J.Joyce – Ulysses

Denotative Analysis – Molly's final monologue

I'm going to analyse an extract taken from J. Joyce's “Ulysses”. This extract is belongs to the 18^th episode of the novel. It is known as “Molly's final monologue”. The only character that is present is Molly Bloom, who is the protagonist's wife. The narrator adopts the technique of the stream of consciousness: Molly's thoughts are reported as a continuous flux, without punctuation.

Molly is in bed at night and she is thinking. She thinks about what people might do in China in that moment and what the nuns are doing at the same time. Later, she thinks about flowers and the reader can immediately understand that she likes flowers very much. Then she thinks about cakes and make a short plan of her tomorrow: she will clean the house in order to host her husband's friend in a proper way.

Going on reading, the reader can easily understand that she thinks about nature and natural elements: sea, waves, country, fields, wheat, oats, lakes, flowers, rivers and all colours. She also remembers smells of the nature. Then she thinks again about flowers.

On a second moment she makes a reflection about God and atheists: she thinks that people who does not believe in God have a bad conscience.

Later Molly remembers the relationship with Leopold and, in particular, she recalls to her mind a long kiss between them, when they were younger. She remembers also the words Leopold said in that moment ("flower of the mountain") .