More Ulysses...

I have just read Molly Bloom's soliloquy in the final chapter of Joyce's and I feel it really conveys the groundbreaking modernist aspect of Joyce's novel. It is an enormous section of interior monologue narrative, with minimal use of punctuation. In fact it is split into eight 'paragraphs', with just two marks of punctuation.

Alongside the narrative technique and distinct lack of punctuation, Joyce makes use of sexually explicit language and vulgar phrases. For example:

• 'Ill let him know if thats what he wanted that his wife is I s l o fucked yes and damn well fucked too up to my neck nearly not by him 5 or 6 times handrunning theres the mark of his spunk on the clean sheet I wouldnt bother to even iron it out'
• 'if he wants to kiss my bottom Ill drag open my drawers and bulge it right out in his face as large as life he can stick his tongue 7 miles up my hole as hes there my brown part'
• 'I know every turn in him Ill tighten my bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit '

It was this use of language that found Joyce's work banned in many countries over the world. It was too different, too modern for the audience of its time. It is a mark of the change of times that nowadays people, myself included, can read this passage and feel offended. The text will always have the shock factor, but in this modern age, taboo is becoming a thing of the past. Most products are sold by sex, beit newspapers such as The Sun, The News of The World or men's deodrant. This is the age where sex sells, and Molly's sexually vibrancy would produce millions!