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Episode 17: Ithaca
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ulysses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Alienation and the Quest for Belonging
Literature, Meaning, and Perspective
Love and Sex
Fate vs. Free Will
Religion, Atheism, and Philosophy
Irish Identity and Nationalism
Summary
Analysis
The final episode of Ulysses is a long, unpunctuated, eight-sentence soliloquy that represents Molly Bloom’s stream of consciousness as she falls asleep on the night of June 16. She begins by noting that her husband has asked for breakfast in bed, which he hasn’t done for years. When they lived at the City Arms hotel, Bloom pretended to be sick, trying to manipulate Mrs. Riordan into leaving him some money in her will—but she didn’t. Molly hates Riordan, who was an ugly, sanctimonious old miser. Molly appreciates that Bloom is nice to old ladies like Riordan, but she also criticizes him for exaggerating his illnesses. She despises someone named Miss Stack for trying to seduce him with flowers.
In the Odyssey, Penelope is Odysseus’s wife. She spends twenty years waiting for Odysseus to return from the Trojan War and inventing strategies to delay the hundred suitors who have been trying to marry her in his absence. While Penelope and Molly are supposed to represent one another, this link is a little bit ironic, because Molly isn’t faithful to her husband. This episode is Joyce’s most radical attempt to capture the human stream of consciousness in Ulysses. After the impersonal, objective style of “Ithaca,” Molly Bloom’s complicated, passionate soliloquy can be shocking and difficult to follow. So far, Molly has only appeared in the novel through Leopold Bloom’s eyes. While she is absolutely central to his life and world, she hasn’t been able to speak for herself until now. In “Penelope,” the tables are turned, and the reader gets to see Bloom through Molly’s eyes. This episode is framed around a dilemma: should Molly bring Bloom breakfast in bed? (It’s worth recalling that he served her breakfast in bed during “Calypso.”) Her decision will indicate the state of her relationship with Bloom, kind of like Bloom’s decision to accept her affair with Blazes Boylan and put aside his interest in other women reflected the state of his commitment to her. While Molly ultimately answers this dilemma, her soliloquy also leaves many of the novel’s central mysteries unsolved and raises plenty of its own questions. For instance, does Molly’s openness about sex make her a feminist figure or an obscene caricature? Is Joyce trying to use Molly to represent all women, and why hasn’t she spoken sooner?
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Molly thinks Leopold probably had sex today, judging by his appetite. It was probably a prostitute, she thinks, and he was probably lying about meeting Hynes and Menton. Or maybe Leopold met the woman to whom he was secretly writing a letter a few days ago. That woman is probably just trying to squeeze money out of him. He probably kissed Molly’s bottom at night just to hide what he’s been up to. Molly remembers how her husband and their maid Mary tried to start an affair—she had to fire Mary for stealing oysters.
Despite her own affair with Boylan, Molly is extremely suspicious of Bloom and jealous of his possible mistresses. Of course, the reader already knows that he didn’t sleep with anyone else, although he get close: he sent another love letter to Martha, masturbated in public to Gerty MacDowell, and visited Bella Cohen’s brothel. Needless to say, after the dream sequences in “Circe,” the reader is also well aware of Bloom’s sexual perversions—maybe even more than Molly is. But the last two episodes showed that, even though he chases other women, Bloom’s thoughts and feelings are constantly focused on Molly. While they both think the other is falling out of love, then, Bloom and Molly are actually more in love than they realize.
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Molly remembers that Leopold “came on [her] bottom” on the same night when she and Boylan held hands, sang, and walked by the Tolka river together. She knows that Leopold knows about her affair: “hes not such a fool [sic].” She imagines seducing “some nicelooking boy” and remembers how dreadful it is to pretend to enjoy sex with men. “Anyhow its done now once and for all [sic],” she thinks. She says that sex is only good “the first time,” but she also yearns for a man to embrace and kiss her. She remembers having to give detailed descriptions of her sexual sins to Father Corrigan at confession, and she starts thinking about what it’s like to sleep with a priest.
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Molly circles back to Blazes Boylan. She wonders if he enjoyed having sex with her, remarks that she didn’t like it when he slapped her on the behind, and wonders if he is thinking or dreaming about her. They drank port and ate potted meat together, and then she fell asleep, until a loud clap of thunder woke her up and she “thought the heavens were coming down about us to punish us.” She remembers how she said a prayer after the thunder, then thinks about how her husband doesn’t believe in the soul. Then, she remembers Blazes Boylan’s enormous genitals and energetic sexual performance in vivid detail.
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Molly comments on the difficulty of childbirth and laments how frequently Mina Purefoy has to go through it. She considers having another child and decides that she’d have better chances with her husband than with Blazes Boylan. Molly wonders if Leopold’s affair is with Josie Powell (Breen), and she remembers that Leopold and Josie were together at Georgina Simpson’s party, where Molly and Leopold first met (and got into an argument about politics). Molly thinks of several ways she could tell if Leopold has been with Josie, but then she starts to remember how handsome he was as a young man. She also remembers how she told Josie about Leopold to make her jealous.
Molly feels bad for Josie now: she’s stuck living with her lunatic husband Denis, who even wears his muddy boots to bed. Molly appreciates that Leopold is clean and careful, and she declares that she would rather die than marry another man. She also thinks no other woman would put up with Leopold, and he is lucky to have her. She thinks about Mrs. Maybrick, who fell in love with another man and poisoned her husband.
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After a paragraph break, Molly begins her long second sentence. She thinks about how men are “all so different” and remembers when she first saw Boylan at tea. She left her suede gloves in the bathroom that day, and she remembers how Boylan stared at her feet. Leopold also likes Molly’s feet. She remembers kissing the singer Bartell d’Arcy in the choir room and imagines showing her husband where it happened, just to shock and surprise him. She drifts through memories of her early relationship with Leopold and starts to remember his obsession with women’s underwear. When the rain caught them in the street one day, he took her gloves and insisted on looking up her skirt. She remembers how he made up an excuse so that they could stay out late, wrote her letters full of complicated words, and made love to her passionately.
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Molly thinks about other lovers, including a man named Gardner and the old Professor Goodwin, who used to show up at her house unannounced. She almost thought that Boylan wasn’t coming today because of the gift he sent her, but he just ended up being a few minutes late. In a week, Molly and Boylan are going to Belfast for the concert tour, and Molly is glad that her husband won’t be there, because it would be awkward to have Boylan hear her and Leopold through the hotel room wall. She’s also glad not to have to deal with Leopold’s stubbornness (she remembers how he once held up a train because his soup was late). She looks forward to the comfortable train ride to Belfast with Boylan.
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Molly starts thinking about rival singers and Leopold’s other schemes. He once got her a singing gig by lying to a group of priests, and she doesn’t understand why he associates with the freemasons and Sinn Fein nationalists. She remembers how Lieutenant Gardner, her old lover, died in the Boer War, and this reminds her of how Blazes Boylan’s father got rich selling horses for that war. She hopes Boylan will buy her a “nice present” in Belfast and decides that she’ll take off her wedding ring to avoid attracting attention. She briefly wonders about the best sex position, then remembers how Boylan was frustrated to lose twenty pounds on Lenehan’s Ascot Gold Cup tip.
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Molly remembers eating a luxurious dinner with the lord mayor and laments the fact that she can’t afford such a lifestyle on Leopold’s salary. She decides not to pack any underwear for Belfast and thinks about buying new clothes and finding a corset to help her lose weight. She wonders if Leopold picked up her lotion.
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Molly Bloom laments the fact that she’s aging and hopes that she’ll end up like some of the respectable old women she sees around Dublin, including Parnell and Edward VII’s mistresses, Kitty O’Shea and Mrs. Langtry. She recalls a “funny story” about Edward VII and an oyster knife, but decides that it’s probably an exaggeration (kind of like scenes from her erotic novels, or the enormous baby Jesuses that some churches display). She starts thinking about her husband’s failure to find a consistent job and poor taste in women’s fashion. Molly nearly got him his job back at Mr. Cuffe’s cattle market—in part because Cuffe enjoyed staring at her chest. But Leopold was too “pigheaded” to follow through with it.
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In the third sentence of her soliloquy, Molly Bloom thinks about her breasts and compares their beauty to the ugliness of men’s genitals. She thinks of all the times that men have tried to expose themselves to her and remembers one cold night when she decided to use the men’s restroom. Reflecting on female beauty, she recalls how, after losing his job, Leopold once suggested she try nude modeling. She also recalls her husband’s other shortcomings (like his complicated explanations and his tendency to burn kidneys in the pan). Molly’s breast hurts, and she remembers nursing Milly. Outrageously, Leopold once asked to put her milk in his tea. Molly remembers her tryst with Boylan again and starts to wish he were in bed with her; she can’t wait to see him again on Monday.
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Molly’s fourth sentence begins when a passing train interrupts the course of her thoughts. She starts to think about steam engines and the men who have to work them, then considers the newspapers she burns for warmth and the scorching summers back in Gibraltar. She remembers Mrs. Stanhope, who gifted her a frock, and whose daughter Hester was like her best friend. They went to bullfights together, had sleepovers, and exchanged books. Molly uncomfortably shifts around in bed and relives her memory of the Stanhopes leaving Gibraltar forever, on short notice. They quickly fell out of touch. Bored of repetitive military ceremonies and her father’s soldier friends, Molly dreamed of fleeing Gibraltar.
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Molly admits that she’s still terribly bored. Before, when she lived on Holles Street, at least she could try to flirt with the fellow who lived across the street. She has basically no mail and nothing to do. Besides the letter from Milly that morning, she has only gotten one interesting piece of mail recently: a braggadocious letter from Floey Dillon reporting that “she was married to a very rich architect.” She thinks of Dillon’s deceased old father, and then Nancy Blake, who recently died of pneumonia. Writing condolence letters is difficult, Molly concludes, but love letters are thrilling—she hopes she gets one from Blazes Boylan.
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In her fifth sentence, Molly focuses on Lieutenant Mulvey, who appears to have been her first love. She remembers when she first received his letter by way of her elderly, devout, nationalistic Spanish housekeeper Mrs. Rubio. Molly passed Mulvey in the street that day, and they later shared their first kiss. Just to scare him, Molly told Mulvey that she was engaged to the Spanish nobleman Don Miguel de la Flora, and he believed her.
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Mulvey also had to leave Gibraltar on short notice. Before he went, he and Molly spent a day on the rock together, watching the boats passing in the sea. Molly wouldn’t let Mulvey touch her, since she was terrified of getting pregnant, but she did help him finish into a handkerchief. They made plans to have sex when they reunited, but they never did. Molly wonders where Mulvey is now and what has become of his life.
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Molly sifts through other “wild” memories of Gibraltar, like the time she scared away birds by popping open a bag of biscuits, or the time she asked to fire Mulvey’s pistol and adjusted his “H M S Calypso” hat. She remembers a bishop who lectured about the dangers of liberated women who ride bicycles and wear bloomers. This reminds her of Bloom, her husband and her name, which could be much worse. Still, she could also be Mrs. Boylan, and she appreciates her mother’s beautiful name, Lunita Laredo. Molly remembers running through the trees with Mulvey and watching him sail away for India. He gave her a ring, which she later gave to Gardner before he died in the Boer War.
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The train passes by again, and its sound interrupts Molly’s soliloquy and reminds her of “Love’s Old Sweet Song.” Molly thinks about other singers, like Kathleen Kearney, who represent the kind of conservative, homegrown Irish womanhood she intensely dislikes. Molly is proud to have grown up as an expatriate and military daughter—she believes she is far more knowledgeable “about men and life” than those other women will ever be. She has no doubts about her ability to charm men (like Gardner and Boylan). She debates what to sing after “Love’s Old Sweet Song” during her concert tour, and she decides to wear a low-cut dress. She feels some vaginal itchiness and carefully lets out a fart as the train sounds again in the distance.
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Molly Bloom’s sixth sentence begins with a series of worries about everyday life and the house. She fears that she might have eaten an expired pork-chop, that smoke is coming out of the lamp, and that it’s dangerous for Leopold to leave the gas on at night for heat. She remembers dressing up her doll during the winter in Gibraltar and starts to worry that she won’t get any sleep at all tonight. She hopes that her husband doesn’t keep drinking all night with medical students, but she wonders why they’re drinking in the first place. Plus, now he’s ordering her to make him breakfast—although she loves it when he brings her breakfast in bed, too.
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Molly decides to make cod tomorrow, instead of meat. She imagines throwing a picnic with Boylan, her husband, and her housekeeper Mrs. Fleming. She remembers how Leopold got himself stung by a bee and once nearly capsized their boat after pretending he knew how to row. She imagines punishing him, then thinks about Sweets of Sin, the book that he has brought her. This reminds her of sailing in Gibraltar.
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Molly admits that she can’t stand being home alone at night. She remembers how Leopold wanted to turn their new house into a music academy or hotel, and then she reflects on all the plans he never carries out (like the Italian honeymoon he promised her). She worries that a beggar could attack her while she’s home alone, and she remembers a recent news article about a criminal who murdered an old woman. Then, she wonders how the criminal’s family must feel and imagines how it would be to go to prison. She remembers when Leopold heard something downstairs one night, so he took a fire poker and investigated, but was “frightened out of his wits.”
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Molly Bloom also wonders why Leopold sent Milly to photography school—she thinks it may have been a plot to avoid her seeing Boylan. But Molly is also glad that Milly is out of the house, because she did annoying things like break a statue. Moreover, Molly finds it strange that Leopold and Milly were spending so much time together, doing things like reading the newspaper. She assumes that Milly was just “pretending to understand.” Still, Molly is both proud and jealous that Milly is coming of age. Milly can have her pick of the boys, for instance, and she’s starting to smoke cigarettes. Milly is careful to protect her skirt so that it doesn’t wrinkle when she sits in the theater, and this reminds Molly of the men who rubbed up against her in the theater line.
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Molly thinks about Milly getting sick and concludes that she isn’t yet old enough to feel “deep” sexual pleasure, even though she’s meeting handsome boys. Molly wonders if “real love” still exists—while it’s noble for men to sacrifice everything for a woman, only “foolish” people would actually do that (like Leopold Bloom’s father, who committed suicide after his wife’s death). Molly recognizes Milly’s beauty, and then she remembers when she once slapped her for misbehavior. Molly concludes that the real problem is that the family needs a “proper servant,” not just the useless old Mrs. Fleming. She also criticizes her husband for bringing Stephen Dedalus over to their house and climbing over the railing to get inside. Again, Molly remarks that the house is a disaster because of Mrs. Fleming.
Molly suddenly realizes that “that thing has come”—it’s her period. She speculates that Blazes Boylan caused it through “all the poking and rooting and ploughing.” She realizes that her period won’t be over by Monday, and she wonders if Boylan will mind. Once, she remembers, her period came on unexpectedly in the theater, the only time she and Leopold ever got box seats. To avoid staining the sheets, she gets out of bed, but it makes a loud jingling sound that annoys her. In fact, in the afternoon, the bed was so loud that Molly and Boylan ended up having sex on the floor. Molly considers cutting her pubic hair and wonders how Boylan felt about her weight and her breath when she sat on top of him. She sits on the chamber pot and remarks that she “wouldnt mind being a man and get up on a lovely woman [sic].”
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In the seventh sentence of her soliloquy, Molly Bloom notes that she had her last period just three weeks ago and starts to wonder if she has a medical issue. She remembers visiting Dr. Collins for an infection years ago. The doctor kept using the word “vagina,” which made her uncomfortable. This was before she got married, and her problem was that she masturbated too much to the “mad crazy letters” that Leopold wrote her.
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Molly then remembers the first time she met Leopold in person: they stared at each other for minutes, for no obvious reason. She found his idealistic political talk charming, and her friends even convinced him that he’d join Parliament one day. He gave her a fancy French song to sing, but then immediately tried to enter her bedroom (with the excuse that he needed to use her sink to wash ink off his hands).
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Noting that she’s uncomfortable sitting on the chamber pot, Molly looks over at Leopold’s uncomfortable, upside-down sleeping position at the foot of the bed, which reminds her of a statue of an Indian god they once saw in a museum. She cleans herself with napkins and remarks that Leopold is fast asleep, probably because he visited a prostitute. She complains about the jingly bed and proclaims that she and Leopold haven’t really improved their living conditions in their sixteen years of marriage—they’re constantly moving houses, Leopold is constantly losing jobs. She worries that he’ll lose his current one because of his involvement in politics.
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The church bells ring. Molly wonders why Leopold came home so late, and she angrily decides that she’ll look for his secret love letters in the morning. She resents his request for breakfast in bed, too. She decides that he can’t be having an affair with Josie Breen, because he isn’t courageous enough to sleep with a married woman. Molly remembers how Leopold gawks at women’s skirts, then starts thinking about Paddy Dignam’s death and running through list of mourners that Joe Hynes published in the newspaper. She has critical things to say about most of the mourners, who have a tendency to mistreat her husband, and she seriously pities Dignam’s family.
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Molly remembers that Paddy Dignam attended dinner on the night that Ben Dollard had to borrow tight pants for his concert. She reminisces about doing a duet with Simon Dedalus, which leads her to the topic of May Goulding Dedalus’s death and finally the Dedaluses’ “author” and “professor” son, Stephen Dedalus. Aware that Leopold showed Stephen her photo, Molly comments that she should have worn a different outfit for the shoot. She remembers meeting Stephen when he was about eleven, after her infant son Rudy’s death. Before that, she also saw him at Mat Dillon’s house, when he was a little boy.
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Molly realizes that her morning tarot cards predicted a “union with a young stranger,” and that she had a dream about poetry the night before. She concludes that these omens make Stephen’s appearance in her life significant. Calculating his age, Molly asks how he can already be a professor. She wonders if he needs a female muse to write about, and she decides that she’s willing to volunteer. Molly imagines Stephen to be brilliant, sensitive, and a good listener—as she thinks all men should be. Since he’s young, she imagines that he must be attractive, sexually eager, and “clean.” She fantasizes about having sex with Stephen and proving her intelligence to him, but then realizes that this might threaten her relationship with Boylan.
In the eighth and final section of her soliloquy, Molly Bloom starts to look down on the crass, unsophisticated, and impulsive Blazes Boylan, especially compared to the fantasy version of Stephen Dedalus that she has constructed in her mind’s eye. She asks if Boylan was eager to get in bed with her because he is immature, or because she is irresistible. Then, she starts to wonder what sex is like for men—she wishes she could try it from their perspective, just once. She envies how men can chase women without guilt, and she wishes that it were socially acceptable for women to seek pleasure in the same way.
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Molly admits that she’s dissatisfied with Leopold, who almost never hugs her or shows her affection—except by sometimes kissing her bottom, which doesn’t really count. She fantasizes about picking up a mysterious sailor down at the piers, just like men pick up prostitutes there. She resents her husband for sleeping next to her like a “carcass” or “mummy,” but still demanding that she serve him breakfast in bed in the morning, like a servant. Men “treat you like dirt,” she declares, and the world would be far better off if women ran it. There would be no war or senseless gambling.
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Molly’s mind returns to Stephen Dedalus, who she assumes is “running wild” because his mother is no longer around to care for him. She laments the fact that Stephen’s parents don’t appreciate their “fine son,” while she and Leopold had to bury their son Rudy when he was still an infant. Trying not to fall into “the glooms,” Molly asks herself why Stephen wouldn’t stay the night and wonders where he’s wandering now. She remembers enjoying late nights with friends and wonders what Stephen is seeking—her mind drifts from this to Stephen’s last name, the unusual names in Gibraltar, and the little Spanish she still remembers.
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Molly fantasizes about teaching Stephen Spanish, or even bringing him breakfast in bed. She thinks that he could move into the Bloom household, sleeping in Milly’s old room. He could read in bed in the mornings with Molly, while Leopold brings them both breakfast. Molly even imagines the ideal outfit for this occasion.
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Suddenly, Molly decides that she will “just give him [Leopold] one more chance.” She’ll get up early, make him breakfast, put on her best underwear for him, and have sex with him. If he won’t, she’ll make him watch her have sex with someone else. If he just wants to kiss her bottom, she will make him pay for the privilege. She remembers that she is on her period, but she fantasizes about another “good enough” way to satisfy Leopold. She hears the clock go off, imagines people around the world getting up to start the day, and she decides to try to sleep.
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Molly plans how she will clean and prepare the house in the morning, and she decides to buy flowers and “have the whole place swimming in roses.” She describes the incredible beauty of nature and declares that it’s useless to simply say that God doesn’t exist: instead, people should “go and create something.” Neither Christians nor atheists know who the first person in the universe was, but everyone does know that the sun will rise tomorrow.
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Molly remembers lying in the flowers on the Howth Head peninsula near Dublin with Leopold. It was sixteen years ago, on the day he proposed. They kissed passionately and he compared her to a mountain flower. He said that the sun shone for her, which she considers the “one true thing he said in his life.” This is what made her fall in love with him. Rather than answering his proposal, she first “gave him all the pleasure [she] could.” She gazed at the sea and thought about the beauty of her past life and loves Gibraltar, then looked back at him. He asked her again to marry him, and she embraced him and said: “yes I said yes I will Yes.”
