JAMES JOYCE’S ULYSSES

Molly’s Monologue (page 516)

Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce. He refers to Homer’s Odyssey.

The novel deals with the events of one day in Dublin (16^th June 1904). The book follows the movements of the main characters:

- Stephen Dedalus,a young man with literary ambitions,

-Leopold Bloom,a Jewish advertising agent,

- Molly Bloom,Leopold's wife.

The final episode, which also uses the stream of consciousness technique seen, consists of Molly Bloom's Soliloquy: Joyce describes the thoughts of Molly, Bloom's wife, as she lies in bed next to her husband.

The thoughts and impressions of Molly are presented as well as emerge in her mind. The author never interferes to explain. He does not follow a chronological order, from the present to the immediate future to specific episodes of the past, or an order of cause - effect.
The most remarkable features of the monologue are: the lack of punctuation and logical connections, the use of first person, the recurrence of certain words and  images.

Stream of consciousness:

 The stream of consciousness technique takes a reader inside a character’s mind to reveal perceptions, thoughts, and feelings on a conscious or unconscious level. This technique suggests the flow of thought as well as its content,without the conventional devices of dialogue and description..

 James Joyce’s novel Ulysses makes extensive use of this narrative technique. See also narrator, point of view.

James Joyce went further, with the  use of interior monologue, in whichsuddenly switch from one thought to another without any apparent respect for the rules of grammar and syntax of the language.