1. does molly's final perspective serve to change the way you view other characters/events? how so?
2. why does joyce choose to neglect punctuation in the final episode (save for the very last period)?
3. how do molly's thoughts differ from the thoughts of our other main characters (i.e. stephen and bloom)?
4. why does joyce give us only one chapter of molly?
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4.
The first 17 chapters of Ulysses focus on the lives of two men, Bloom and Stephen, who are haunted by the women in their pasts and futures. Stephen is carrying around with him the burden of his dead mother and Bloom is constantly pondering about his unfaithful wife Molly. As the reader follows both of these characters throughout the day, the reader sees that they are both followed around by thoughts of the important women in their lives. I think Joyce chose to not to include Molly's interior monologue until the end of the book because he wanted the reader to learn to love Bloom and sympathize for him. If the reader had known both sides of the story from the start he or she would have had a different experience reading the novel. By including Molly's side of the story in the last chapter, Joyce has drastically changed the novel for the reader by shattering Bloom as a reliable source for information. All this time the read pitied Bloom's state when in actuality, he is as much to blame as Molly. Giving the last chapter of the book over to Molly portrays Joyce's true genius because he did something no one was expecting and took his masterpiece to a new level by providing a whole new outlook to his 800 page novel within a few long rambling sentences. In Molly's never-ending sentences, the reader's opinion of Molly is quickly altered. The reader thought Molly was a one dimensional character; however, Joyce quickly takes her to 3D and immediately has her jumping off the page with the reader wanting more. Therefore, Joyce chooses to end the book with Molly because of her life and vigor. Unlike, Stephen and Bloom whose outlooks on life could be embodied by the word "no," Joyce uses Molly as his final words because she is one of those rare individuals who never fails to say "yes." She lives her life more along the lines of carpe diem whereas Stephen and Bloom are trapped in the past.
More thoughts on Molly...
Molly—Earth Mother archetype
Although Molly is cast as an overtly sexual woman, a symbol for fertility, I don’t believe she fulfills the “earth mother” archetype. According to Carl Jung, the mother archetype is characterized by “mothering...a connection with a nurturing-one during our times as helpless infants.” Though I do see Molly fulfilling the goddess aspect of the archetype—a general fertile deity, and the bountiful embodiment of the Earth, I would not go as far as to say she is an “earth mother.”
The “earth mother” archetype is characterized by a nurturing, protective figure, caring for her children. Molly, on the other hand, is portrayed as a proto-feminist. She is exceptionally clever, evident through the unraveling of her thoughts in the final episode, and her optimism and confidence exudes her egocentricity. As she vies for control over her own life and makes it clear that she is independent of Bloom, her dogmatism far overshadows the caring, earth mother model.
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