James Joyce’s, Ulysses [Penelope], is made up of a run-on sentence and isn’t punctuated until the very end of the excerpt. The excerpt is from the character Molly’s perspective and it seems to be all her thoughts in this excerpt. In her thoughts, she is contemplating her relationships with men and it jumps from the present, future, past, and fantasy making it difficult to tell when she changes from one of these to another. Not having structured sentences is an interesting writing move because I feel that it really shows what it is like to have racing thoughts or sleepy thoughts. However, it also tells a little about Molly as a character. We find out that Molly is not faithful to her husband, “it’s all his own fault if I am an adulteress” (Greenblatt p.608). In the excerpt of Ulysses [Penelope], it takes place at “two o’clock in the morning on June 17, 1904” (Greenblatt p.603). Two o’clock in the morning is quite early which is why Molly’s thoughts have a sleepy feel to them; they seem to jump around from past, present, and future. While exploring her relationships with men, Molly explores her sexual life, which is when we find out about Molly’s adulterous behavior. With all her racing thoughts, Molly does try to quiet her brain; “let me see id I can doze off 1 2 3 4” (Greenblatt p.608), but it doesn’t help quiet her thoughts because following her counting she says, “what kind of flowers are those they invented…” (Greenblatt p.608). At the end of Ulysses, Molly accepts her love for her husband; “his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes” (Greenblatt p.610). This was a very climatic ending to the excerpt because Molly is quite passionate in declaring her love for her husband. The ending seems to show Molly’s revelation that what makes her happy has been with her all along and that maybe she didn’t need to be unfaithful to her husband.
Work Cited:
Greenblatt, Stephen, and Catherine Robson. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 10th ed., E, W.W. Norton, 2018.