In the last “episode” ( as the chapters of Ulysses are called), Lepold Bloom’s wife, Molly,
becomes a subject, a centre of consciousness: During the afternoon she has been unfaithful to
Leopold with an impresario called Blazes Boylan ( she is a semi- professional singer). Now it is
late at night. Bloom has come to bed disturbing Molly, and she lies beside him, half- awake,
drowsily remembering the events of the day, and of her past life, especially her experiences with
her husband and her various lovers.
The Blooms have not in fact enjoyed normal sexual relations for many years, following the trauma
of losing their son in infancy, but they remained tied to each other by familiarity, a kind of
exasperated affection and even jealousy.
Whereas Stephen’s and Bloom’s stream of consciousness are stimulated and made to change
course by their sense impressions, Molly, lying in the darkness, with only the occasional noise
from the street to distract her, is borne along with her own memories, one memory triggering
another by some kind of association. And whereas association in Stephen’s consciousness
tends to be metaphorical ( one thing suggests another by resemblance) and in Bloom’s
metonymic ( one thing suggests another because they are connected by cause and effect, or by
contiguity in space / time), association in Molly’s consciousness is simply literal: one breakfast
in bed reminds her of another, as one man in her life reminds her of another.
As thoughts of Bloom lead to thoughts of other lovers, it is not always easy to determine to whom
the pronoun “he” refers.
