Camryn Sandoval

Research Project
Fall 2019
Professor Amleshi
Joyce: a Transformative Feminist before Feminism

James Joyce, an Irish novelist before the word “feminist” even existed. Many of his short
stories and novels however, touch on and explore ideas of feminism and gender roles which
become impossible to ignore as a modern reader. Particularly, Joyce’s move from a short story
compilation like “Dubliners” to the last chapter of “Ulysses” titled Penelope. It is very possible
that a modern Joyce would not identify as a feminist and his writing about women, was nothing
more than a ploy to exhibit the struggle of women in Ireland. Women in Ireland during the early
20th century were sure to endure hardships and subjugation at the hand of man, but it is in
question whether or not Joyce meant to merely manifest this into literature or in fact provide a
commentary and a seemingly feminist perspective to it. It is cited in other scholarly works that it
was likely that Joyce used his wife Nora, as an inspiration to write strong female characters.
Joyce and Nora grew up in poverty with alcoholic fathers, but eventually and dauntlessly fled the
country together to start a new life. It is apparent that Joyce captures many of these incidences of
destitution, having an alcoholic father, and feelings of being trapped in “Dubliners”. This being
said, it is likely that Joyce drew on other life experiences and based characters on his own reality.
But does this allow us to assume that his strong female character in “Ulysses” makes him a
feminist? It is clear that the female characters in “Dubliners” stories The Dead and Eveline are
lacking the bold and forward thinking “female” thought that he is able to embody through the
character of Molly in “Ulysses”. There is some differentiation to be noted in these stories
however. All the female characters in “Dubliners” are written from either a third person
omniscient narrator or from the perspective of a man. This is altered in Episode Eighteen of
Ulysses, Penelope, when Joyce actually takes on the voice of a woman, Molly. It is not to say
that Joyce’s characterization of Molly is inherently feminist, it is without a doubt problematic,
but it is a huge step in Joyce’s movement towards feminist writing. There is an undeniable shift
in the writing of female characters even within “Dubliners” 1914, to “Ulysses” 1922. The
analysis of these texts aims to examine the female characters within these stories, the shift that
Joyce undergoes in his writing of female characters and the potential influence that his wife,
Nora, had on these characterizations.
There is strong scholarly criticism to suggest that the characterization of Joyce’s female
characters does not reach beyond misogyny. However, upon closer readings and comparisons to
Joyce’s later writings it seems that these female characters are not written in a male-chauvinist
manner, but instead that of empathy from the male surveillance of women in Ireland. It seems
that because of Joyce’s own experience of observing women during this time, he is able to write
female characters in a sympathetic way. It is crucial to note that “Dubliners” is written in a
chronological manner, which follows the maturation process of a man from adolescence into
maturity. It seems that Joyce’s own writing process of female characters from “Dubliners” into
“Ulysses” follows a similar pattern. In the introduction of “Dubliners” it is noted by Brenda
Maddox, that “Dubliners however, it no exercise in nostalgia. It takes a look back in anger. Joyce
portrays his countrymen as drunks, cheats, child batterers, boasters, gossips and schemers”
(Maddox). If this is Joyce’s portrayal of men, where does this leave his portrayal of women to be
found? Joyce, while maybe not inherently feminist, does not portray women in a negative light,
but more a historically accurate one. It is in his story Eveline, that she is faced with domestic
hardships, and the chance to possibly escape. However, it is due to the reality of a women’s
position in the early 20th century that it is clear Eveline may not actually have a choice. Eveline is
Camryn Sandoval
Research Project
Fall 2019
Professor Amleshi
written in an emotionally multifaceted an painful way. It does not seem that Joyce intends for her
to be written as a weak and faltering woman, but instead an emotionally intelligent one. Eveline
is not indecisive, but instead very emotionally intellectual and pained by the fact that she does
not have a real choice in this situation. She sent to sea a “cry of anguish” by her lack of choice in
her autonomy. She is trapped, regardless of the façade of choice. Eveline either returns to
domestic entrapment, or travels abroad with a man she barely knows to be trapped in a different
type of domesticity in which she is completely dependent on a stranger. To be trapped with her
abusive father or to be “drowned” by Frank? This set-up that Eveline finds herself in would not
be uncommon for a women during this time to find herself in. The lack of choice, and complete
dependency on either her father, or another man is an astute observation and reflection of the
conditions of women in this society. Joyce refrains from depicting Eveline in a negative light,
but this does not stop him from depicting her father in a negative way. Joyce is not subtle about
his description of Eveline’s father beating them with a “blackthorn stick” or Eveline’s fear of
“her father’s violence”. While Joyce does not show Eveline to be a completely strong woman
who stands up to her father, he does not depict her as feeble or feminine either. Joyce, while he
does not take on the voice of Eveline, uses an omniscient narrator in order to “discuss the
woman’s thoughts with more sophistication than the woman might” (Gordan).
Joyce’s last story within “Dubliners”, The Dead, tells the story of a man who is disturbed
by his wife’s admittance to thinking about a former lover. In this short story, Gretta, the wife of
Gabriel is not the focus of the story, but actually remains secondary to Gabriel. However, it is
Gabriel’s relationship and interactions with women during the party and with his wife in the end
which actually dominate his spotlight as the protagonist. This is indicative of Joyce’s
observations of women during the time, while they are not necessarily the voice and focus of the
story – they remain crucial to the shaping of the male figurehead. The women in the story remain
limited to their positions in society, Lily as the maid, Gretta as his wife, and his aunts which so
unfortunately remain unwed. The women of the story face “little problematic male gaze [which]
might objectify the women”, but they remain archetypal “portraits of the somewhat desperate
situations of many Irish women at the turn of the century, Gabriel’s aunts in particular”
(Gordon). Throughout the duration of the party in which Gabriel is attending with his wife, he
seems to do nothing but step on the feet of the women around him, thus placing him in a position
in which his character is only defined by his interactions with female characters. This is a small
development in Joyce’s portrayal of women from Eveline who completely lacks a voice, we see
these women begin to speak up. First, Gabriel accidentally offends Lily by asking if he will be
“going to [her] wedding”, and she snaps at him with a “great bitterness”. Gabriel knows he has
made a mistake, and gifts her with a tip. Gabriel, is seemingly placed in an uncomfortable
situation which is contradictory to the typical position a male had over a woman, especially a
housemaid. This is seemingly the beginning of Joyce’s female characters gaining a voice, yet
they are still stuck in a overpowered position of femininity. It is Gabriel himself who says that
his speech was “an utter failure”, he has taken the wrong tone and “[quoted] poetry to them
which they could not understand”. It is palpable that Joyce still writes these male characters in a
manner to look down upon the female ones. The poetry quoted by Gabriel would be too hard to
grasp for a measly group of women. It is apparent in the end, that Gretta seems to hold more
power over Gabriel and begins to push him into a more submissive role. Gretta, Gabriel’s wife,
is acting “strange” according to him but he cannot fathom why. She admits to being reminded of
an old lover at the party, she is “overcome by emotion” at the reminiscent of his life and
Camryn Sandoval
Research Project
Fall 2019
Professor Amleshi
horrified by his death. In this scene, Joyce writes Gretta to be a typical, overly emotional woman,
yet she still holds all of the power over Gabriel in this moment. It is the paradox of Joyce’s
portrayal of female characters which allow her to be typically feminine and weak, but also
holding power over Gabriel at this time. Gabriel’s reaction to Gretta’s confession leaves him in a
state of despair envisioning her “[laying] beside him” while having “locked in her heart” the
“image of her lover’s eyes”. Was this a moment of jealousy or sympathy for Gabriel? He is
unable to empathize with Gretta, acknowledging that he “had never felt like that himself towards
any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love.” Gretta is given the voice by Joyce to
speak up in the end, but the reader is robbed of the internal thoughts of Gretta, and given only
what she feels comfortable verbalizing to Gabriel. With this, we are left disturbed by the image
of Gabriel who, with tear filled eyes, lay awake contemplating his wife’s deep regret when it
came to poor Michael Furey.
Finally, we see major shifts in Joyce’s portrayal of women in “Ulysses”, which through
the character of Molly, Joyce begins to shift the paradigm in which female characters are
archetypal. “Ulysses” which follows the journey of a man, Leopold Bloom, in his travels through
Dublin is noted in many feminist criticism’s due to his crucial ending of the novel with Molly’s
soliloquy (Stanford Friedman). Joyce’s “Ulysses” is a modernist, and arguably feminist
interpretation of Homer’s “Odyssey”. The character of Molly, which is not written in a purely
feminist manner, is characterized strongly on Joyce’s own wife, Nora. It is in the last, and
eighteenth chapter of “Ulysses” that Molly becomes a transformative model for Joyce’s writing
of female characters. Lois Tyson in Critical Theory Today writes that feminist criticism
generally examines texts to determine how they “reinforce or undermine the economic, political,
social, and psychological oppression of women” (Tyson) (McMullen). For one of the first times
in Joyce’s writing, a female character is given a clear and direct voice. The writing of Molly in
the final episode of “Ulysses” is not from a narrator or another male character, but instead is
written to provide a clear evocation of her thought. Joyce is experimental with the writing style
of her soliloquy and does not abide by traditional writing methods. Molly is given a direct train
of thought which is seemingly unedited and without filter.
“so we are all flowers a womans body yes that was the one true thing he said in his life
and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he
understood how or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I
gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt
answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he
didnt know of” (Ulysses 643).
The lack of punctuation, regard for sentence structure, or grammar, is a choice made by Joyce in
order to place emphasis on Molly’s free train of thought and a sort of freedom reflective of her
state at the end of the book. It could be argued that this shift in style is indicative of Joyce’s view
of women as less intellectual and more aloof, but instead it is the implication of her intellectual
freedom and embracing of free thought. Not only does Joyce employ a formless narrative, but he
allows Molly to speak freely about sex, emotion, and “psychological empowerment”
(McMullen). It is now Molly who can “[think] of so many things he didn’t know of”. This is a
complete shift from Gabriel in Dubliners who believed his quoting of poetry to be wasted on the
lacking ears of women. Molly refuses to conform to the expected role of her as a woman, wife,
and sex object to man. She is able to embrace her own thoughts, sexuality, and while she cannot
remove herself from the implications of being a woman in society, she remains begrudging to it.
Camryn Sandoval
Research Project
Fall 2019
Professor Amleshi
As a reader, we seek to compartmentalize Molly, was she an icon for sexual liberation? Or was
her recollection to Leoplold’s proposal nothing more than a fixation on fulfilling male desire for
her?
"...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian
girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I
thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes
and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms
around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes
and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes" (Ulysses 644).
Why Joyce’s choice to have Molly repeat the word “Yes”? Is this completely indicative of her
sexual submission, or a sign of empowerment? Molly is chockfull of contradicting behaviors,
which make it nearly impossible to say for certain she is one thing or another. However, it is the
goal of feminism to break down the compartmentalization of women into a single role.
According to McMullen, the “answer is that we simply do not categorize her at all, for feminists
want to nullify categorization”. In this sense, Joyce has made Molly into a character which is not
solely feminist, but is the perfect representation of “every-woman” who are full of
“inconsistencies and contradictions” (McMullen).
Molly’s soliloquy is subsequently crucial to understanding the development of Joyce as a
feminist author who provides a “female” train of thought from a male perspective which was
missing in many of Joyce’s previous texts. As previously outlined in the paper, Joyce makes
meaningful transitions in his depiction of female characters ranging from the voiceless Eveline,
to Gretta who begins to speak up, and eventually to Molly who is allowed a formless soliloquy in
which to express her indefatigable and boundless thoughts. The comparison of the writing of
characters like Eveline, Gretta, and Molly make a clear movement in Joyce to a more modern
feminist writing. The question posed however, is Joyce a feminist writer? And are his portrayals
of women objective, or does he provide a commentary? Doubtlessly, Joyce’s renderings of
women in all three of these stories beg for feminist analysis. Due in part to Joyce’s experience
with his wife and other women in his life, and his advancing exposé of female characters, it is
not a reach to assume that Joyce was in fact an antiquated feminist.
Camryn Sandoval
Research Project
Fall 2019
Professor Amleshi
Works Cited / Consulted

Gordon, Anna Margaretha. “A Reassessment of James Joyce's Female Characters.” Brigham

Young University, BYU Scholars Archive, 2018, pp. 1–104.

Joyce, James. Dubliners. 1914. Ed. Brenda Maddox. NY: Bantam, 1990.

Joyce, James. Ulysses. Faber and Faber, 1975.

McMullen, Liv J. “Same Old Penelope: Feminist Analysis of Molly’s Soliloquy in Ulysses.”
Concept Journals, 2005.

Sanchez-Calle, Pilar M. “Lives of Girls and Women: Female Characters in Dubliners.” Papers
on Joyce, vol. 4, no. 10, 1 Jan. 1998, pp. 29–40.

Stanford Friedman, Susan. “Beyond Gynocriticism and Gynesis: The Geographics of Identity
and the Future of Feminist Criticism.” Tulsa Studies in Woman’s Literature. Volume 15, No. 1
(Spring, 1999), pp. 13-40.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. Garland Publishing, Inc. New York: 1999.