Learning Path » 5A Interacting

GMuller - Molly's Final Monologue Intro.
by GMuller - (2011-01-18)
Up to  5 A - James Joyce. Dubliners and UlyssesUp to task document list

The monologue of Molly Bloom is the 18th episode of Joyce's Ulysses. Molly, who has been unfaithful to her  husband Leopold that day conveys her inner thoughts in her soliloquy. Molly accepts Leopold into her bed,  frets about his health and she remembers about their first meeting and about the moment when she knew she was in love with him. In remembering the episode of love with Leopold in Gibraltar, she also remembers promises and happiness, beyond the wonderful landscape. Molly also reflects about people who don't believe in God (like Leopold) and reflects about their effort to explain everything without Him.

 

Molly’s Final Monologue is the most relevant example of the stream of consciousness although the title is Molly’s Final Monologue because the stream of consciousness is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and it is characterized by associative leaps in syntax and in punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow. There are no paragraphs and sections. The words “I” and “yes” are pronounced lots of times in the monologue. The repetition of “I” underlines the first person narrator as a result of  Molly’s thoughts. The word “yes, that it is repeated especially in the end, is inhabited by a group of sensual images. This word, together with others, creates the pattern that in music is called leitmotiv according to Richard Wagner's theory.