As character actors or members of an ensemble drama, women are omnipresent in Joyce's literary corpus. In Dubliners, for example, women are depicted and developed within a variety of character shots. The reader is exposed to the woman as a sister (like the Moran sisters in “The Dead”), as a young girl (Eveline), as an ethereal object of a boy's first affection (like Mangan's sister in “Araby”), as not - such an innocent temptress (like Polly in “The Boarding House”), and as a figure devastated by pain (Mrs. Sinico in “A Painful Case”, perhaps driven to suicide by unrequited love). Because he follows what appears to be a taxonomy or actual list of female archetypes, Joyce's depictions of women have led feminist critics, such as Suzette Henke and Elaine Unkeless in their work, Women in Joyce, to criticize him for his "tendency to symbolically interpret female characters". While plentiful, these feminized “hats,” these various characters, are products of interpretation through a male lens. These are roles assigned by the dominant male "other" or character profiles culturally required by the broader patriarchal structure at play. As universal images, these women are defined by how they act or impress the men in their lives, sacrificing their archetypal character function to serve a male figure. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay. For example, Gretta Conroy has a profound emotional experience in "The Dead" when she recalls a painful memory, an incidence of a lost love, of a cruelly fleeting window for happiness that was not realized. Because it is so intensely charged with the burning flames of raw emotion, the moment elicits in the reader an immediate vicarious reaction parallel to Gretta's deep despondency. However, this intimate view of Gretta's past, a chapter in the story of her development, is usurped by her husband Gabriel. No longer an extension or defining event of her personality, Gretta's memory is purged of its sentimental meaning in relation to her. Rather, her startling revelation, co-opted by her male counterpart, is reworked into a tool for her benefit, a revelation that launches her epiphany. The focus of the story and the reader's primary attention shifts from Gretta towards Gabriel, towards the concern for the possibility of his newfound personal growth, or for the tragic continuation of his emotional paralysis. As a result of this process, Gretta's identity is erased; removed from the context provided by her husband, she is a non-entity. However, it is my opinion that not all of Joyce's female characters are victims of this symbolic representation. In the works of James Joyce, the woman makes her greatest impression, where the reader is most struck by her unique and authentic interiority, once she connects and fully embraces her sexuality. If we trace the trajectory of Joyce's character from an early figure like Eveline, a girl frozen in a state of stunted personal, sexual and emotional growth, to her epic novel Ulysses and her final entry in Molly Bloom, we begin to see a correlation between expression and ownership of one's sexual nature and the development of a distinct and powerful female personality. In her eponymous episode in Dubliners, Eveline suffers from a sense of identity compromised by the suppression of a thriving sexuality. Eveline is a sort of mini-tragedy of the fully realized individual. Solidity and stability do not existstill in the nerves of Eveline's interiority. She has not yet had the chance to be touched by the powerful balm of life's experiences, both the good and the bad, the bitter and the sweet. Like healing waters, both the exciting rewards and painful disappointments inherent in risk-taking would overwhelm Eveline if she ever took a leap into the unknown, mending her fractured interior and adding substance to her being. An empty host, he has internalized the expectations imposed by the patriarchal social context of his time and place. She was forced to take on the role of family matriarch after her mother's death, tending to the needs of her demanding younger siblings. She has been relegated to a typical profession, a fixture of Dublin society, and her position as a shop assistant offers her little in the way of reward or stimulation: "she wouldn't cry many tears leaving the shops". Ready now to challenge the boundaries of this cookie-cutter life, this paralyzing existence, she has the courage to explore "another life with Frank", her lover. Eveline is a girl on the brink of femininity, on the threshold of definition and coming into play. his adult character. In Frank and the life he would surely have provided her, in these symbols of new possibilities, of rebirth and liberation, lie the keys for Eveline to discover her authentic self. She was initially attracted to Frank because he was a welcome departure from the wearisome staleness of her home life. She saw something mysterious in him, something seductive and exhilarating in being such a stranger: first of all it had been a thrill for her to have a boyfriend and then she had started to like him. He had stories of faraway lands… He took her to see The Bohemian Girl and she felt exhilarated as she sat with him in an unusual part of the theater. Perhaps Eveline had aspirations of becoming Frank's "Bohemian Girl", of discovering other "unusual" parts of the larger, more cosmopolitan world that lies just across the River Liffey. However, at the crucial moment of action, of forward movement, Eveline retreats, overcome by her paralysis. He doesn't get on the ship that leaves Dublin, bound for Buenos Aires, the city of "good air" symbol of hope and optimism. She doesn't honor the genuine desires that Frank has stirred within her. Ironically, she reverses his image: once considering him her savior, Eveline begins to describe him as an agent of death and destruction: “All the seas of the world poured around his heart. He was pulling her in: he would drown her. He contradicts himself verbally in other ways, betraying his anxious state of indecision and uncertainty. For example, the current life of mundane domesticity and hard work that she so derided before begins to seem comforting in its familiarity: “It was a hard life… but now that he was about to leave it he didn't find it an entirely undesirable life. " Explaining this difference in attitude is a toxic mix of panic, ambivalence, nervousness and guilt, as leveraged upon her by the tacit expectations of her sociopolitical environment. This cocktail of fears - fear of change, fear of unknown, fear of sexual independence - poisons Eveline's budding development from within The new emotions and impulses that Frank has triggered, the way Eveline found herself "pleasantly confused" in his presence, are at the same time exciting. and threatening, thrilling, and disturbing. As her opportunity to become a more confident and more fully developed individual occurs at this crossroads of sexual maturity, it is precisely the suppression or denial of her sexuality that gives Eveline a fractured identity, impeding her. to achieve freedom and integrity of one's personalitybeing sexual, as a woman, Eveline should define herself as a separate entity from her family unit. She would finally break away from the obligations linked to the disturbing memory of her dying mother, from an archaic and obsolete promise to keep the family in its place. Eveline would eventually defy the stern authority of her father, who "had discovered our affair [with Frank] and forbade her to have anything to say to him." Therefore, because she cannot honor her sexual feelings for Frank, acknowledge them, and use them as motivation toward change, she has no foundation on which to build her true self. Eveline's insecurity, the socially constructed gender role she both resents and preserves, clouds her ability to embrace the “specialization” of her identity marked by her growing sexual nature. As a tragic consequence, she is stuck, paralyzed, in a “symbolic” identification mode. Because he neither expresses nor connects with his sexuality, he will never free himself from a representative existence. However, for a woman to fully own her genuine sexuality, she must do more than simply behave in a sexual manner. As illustrated by the prostitutes in Ulysses, the overt and purposeful display of one's sexual "disposition," while in opposition to Eveline's restraint, still fails to contribute to the cultivation of a fulfilled self. In his epic Ulysses, particularly in the "Circe" chapter, James Joyce explores another dimension of the female character profile. If Eveline is the symbolic virgin in her representation of perpetual shop assistant, the prostitutes of Nighttown are the lost shop assistants. Another distinctive element in the taxonomy of the female archetype, these women operate at the other end of the sexual spectrum. Figures such as Zoe Higgins, Florry Talbot and Kitty Ricketts are seemingly in control of their bodies, aware and accepting of themselves as sexual creatures. They are well versed in the explicit language of vulgar and obscene sex associated with the brothel. Zoe addresses Leopold Bloom in this way, asking him “How are you doing,” or telling him when he decides to abstain from the carnal pleasure she offers him: Honest? See you next time. Let's say you got up on the wrong side of the bed or got there too quickly with your best girlfriend. Oh, I can read your thoughts! She is bold in her sexual conduct with Bloom: “gently bites his ear,” “slides [her hand] close to his left thigh,” and “brings his arm together, cuddling him with soft warmth.” However, brazen sexual behavior does not necessarily generate the construction of a complete and independent woman, their sexuality is still in the possession of the other male, defined and structured through a male point of view whore is not a person. She is, as Bloom states, "a necessary evil", valued and derided as currency to be used in the transactions and negotiations of the male world of sexual commodification, clearly objectified, putty to be manipulated in the image of patriarchy, the Nighttown women do not own their sexuality because they do not choose when to exercise it, nor do they discriminately select who to share their bodies with. They are locked into a job, the "oldest profession in the world", in which sex is simply a means to earn money. to live. Sexuality is not an expression of individualism and is not incorporated into a personal identity profile. Here, sexuality is simply a strategy for survival. For Circe's prostitutes, their identities are lost due to their position as pawns (as opposed to designers or prize makers) of a lucrative market. Zoe, Florry, Kitty and thestereotypical woman they represent are not figures of sexual liberation. Ironically, the only female character within Circe who is granted sexual freedom, or the ability to dominate and satisfy her needs, is Bella Cohen, the brothel manager. Although she participates in a sexualized economy, Bella is not pawning her market goods. Rather, she is framed in a male context as a regulator, as an administrator, of this trade. Bella is therefore an unfeminine woman, which is reinforced by the fact that she is transformed into a man during one of Leopold Bloom's hallucinatory episodes. As Bello Cohen, Bella is privileged with the freedom to be sexually demanding, to play with her sexuality and exercise it to gratify her inner desires. He/she is master, dominator, within the sexual exchange, and as a feminized male, Bloom fills the role of “submissive”. In this way, Bellanon is gendered “feminine” and is not subject to the same character expectations – she does not need to conform to the same patriarchal standards – as the prostitutes she supervises. Only through the form of a male, stripped of his feminine trappings and his identity thus compromised, can Bella/o claim ownership of sexuality. Because Circe's prostitutes do not reconcile their sexuality with their femininity, because they simply play the part of a sexualized object to fulfill a social obligation, their possibilities for forming a fully realized self are fatally limited. of the female archetypes in Dubliners and Ulysses, such as Eveline and the ladies of Nighttown, highlight the importance of perception in the process of forming and defining identity. According to the critical lens of the dominant male, “female” is simply a byproduct of ideology. The reader is given very little of her inner monologue, and when inner thoughts are revealed (as in Eveline's case), they echo patriarchal beliefs so closely that they seem like a soundtrack to a social context rather than the genuine expression of desire. and emotion. In Ulysses, settings and situations are distorted by the masculine, most of the “action” of the narrative takes place in the male arena, in distinctly gendered microcosms such as a bar (the sphere of leisure), a frenetic office of a newspaper (the workplace sphere), a car filled exclusively with men (the community sphere), and a night brothel (the spheres of commodification, economics, and sex combined). Because the Circe girls' inner thoughts remain silent and hidden, the only powerful statements they make, the only character shots available to the reader, are dictated by the other male's impressions. There is no opportunity or space given for the development of the authentic female self because we, as audience members, are offered a character projection, rather than a detailed portrait. It is only when the reader is able to see, or experience, a Joycean woman from the inside that interiority is established. It is only when we witness thoughts and opinions so outside the boundaries of social acceptability that their very inconsistency elicits surprise, that we come to regard an internal monologue as honest and true. As soon as the window of perception is handed over to the woman, sexuality integrates with the personality. Master and sole owner of her sexual nature, this "new virile woman" is so confident that she sculpts and reinforces the strength of her own identity, as best exemplified by Molly Bloom and the "Penelope" chapter of Ulysses. In the “realm of the masculine” that functions as a textual backdrop for the course of the novel, the reader is initially limited to understanding Molly asthe embodiment of sex. She is presented to the reader as a figure comfortably lying on her bed, a clear symbol of sexual intercourse. For Bloom associates sounds resembling the way “the loose brass hooks of the bedstead rattled,” such as the “rattle of slings” (causing “a warm human roundness” to settle “on his brain”) or the “clacking, clogs” heard in Grafton Street, with Molly, her very character merges with the images of the “bed”. Because the figure of “Molly in bed” is so pervasive in Bloom's thoughts, and because hers is at least the co-dominant perspective through which the novel is filtered, this sexually charged presentation becomes the defining pattern of Molly. the various characters, a truly heterogeneous group of men, work in tandem with each other to reinforce this distorted and chauvinist image of Molly Bloom. In book 10, Lenehan recalls a memorable moment with Molly. Driving with her and Leopold after a dinner date, Lenehan was all too excited to be in close contact with the voluptuous Molly. Lenehan's dialogue and gestures clearly indicate that he regards Molly as an object, and that her value lies in the arousal potential of her bodily assets: every jolt he gave the damn car made it slam into me. The delights of hell! She's got a nice pair, God bless her. Like this. She held her hands hollowed a cubit away from her, frowning: I tucked the carpet under her and continually adjusted the boa. Do you understand what I mean? His hands shaped wide curves of air. He closed his eyes in joy, his body shrunk, and he blew a sweet chirp from his lips. She is a lively mare and there is no doubt about it. Lenehan is one of many men who have been "lost" or entranced by Molly's "milky way." The Unnamed Citizen of the “Cyclops” chapter, for example, also comments on his physicality, cementing his identity as a quasi-pornographic art object: “The fat pile that (Bloom) married is a nice old bare-shouldered freak . like an alley dance.”Yet, Molly Bloom shatters the glass cage of the female archetype to which her male viewers would have relegated her, to which her literary predecessors were consigned, precisely because she affirms what was fundamentally lacking in her counterparties. Although she is spoken of as a toy, as fodder for the benefit and arousal of men, Molly is not an object. It is not an empty vessel for the perpetuation of traditional gender roles, nor a tool in the service of the dominant male. His is a self-concept motivated from within and not conditioned by patriarchal ideals, as it is characterized by a powerful sexual awareness and freedom of expression. Molly is aware of the effect she has on men and is a conscious, autonomous and equal participant in the ongoing game of sexual power. She has had enough experience with men to know the way they think, act and feel when they are in the throes of sexual desire, and she has developed an arsenal of tricks to increase their arousal. Her "intelligence is a kind of cunning and intuition that can see beyond the pretensions of men", she is wise to the games they play, because she engages in similar sexual strategies. For example, as she thinks to herself during her wonderfully intimate and revealing soliloquy at the end of the novel:....you want to have your way with a man, they're not all like him (Boylan) thank God some of them want you to be so kind I noticed the contrast, he does it and doesn't speak, I turned my eyes with that look, with my hair a little loose from the rolling and my tongue between my lips up to him, the wild brute.. .Molly is open with herself about the pleasure she gets from sexual encounters with men, and she doesn'tapologetic about his behavior and his need for sex, as suggested by the frank and brazen way in which he recalls his experiences: I wish he (Boylan) was here or someone who would let me go ahead and come again so I feel all the fire inside about me or if I could dream about it when he put me through the second time tickling my behind with his finger I was coming for about 5 minutes with my legs around him I had to hug him after (.) Molly can choose when to assert, or exercise, her sexuality: she can be fun and playful with this side of herself. She does not need to perform sexual acts out of obligation, locked into it as a “profession” as Circe's prostitutes are, or helplessly, slavishly adhering to the demands of a particular social paradigm. Rather, sexuality is an extension, a reflection of Molly's complex and multidimensional interiority. It is the outlet through which Molly's distinct identity is inundated, as it is the exercise of personhood that particularly attends to her genuine interests and desires. Critics have argued that Molly herself is a stereotype of female sexuality, a projection of a male sexuality. fantasy that describes the seductive and sexually voracious woman. For example, Bruce Williams, in his article "Molly Bloom: Archetype or Stereotype", writes: Molly Bloom is the embodiment not of what woman is, but of what man, at least in a sexist society, would like her to she was. -a warm body lying on the bed and moaning "yes". It represents a sort of wishful thinking that men make when confronted with the disturbing facts of woman's humanity to convince themselves that humanity is peripheral and not essentially "feminine". Joyce didn't so much create a real woman... as the reflection of a thousand smoking car stories. Molly is the perennial male fantasy, the insatiable woman, the sexual gold mine just waiting for the lucky prospector to sink his shaft. However, I think Molly really demonstrates a well-rounded humanity and multi-layered character. Because she does not embody singular traits, because she does not simply capture the extremes reinforced by female stereotypes, Molly is not someone the reader can easily ignore. The words (or thoughts) he expresses are original and legitimized by sobering wisdom and sincere emotion. A palpable sincerity flows like an undercurrent through the deluge that is his final “sexual soliloquy,” lending strong meaning to his experiences and muting the hyperbole of his overt sexual expressions. In this way Molly avoids the trap of becoming a caricature, the silly and insubstantial image of her male companions' vainglorious memories. For example, he asks himself:(…) why can't you kiss a man without first marrying him? Sometimes you love wildly when you feel so nice on you that you can't help it I wish some man or other would take sometimes when he's there and kisses me in his arms there's nothing like a long hot kiss until yours soul that almost paralyzes you then (.) Despite being acutely aware of the ways in which men objectify her, Molly does not take pleasure in playing this subordinate role when she truly cares, when it is more than her body that is invested in the relationship. She confesses that she was disappointed when Boylan treated her in this cruel way, because she "didn't like him slapping her back and walking so familiarly in the hall," and insists that she's "not a horse or a donkey. "Desire and anguish roil beneath Molly's hypersexual exterior; Molly needs her feelings to be soothed as much as she needs gratification of the flesh. Although her attitude toward the men who mattered most to her, who 'they brought me to tears.