Why is the Book Ulysses Controversial? A Woman’s Perspective
Education / Society
Throughout James Joyce’s Ulysses, the reader hears from Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom two males with warped perceptions of the female perspective. Their perceptions of women categorize them into the Holy Trinity of what women can be, a woman, a mother, or a prostitute. Throughout the book, Molly is categorized into all three. Molly is seen as an adulterous woman who cuckolds her husband, publicly humiliating him to all of Dublin. However, after reading “Penelope,” my respect for Molly only grew.
Joyce’s choice to disregard this perspective until the end is a bold artistic choice. One that allows the reader to understand a woman’s point of view from a deep level. This choice allows the reader to understand female jealousy and urgency from a perspective of love and not hate.
Although Molly’s affair with Blazes Boylan is known by what seems like the entire city of Dublin, Bloom feebly stands by and accepts the affair as:
“natural as any and every natural act of a nature”
In the previous chapter, “Ithaca,” the reader learns of Bloom’s four emotions towards the affair. He feels envy that Boylan can satisfy her sexual needs and is jealous that Molly is physically attracted to Boylan’s young body. He also feels abnegation, dismissing the possibility of ever confronting Boylan over the affair. Bloom cites five reasons for his ignorance, all arising out of selfishness. He fears confrontation with Boylan and the possibility of Molly losing her music tour as the “net proceeds [are] divided” between the two.
Bloom’s fear of losing the tour arises because he will monetarily benefit from it, not from the fact that Molly will lose an opportunity to do something she loves.
However, in “Penelope,” the reader learns that Molly, who seems to disregard the toll her affair will take on Bloom’s emotional state, also harbors jealousy towards Bloom. After seeing Bloom talking to and dancing with Josie Powell, jealousy arises despite knowing Bloom is smitten with herself. However, immediately after dancing with Josie, Bloom wants to have sex with Molly. Instead, they get into a political row where Molly ends up crying. This argument is Molly’s attempt to prove that Bloom’s love and attraction for her arise from more than a physical level.
For example, anyone can be physically beautiful, like Josie, but only Molly can have her unique personality and ideas. Throughout the chapter, the reader realizes that Molly understands women are seen as disposable objects that can be replaced with the next young thing. She sees the way people look at Milly, saying:
“they all look at her like me when I was her age,”
Furthermore, acknowledging her youthful beauty attracts many (18.1036). Although Milly was flourishing at home, she encroached on Molly’s space, another cause for Molly’s jealousy. Molly’s jealousy towards her daughter leaves her feeling no particular way about her leaving for school far away. As now she was the only woman in Bloom’s home life, and her affair with Boylan was now easier to conceal.
After Bloom upsets her and makes her cry, she says:
“of course a woman is so sensitive about everything”
While she yearns to seem smart, she also wants to maintain the sense of “coolness” she has over Josie with Bloom. The sense of “coolness” is Bloom’s jealousy. When she leaves the house, he asks where she is going and who she is seeing, proving to Molly that Bloom sees her as more than a sexual object. But as a person he desires to keep to himself, giving her value.
Molly later talks about how, eventually, both she and Josie married and found relief that Bloom at least:
“always wipes his feet on the mat when he comes in,”
Whereas Josie’s husband goes into bed with muddy boots.
While Bloom is not the greatest husband, Molly recalls this flaw in Josie’s husband’s character to assure herself that she has the better husband. Although Molly was previously jealous of Josie’s relationship with Bloom, she uses the fact that he wipes his feet before entering their bed to assure herself she has “won” by having the better husband. Throughout the book, it appeared that the jealousy in the relationship became one-sided. However, here, we see that Molly harbors her own envious feelings.
It also appears that Molly wishes her husband was more jealous of her affair with Boylan. In The Odyssey, Odysseus arrives home to 108 suitors attempting to court Penelope, who famously remains loyal for the twenty years he was fighting the Trojan War and getting home. Penelope at first does not recognize Odysseus when he arrives home. And refuses to believe he is being truthful about his identity until he tells the story of how their bed was made with the base of an olive tree. Similarly, Bloom arrives home to greet Molly in their bed. Odysseus and his son, Telemachus, famously slaughtered all 108 suitors, proving that only he was worthy of Penelope.
Moreover, years before, Odysseus had to fight to gain her love and loyalty, and the two of them share many of the same qualities, a Greek term coined as “philia.” In “Penelope,” it seems as if Molly yearns for the same affection Odysseus holds for Penelope, a love that can kill 108 suitors, a love Penelope loyally waited twenty years for. Molly herself questions if she still loves Bloom, approaching the question from various perspectives, but always arrives at yes. She loves the way that Bloom sees women as:
“flowers all a womans body” and “loves to hear him falling up the stairs of a morning with the cups rattling on the tray”.
Bloom’s views of women are part of why his attitude towards her affair is so submissive, and Molly yearns for him to have the same jealous tendencies he had when they first married.
She leaves the sheets in their shared bed with:
“the mark of his spunk…I wouldnt bother to even irony it out that ought to satisfy him”
While many view Molly’s carelessnesses about her affair as a way of her cuckolding him to elicit derision from others. I view her blatant affair with Boylan as an attempt to gain back the love and affection Bloom once held for her. All her life, sexual affection has been the only affection she has received. And after ten years without it, she needed a change. The way she describes a simple kiss, saying:
“theres nothing like a kiss long and hot down to your soul almost paralyses you,”
Moreover, proof that she needs physical affection in her relationships, and while Bloom has left her with no choice but to gratify her sexual needs somewhere else, Molly truly wishes and yearns for Bloom’s affection (18.106).
Written by Simran Cheema
Why is the Book Ulysses Controversial? A Woman’s Perspective
