apple not falling far from the tree theory. Joyce intentionally gives Molly a lineage that is a "tangle of ambiguities" (Raleigh 19). Her thoughts are just as tangled as her past. With Molly, Joyce gives a realistic portrayal of a woman who is above all else human: "As humans in reality may choose to love or to hate, so Molly does, and the ultimate reasons for her doing so are not spelled out. They are not clear even to her…" (Boyle 408) Simply put, Molly is a mystery to herself, Bloom and the reader.

The episode occurs almost entirely while Molly lies in bed early in the morning. Bloom's request for breakfast in bed reminds Molly of a time when Bloom was trying to ingratiate himself with an elderly woman, Mrs. Riordan, in the hopes that she would leave some of her fortune to him in her will - "she never left us a farthing" (Joyce 738). In creating the image of the pious Mrs. Riordan, Joyce immediately contrasts Molly's earthy nature with a more Victorian woman. Molly quickly establishes herself as a woman very different from Mrs. Riordan: "God help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathing suits and lownecks" (Joyce 738). Molly speculates that Mrs. Riordan was prudish because "no man would look at her twice," but then admits that the elderly woman was well-educated. Thinking about Mrs. Riordan reminds Molly that the old woman's dog tried to get under Molly's petticoats because it was "smelling my fur" (Joyce 738). This sort of frank talk is indicative of Molly's open sexuality, a characteristic that Joyce returns to repeatedly throughout the chapter.

During this recollection, Molly is also reminded of Bloom's polite behavior toward the old woman, which she approves of. Eventually this line of thinking leads to Molly remembering the servant girl, Mary Driscoll, with whom Bloom once had a flirtation, which then leads her to thinking about her own liaison with Boylan. She fondly remembers walking between the two men, while she and Boylan sing the duet that they had performed earlier that evening. This leads Molly to thinking about sex and the confession that she once made to a priest. Molly's overt sexuality is such that she even considers what sex might be like with a priest - "I'd like to be embraced by one in his vestments and the smell of incense off him like the pope" (Joyce 741). Molly's thoughts are almost always dominated by sex.

Molly's scattered thoughts drift to an old argument over politics and religion that she once had with Bloom and this leads her into a succession of memories about her early married life. Molly reasons that while women may occasionally indulge in bad behavior, men are worse. She asserts that she would "rather die 20 times over than marry another of their sex" (Joyce 744). She also thinks of how her life would have been if she had not married Bloom, believing that she would have been a prima donna. Her mind wanders from thoughts of her lover, to her husband, to the experience of nursing her daughter Milly and back to her lover, which leads her to remembering her youth and a first love, Lieutenant Mulvey.

Molly's thoughts eventually drift to her daughter Milly. She is thinking about how much she misses her daughter, when she notices that her monthly period has started. This discovery is especially significant because it reveals that she is not pregnant by Blazes. As her memories flow, she sadly reflects on the death of her infant son, which occurred a decade previously. It is his death that has prevented Bloom and Molly from being together sexually. The relationship between Leopold and Molly is strained and in desperate need of reconciliation. Their problems seem to stem primarily from the feelings associated with the death of their son Rudy. In the same manner in which Molly questions the differences between men and women, Bloom has very ambiguous feelings in terms of what is masculine and what is feminine. More often than not, Leopold aligns himself with the feminine: "…he appears to harbor a not-so-hidden wish that gendered experience can be shared or even transgressed; in "Circe" that wish extends to the literal experience of childbirth, as Bloom fantasizes about being able to give birth not just to a baby, but to an entire race of 'yellow and white' children" (Rado). Bloom's yearning to participate in an experience exclusively reserved for women exhibits is fragile and fragmented identity. This incident occurs at the same time that we see Bloom and Stephen interact together. Bloom's desire to reproduce is an extension of his longing for a son. Stephen acts almost as a replacement for Bloom's dead son, Rudy. Bloom's need to replace his son is also a symptom of his need to better establish and strengthen is own identity.

Like Bloom, Molly has a fragmented identity. She imagines herself in various roles and questions how these alternatives may have played out. She continuously tries on new personas: "suppose I divorced him Mrs. Boylan." (Joyce 761). In this thought she contemplates leaving Bloom and marrying Blaze. Like the chapters namesake, Molly's various thoughts of herself weave in and out of her mind. She pictures her self as many things such as a jealous wife, a mother and an adulterer. The numerous sides to Molly all reject the contemporary ideal of what a woman in, how she acts and womanhood in general: "…while many of her recollections and fantasies are passive, even masochistic, Molly is an active agent. She asserts her own views, turns Bloom, Blazes, and other Irishmen into objects of her gaze, directs the course of her thoughts, and even argues with her creator…" (Pearce 46). Molly asserts herself in her monologue and gives her own thought and opinions about those whose eyes we have seen her through and those people that we have simply seen.

Essentially, Molly is a woman who is consumed by her fears. She fears the her daughter Milly will be like her. She also fears that Bloom will be or has been unfaithful to her and their marriage. Within her monologue, Joyce reveals several "psychic truths" about Molly: "…her feelings of sexual abandonment and physical confinement as well as her nostalgic desire for romance" (Devlin 85). .By letting the reader into Molly's head and assuming her voice, Joyce is able to exhibit the negative impact that society has on women and the constraints it places upon them. Joyce shows this in several of Molly's attempts to break from her claustrophobic existence: "…Oh Jamesy let me out of this" (Joyce 769). In this brief passage, Molly is speaking directly to author, begging that her he end her entrapment.

Molly, unlike Penelope in Homer's version of the story, has not been the faithful wife portrayed in Greek myth. To escape her entrapment, she has an affair with Blazes Boylan. However, Joyce portrays Molly as more than an unfaithful wife. Joyce allows his readers more insight as they are "invited to see ourselves in Joyce-doing-Molly-doing whatever, to recognize our own en-gendered in-scriptings" (Devlin. 72). Through the medium of Joyce assuming a female voice, Joyce exposes in "gestures of travestic imitations," the highly structured orientation of Victorian culture towards the roles of both sexes (Devlin 72). Joyce's "portrayal of Molly is informed and suffused by assumptions about the female mind and body that originate from the very patriarchal culture against which he is attempting to rebel" (Rado).

Like Gerty in "Nausicaa, " Molly is fully aware of her abilities as a woman: "Joyce creates in Molly a woman who is frequently conscious of her own theatricality, shrewdly aware of the assumed nature of her own gender acts" (Devlin 86). Joyce's image of womanhood is highly sexual, earthy and very real. Nevertheless, Molly understands the images of femininity that govern and are applicable to female behavior. She understands them, can assume them, and accepts or discards them at will. In other words, she plays the game of being a woman in a highly structured society, but she realizes it is a game. It is this realization that allows Molly to contemplate reestablishing relations with her husband, a new beginning.

The final rush of thoughts that concludes the chapter involves Molly's vivid memory of her first sexual encounter with Bloom. Molly remembers, "I put my arms around him yes, and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts al l perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I aid yes I will Yes" (Joyce 783). The final issue to be addressed is the debate regarding whether or not Molly and Bloom will stay together and whether or not she will make breakfast for him the next morning. In a letter dated August 16, 1921, Joyce wrote that Molly's monologue "turns like the huge earth ball slowly surely and evenly round and round spinning…Weib Ich bin der fleisch der stets bejaht (Woman, I am the flesh that always affirms)" (Carlin). In this letter, Joyce also points out that the chapter begins and ends with the word "yes." This "yes" signifies Molly's desire and decision to give her husband one last chance to reestablish marital relations with her.

Both Gerty and Molly have some of the same character traits. Joyce parallels the two women in his characterization of them: "Superstition, ignorance and faulty grammer are common to both of them, as is a splendid inconsistency. Both begin their menstrual cycle. They set great store by their appearance and their clothes; they thrive on admiration; their thoughts circle around men" (Senn 300). With both characters, it can be seen that Joyce does, indeed, transcend the limits of language. Especially evident in "Penelope, " Joyce uses Molly's limited vocabulary to address universal truths about human experience and, particularly, about female experience. As a man, assuming the role of a woman, this also transmits the message that the sexes are more alike than his contemporaries were willing to admit, that they share a common basic urge to be sexual and that they both seek to establish identities that are fulfilling within the framework allotted them by societal constructs. By allowing the reader into the most private musings of Molly's mind, Joyce accomplishes these goals, emerging the reader in very realistic human experience.

Works Cited

Boyle, Fr. Robert, Jr. "Penelope." James Joyce's Ulysses: Critical Essays. Eds. Clive Hart and David Hayman. Los Angeles: University of CA Press, 1974.
Carlin, Gerry and Mair Evans. "Notes on James Joyce's Ulysses". 11 November 2003. http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~fa1871/joynote.html.
Devlin, K. "Pretending in 'Penelope' : Masquerade, Mimicry and Molly Bloom." Molly Blooms: A Polylogue on 'Penelope" and Cultural Studies. Ed. Richard Pearce. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
Joyce, James. Ulysses. 1934. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Pearce. Richard. "How Does Molly Bloom Look Through the Male Gaze?" Molly Blooms: A Polylogue on 'Penelope" and Cultural Studies..
Rado, Lisa. " 'Hyposos' or 'Spadia'? Rethinking Androgyny in 'Ulysses' with help from Sacher-Masoch." Twentieth Century Literature. 42:2 (1996) Expanded Academic ASAP. 11 November 2003. .
Raleigh, John Henry. The Chronicle of Leopold and Molly Bloom: Ulysses as Narrative. Berkley: University of California Press, 1977.
Senn, Fritz. "Nausicaa." James Joyce's Ulysses: Critical Essays. Eds Clive Hart and David Hayman. Los Angeles: University of CA Press, 1974.