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CDean - Denotative Analysis of Molly's Monolgue
by CDean - (2011-01-17)
Up to  5 A - James Joyce. Dubliners and UlyssesUp to task document list

I'm going to analyse an extract from Ulysses, written by James Joyce.

The extract is Molly's final monolgue. Molly Bloom, whose real name is Marion Bloom, is the wife of Leopold Bloom, the main character.
Joyce uses the stream-of-consciousness method: there is no punctuation and the flow of character's thoughts goes on without stopping.

The result is deliberately chaotic.

 

Molly is in bed at night and thinks about a lot of things. She thinks about what people are doing in China and what the nuns are doing at that moment. She would like to doze off. She remembers some kind of flowers. Molly is thinking about tomorrow and refers to "him", that is her husband Leopold. She makes a plan: she would like to clean and to do the place up.

Molly's thoughts are linked to nature (mountains, sea, waves, country with fields of oats and wheat, the cattle, rivers and lakes). She thinks again about flowers.

After that she makes a reflection about God and atheists.

Later Molly remembers the relationship with Leopold and, in particular, a long kiss between them (16 years ago). She remembers also Leopold's nice words and that she was looking outside the window at that moment thinking about other men ("many things he didn't know").