During the previous night, Bloom had “a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in a pair of Turkey trunks”, which mystically paralleled Stephen’s oriental dream (Joyce, p.325). Therefore, Bloom and Stephen have both been complicit in “Europe’s collective day-dream of the orient” throughout the course of the novel (Kiernan, 1969). As Edward Said noted, the main element in this western fantasy of the orient was difference for it “was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar”.
Accordingly, Molly first appears in Circe with “opulent curves” wearing “jeweled toerings”, a “slandered fetterchain”, and “goldcurb wristbangles” while she scolds a camel in Moorish. In response to her aggression, the camel “plucks from a tree a large mango fruit “and “offers it to his mistress”. This is analogous to the dynamic between Bloom and Mrs. Marion which unfolds immediately after. Bloom becomes a part of this orientalist fantasy by serving the same purpose as Molly’s camel. She belittles him by calling him a “poor old stick in the mud”, after which he promises he will buy her a lotion white wax. Thus, Bloom, who Orientalizes Molly to endow her with “more exotic appeal, is himself intermittently Orientalized” (Kershner, 1998).
Domination here is once again a fantasy, from which Bloom derives masochistic pleasure. In a similar way, the West has been absorbed with the mysterious “other” found in the Orient in both academia and popular culture. But this obsession masks the true unilateral direction of power. Western savior complexes emerge with the façade of servitude, but in truth seek to fulfill the pleasure of westerners.
—Manu Alcalá
Works Cited
V. G. Kiernan, The Lords of Human Kind: Black Man, Yellow Man and White Man in an Age of Empire Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1969, p. 131; K
Edward Said, Orientalism, Random House, 1978, p.43
Kershner, R. Brandon. "" Ulysses" and the Orient." James Joyce Quarterly 35.2/3 (1998): 273-296.
Comments