Molly Bloom: Sex and Psychology
Molly is a sexual creature by nature. Molly rejects the pious and stuffiness of Mrs. Riordan “I hope Ill never be like her” describing the older woman’s ideas about the current bathing suits that young woman are wearing. Molly is not a prudish woman by nature and sees the Catholic Church as an oppression of female sexuality. Molly is not the type of woman who would cover herself up out of fear of offending anyone. Molly is an artist, a singer, who has an artistic side, which helps her see things in an out-side-the-box approach that many others do not have. It is fair to say that Molly not only rejects the ideas of old Mrs. Riordan, but Molly also rejects conformity. Molly is more of a free thinker about her body and wants to celebrate it as much as she can.
Molly’s affairs are a manifestation of her ability not to be a slave to her desires. Molly loves the ritual dance of seduction because she is a master of it. Molly knows what drives men crazy and she can not help but know instinctually how to do it. Molly describes the possible seduction of a younger boy “id confuse him a little alone with him if we were id let him see my garters the new ones and make him turn red looking at him seduce him I know what boys feel with that down on their cheek doing that frigging drawing out the thing by the hour question” showing that its in her repertoire of skills to seduce a man. Molly is a woman who knows what drives a man crazy and how to seduce him at the drop of a hat. This skill, despite the reasons for the seduction, is an integral part of Molly as a woman. Even though she is a married woman, she did not forget how to seduce men. Even though her motivations are questionable about the prospect of seducing a younger boy, she non-the less can do it. It seems in the possible seduction of the younger boy is a manifestation of Molly’s frustration of being a married woman in a marriage that lack the sexual connection she wants. In terms of the dream of seducing the young boy, this can be seen in a number of ways, but one way is to see it simply as a fantasy. Molly fantasizes and makes no apologies for it. Molly not only does it but needs the art of fantasy because it is a human quality that she is not willing to suppress. Joyce is a writer who highlights the real aspects that make a person human; one aspect is the fact that people have sex and think about sex.
Molly is not exception to the fact that she thinks about it. Unlike past “good girls” of literary history, Molly thinks about the act of sex, not a happy union and a house in the English countryside. In past, literary “bad girls” would have been the one who wanted to sabotage a relationship because of her feelings for a man or have sex before marriage. Molly is one of the first women in literature (who is neither a bad girl nor good girl) who not only fantasies about sex, she does so because that is what real people do and she is honestly good at it.
Molly’s guilt in Ulysses is not a sign of a sexually free woman. Guilt is the opposite of freedom, and Molly is not a stranger to that emotion. After one of her romps with Blazes Boylan, Molly describes her trip to confession in her Catholic Church. Molly feels the Catholic shame and guilt creeping up on her as she has to confess her infidelities “then I hate that confession when I used to go to Father Corrigan.” The very fact that Molly went to confession about her affair with Boylan is an indication that Molly knew that it was wrong to have an affair on her husband, despite her knowledge of his infidelities. The Catholic faith, a prominent theme in Joyce’s work, is always represented as a guilt-driving force. The church spreads guilt and shame on the people who attend the church and there is no doubt that Molly succumbed to the same type of shame and guilt that Stephen went trough back in Portrait of an Artist. The very fact that Molly did go to confession indicates that she was not completely free of guilt. When people think of Molly they think of a wild woman who is pure sex; but people often forget that she is a religious woman who must face her own demons.
There is also other indication that Molly feels guilt in her life. Later in the “Penelope” chapter when Molly prepares to win her husband back, she feels regrets about her infidelities. Molly states of Leopold “its his own fault if I am an adulteress ” speaking about the infidelities of Leopold that drove Molly to be unfaithful. Molly gives Leopold the credit for turning her in to an “adulteress,” not herself. Molly implies that her sexual activity was prompted by Leo’s sexual activity. A free person they do not think of the actions of the free being reactionary actions; actions that are a result of hurt and betrayal. It seems in this statement that Molly feels terrible about the infidelity and the betrayal to her husband.
If Molly were truly sexually free she would not use the word “adulteress” because that word has a very negative connotation which implies guilt and shame. A few lines after her “adulteress” statement Molly talks about God’s creation of woman “I suppose that’s what a woman is supposed to be there for or He wouldn’t have made us the way He did so attractive to men then if he wants to kiss my bottom” invoking her religious beliefs into her feelings about her own sexuality. In this line Molly brings up God and creation. The story of creation of woman centers on the idea that Eve was the first to sin. By invoking the creation in this line Molly is subconsciously (if not consciously on the part of Joyce) the classic notion that women are sinful by nature. If Molly had been guilt free of affairs she would have invoked poetry, pagan goddesses, humanly body pleasure, not the creation of woman by God. Again, the invocation of God supports the idea that Molly feels like she has a higher power to answer to, above her husband and herself. Another theory about Molly’s guilt is that she is not a free creature because she feels guilt regarding the men in her life. When Molly talks about God she refers to Him. This pre-feminist ideology of God as a Man is just another example that Molly is not the driving force of her own destiny, rather she is Gods creature.
Molly Blooms jealousy of her husband’s infidelities also indicates Molly is not a free sexual creature. If Molly were truly open, she would not care if her husband had sex or wrote to other women, but she does. In one of the first instances when she remembers one of Leopold’s dalliances she calls her a slut “like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario terrace padding out her false bottom to excite him bad enough to get the smell of those painted women off him once or twice.” Molly also refers to one of Leopold’s pen pals as a “little bitch.” Those types of word are very bold and aggressive words Molly uses. These are not words that indicate that she is neutral on the subject of her husband’s sex life. Beside the fact that she is angry over her husband infidelities, the fact that she refers to other women as bitches and sluts indicates that she is not forgiving to women who exert their own sexuality.
Molly’s anger toward Leopold also is an indication that she is deeply hurt by their failing relationship and lack of sex. Molly’s love affairs seem to be a revenge tactic to fulfill the void of love in Molly’s life. The case of Molly’s anger can be made when she says of Leopold “hed never find another woman like me to put up with him the way I do know me come sleep with me yes.” Molly’s sexual liaisons ways of revolting against the double standard of men and women’s sex lives “they [men] can go and get whatever they like from anything at all with a skirt on it and were not to ask any questions but they want to know where were you where are you going.” Molly’s anger can also be seen when she wants to take her husband to all the places she’s had sex “I’ll take him there and show hime the very place too we did it so now there you are like it or lump it he thinks nothing can happen without him knowing he hadnt an idea.” It is sad to here Molly say this because it seem as if she had sex out of spite for a number of reasons, her husband, society, her desires, but she is angry, not happy.
One of the most persuasive arguments over the fact that Molly is not a sexually free creature is her self-consciousness during the act of sex. If you were to believe that Molly is wild and open about sex she would be seen doing very wild things in bed without a care in the world. Molly describes her hesitation to not only act wild in bed but to even be vocal in bed “O Lord I wanted to shout out all sorts of things fuck or shit or anything at all only not to look ugly or those line from the strain who know the way hed take it you want to feel you way with a man.” In this line Molly shows that she is self conscious of saying a bad word “fuck” or “shit.” The question is who she afraid of offending, her lover or God is. Maybe Molly is afraid to say those words during sex because she is not afraid of offending anyone but herself. Molly may be afraid that she would feel shameful about saying those words later herself. How can Molly be free when she has to answer to herself about her behavior? It is often said that we are our own worst critics and Molly is no doubt highly critical of herself. Another example of the self-consciousness Molly feels is in the line regarding sex is that fact that she did not want her lover to see her face contorted. She is afraid that the lines on her face will show. Molly is worried about her age and her presentability in bed. It is ironic that she is so self-conscious in bed because during this line she is describing her tryst with Boylan. The fact that she often talks about Boylan does not mean that she is free with her own body.
Molly is also tied down to the fears of aging and loosing her sex appeal, which she manifests in her fantasies about seducing Stephen. Before she starts the Stephen fantasies Molly is worried about being wanted, “O thanks be to the great God I got somebody to give me what I badly wanted to put some heart up into me you’ve no chances at al in this place like you used long ago I wish somebody would write me a love letter” showing her desperation for a lover who will fulfill her emotional needs. This statement shows that Molly is not being fulfilled emotionally but that she actually needs a connection with a man that deeper than psychical sex. Molly later states “but as for being a woman as soon as youre old they might as well throw you out in the bottom of the ash pit” showing her fears of aging. Molly is not gallivanting all over town having the time of her life; she is deeply worried about her body and aging. This fear over aging is seen with Molly’s obsession over Stephen. Stephen represents youth to Molly, a way for Molly to stay young and needed. The very fact that Molly is obsessed by the prospect of Stephen shows her oppression, because obsession is not freedom; it is a mechanism to keep someone out of control of them, like an addiction.
Molly’s fantasies about Stephen Dedalus are not a sign of uninhibited sexual desire; they are desperate attempts at staying young. Molly’s fantasy about Stephen is more a fantasy about what Molly wishes about herself “Ill sing that for him theyre my eyes if hes anything of a poet two eyes as darkly bright as loves own star arent those beautiful words as loves young star itll be a change the Lord knows to have an intelligent person to talk to about yourself.” Molly’s infatuation with Stephen is just symbolic of Molly’s desire of wanting someone to listen to her and acknowledge her as a person, not a sexual being. In this first line about Stephen she does not say she wants him for sex, she wants him for companionship. She wants Stephen for emotional support, not a sexual romp. Later Molly talks about wanting to feel needed by a younger man “Im sure itll be grand if I can only get in with a handsome young poet at my age ill throw them the 1st thing in the morning till I see if the wishcard come out or ill try pairing the lady herself and see if he comes out Ill read and study all I can find or lean a bit off the heart.” Molly supports the theory that she wants to be young and needed by the line “I can teach him the other part ill make him feel all over him till he half faints under me than hell write about me over and mistress publicly too with our 2 photographs in all the papers when he becomes famous,” showing that Stephen is only a way to immortalize herself. She wants to be a muse to a famous poet, Stephen just happens to be the only one around at the time.
Finally, Molly’s lack of sexual freedom seems to be self-imposed because of her love for Leopold. The irony throughout Ulysses is that both Molly and Leopold have affairs but both seem to love each other. Everything Molly did was an attempt to fill the void she felt by her lack of an emotional and sexual connection with Leopold. The void that Molly was trying to fill with sex was a lack of love between her and her husband. At the end of the chapter Molly recognizes this and prepares to seduce her husband again but cannot because she gets her period. Molly never strove to be sexually free in the first place, the sexuality was part of her make-up as a woman. Other than sex, mutual love is also very important to Molly. Molly longs for the type of first love she had at the beginning of her marriage. At the end of “Penelope” Molly starts naming all the things she loves, the smell of rich bags, flowers, mountains, the sea, and then starts to remember when she lost her virginity to Leopold.
Molly recounts the wonderful memory of her and Leopold in the mountain “I got him to propose to me yesâÂ?¦yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountainâÂ?¦yes that was shy I liked him because I saw he understood” when she felt that he understood her as a woman. In the end Molly comes to the conclusion that she can find that love and sex with Leopold again when she recounts their first sexual experience “I put my arms around him yesâÂ?¦ I said yes I will Yes.” This line offers hope to Molly to break the cycle of void-less sex to again reclaim the loving sex she once had with Leopold if they can reconnect without the sex because of her period. This is an irony Joyce puts into the book; Molly’s way of bring back her husband is through seduction but she cannot because she is a woman. One has to guess whether Leopold and Molly really reconnect on a sexual and emotional level, but the readers do not get to find out the results.
Molly Bloom is not the superficial sex goddess that many people think. When you actually read between the lines and think about what Molly is really saying, you realize that she is a complex character. Despite the fact that Molly seems to have a wild sex life, she is not as happy as people would like to admit. Molly uses sex for physical and emotional voids in her life.
